Williams pg. 43-53

What can be done to push teachers away from the current way writing is taught and is the current way completely ineffective?

It is understandable, as Williams points, why teachers today stick with what they are comfortable with when it comes to instruction on writing. If we could some how find a way to change the way writing is taught so that children come out with higher level skills that would be great. But does anybody actually have an alternative solution? There is absolutely nothing wrong with teaching children the forms of how to write things.In fact I think that it is important for them to learn those things. If a person doesn't understand how a piece is structure that could seriously affect their understanding of the content written. The problem comes about when teachers feed students the content. When we get "cookie cutter" assignments. As long as the teacher does not feed the content along with the form no two student's work will come out the same.They will be engaged in the work and possibly learn something from it. This also goes with William's comment on page forty six related to grammar. He says that so much of a student's English is focused on mechanics but that it is an easy subject and, "just marginally related to what writing is about" (Williams, 46). I think just like structure grammar is essential to writing in the sense of understanding. The English language has rules that must be followed in people to comprehend what others are saying. A majority of school, writing time, is focused on teaching grammar but it clearly is not taught well enough. Yes, writing should be taught in a sense that shows there is more to it than grammar but grammar lessons need to be fixed desperately. Do I think there is a better way to teach writing, to make it exciting, fun, and back to an art form instead of something we all must learn? Yes. Do I, or anyone else actually have an answer to that question? Not that I have seen. For the time being we must concentrate on the system we have and work towards improvement of it.

Ten teachers can be teaching the exact same material but it would never look the same twice. Each teacher has their own style, techniques, and presence in the classroom (whether it be good or bad). I think differences and wonderful things are still able to come out of the way that students are taught writing today. I mean, we still have amazing novelists, journalists, writers, poets, authors, etc today. The system has to be working in some way doesn't it?