Elizabeth Wardle’s “You Can’t Teach ‘Writing In General’” identifies what I feel is a common mistake in education when it comes to reading and writing. She says that there is no such thing as a “one-time writing inoculation” that will be universally applicable. Just the same, a flu shot will not hold up against COVID, and just one COVID vaccine will be much less effective in immunizing you than two or three. I agree with Wardle’s argument that writing is always situational. There are simply too many differing expectations and conditions from piece to piece that it is impossible for one to meet the standards of the other. For this reason, teachers and other education faculty should keep in mind the specific parameters of the type of writing correlated to their field, and understand that there is no one writing style that fits every mold. Additionally, students should not be criticized for not yet knowing how to write in any one writing style particular to any given field or subject. Instead, students should be encouraged to try and fail and try again, and taught to understand that “struggle and practice are simply a part of learning to write in a new situation.”
Catherine Savini also poses a compelling argument in her Looking for Trouble: Finding Your Way into a Writing Assignment, when she writes that when starting a writing assignment, college students should “look for something that troubles [them], seek out difficulty, find problems.” I am reminded of a quote by David Lynch: “Ideas are like fish. If you want to catch little fish, you can stay in shallow water. But if you want to catch the big fish, you’ve got to go deeper.”
Similarly, if you want to write compellingly, you have to take the time to “notice” “problems”, ask “fruitful questions”, and understand why answering your question is even worthwhile. I was especially fond of Savini’s comparison to the movie Misery, and its “direct association of writing and suffering”.
Ultimately, I think that both readings argue, in some way, for students to learn that tension in writing is ok, and even good for your writing. Like the growing pains we all experience as children, how can you expect to grow in your writing without a little pain, a little anguish, a little challenge. I think the sooner we, students, understand that failure is an important part of success, the sooner we will actually want to learn, as we will have come to accept the risk of failure.
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