“Rules” of Writing + Why Teachers Should Embrace It In The Eyes of Their Students

Writing is a complex task. To young students, it may feel like a task that’s given to other audiences and is an easy thing to carry out. I read 2 articles, one by Stephen King— wherein he lists 20 helpful tips in simple language that all audiences can understand. Its title is: “Stephen King’s Top 20 Rules For Writers.” Another article by Tim Gillespie titled, “Becoming Your Own Expert—Teachers as Writers” reasons that teachers can serve students better by being more interactive, especially with their own assignments to their class.

With Stephen King’s “rules” I appreciate yet don’t exactly echo his thoughts. I don’t think, with the work we have done in this class to discover our process theories—or the way we write/process ideas in writing— that it’s helpful to use no other resource but a tool of writing, whether that is pen and paper or a computer and not allowing other influences to form your writing in partnership with authenticity.

Gillespie’s article discusses a practice I have thought about, admittedly since I was in elementary schooling. ?Obviously, I had a much more nuanced way of internalizing his words before they existed, but it always occurred to me that they just assigned work that confused or challenged us while walking away and having not much else to do with it. As an elementary student, I wondered why all the time and chalked it up to it being disrespectful or some magical thing that teachers will never need to do again. Everything at that age, of course, is fantastical and a blurred reality.

Related posts:

Anyone Can Write. Writing for Employment Anybody Can Read and Write* The Privilege to Read and Write