With this first reading by Elizabeth Wardle titled “You Can’t Teach ‘Writing In General’ “ I found it hard to agree with a few of the statements made. “You can’t do it, because it can’t be done. There is no such thing as writing in general. Writing is always in particular.” This had me thinking as well as disagreeing with the statement because it can be done. In my opinion there is such a thing as writing in general.
It explains in further detail that there is no writing workshop or experience that can be used to teach people how to write. This didn’t seem right to me because I have actually participated in writing workshops last semester with a professor of mine. Within this workshop I would take my own personal writings from the semester, everyone would read it together and with the help of the whole class I was able to get pointers as well as recommendations on what should be changed. This helped me tremendously with my writing as it is something that has always been a struggle for me.
The next reading by Catherine Savini titled “Looking for Trouble: Finding Your Way into a Writing Assignment” addressed the problems in writing and real examples to back up the idea of the problem. Most of the examples of “Trouble” in this piece I have experienced myself in writing and can relate to. The part where I can mostly relate to is when it’s my own responsibility to find problems in a writing assignment. Going back to the topic of workshops this is the main task I had to do. I had to self review and dissect each piece of my writing. This was difficult considering I had to review my own pieces but it was helpful because I saw where I needed to make improvements.
Overall I enjoyed reading and looking at the differences between each reading. One explained that writing cannot be taught the way people think it could be. People think it is an easy thing to be taught but that is not the case. The last explained and showed examples of problems faced within writing. I loved this piece more because I actually agreed with the issues mentioned and was able to relate with a lot of it.
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