At the core of Elizabeth Wardle’s “You Can’t Teach ‘Writing in General’”, this short essay boils down to the fact that writing is like any other skill one would gain over the course of their life: one can’t “write in general” because writing has a purpose; it grows and evolves and, depending on the situation, it adapts. Can you cook in general? Play an instrument in general? Draw in general? There’s probably a skill out there that you may be able to do “in general”, but I think everything we do always has some sort of purpose in mind, whether we know it or not.
I couldn’t help but imagine writing personified when I read Wardle’s essay, as if writing itself was a person. Wardle ends the essay with “Rather, it gives all writers permission to keep learning, to fail, and to engage in new kinds of writing in new situations.” Like people, you learn as you fail, and you change as you grow, and so, writing isn’t some stagnant thing that could be a one-size-fits-all; if it were, well, then I guess you CAN write in general.
Much like Wardle’s philosophy that writing always has a purpose, Catherine Savini’s “Looking for Trouble: Finding Your Way into a Writing Assignment” teaches us how to interact with a reading and how to come out of it with a richer understanding within your writing. How Savini poses how we should find our way into a writing assignment honestly reminds me a lot about my own approach to writing. I don’t tend to stress out about writing assignments and their deadlines because, one, I like to write. Whether that’s ten page academic papers, fantasy novellas, or fanfiction. And two, I would say that the way I write tends towards almost rambling, which is a style that would eventually find its way into trouble. For example, there’s so many possibilities, answers, and fruitful questions that could be explored with any writing assignment that I sometimes don’t think any one assignment can contain, which Savini mentions happens with her students.
We study writing in order to improve our writing. Savini’s method of how to find your way into a writing assignment teaches nuance, and writing nuance within any writing assignment goes hand in hand with Wardle’s essay about how writing grows and evolves, and strangely, this reassures me as a writer.
My next post will be James Paul Gee’s article on literacy and discourse. Check it out here!
Leave a Reply