The Evolution of the Blackwell Philosophy

(My students freewriting--most of them, anyway!)
I began this semester without any very clear teaching philosophies in mind. My work experience had taught me that even well-educated people often write poorly, and I wanted to help students learn basic skills. But I realize now that my background had supplied some unfortunate assumptions. My parents had college degrees, read incessantly, and demanded straight-A report cards. I attended strong public schools, as did my children. Consequently, some of the readings in this course originally puzzled me: how on earth could students born into the information age find writing truly challenging? After all, they frequently text each other instead of calling. Isn't that writing? Since so many of them have MySpace or FaceBook pages and/or blogs, aren't they ALWAYS writing? I thought the reticence described by the course readings was probably a thing of the past.

What I've learned is that it ISN'T a thing of the past. Yes, teenagers and young adults e-mail, text-message, and blog, but they don't view that as "writing." They consider it "talking." Some of them do find it extremely difficult to grasp that the work they are doing in 1301 is just a more formalized way of "talking" via the written word. They do fixate on details rather than seeing the larger picture; they can be crippled by an instructor's comments (however constructive); they don't understand how mastering basic reading and writing skills will play a part in their academic and professional lives.

I've discovered that I did begin with an underlying teaching philosophy, and I'm not sure that philosophy has changed, exactly. I think students must learn to read critically, process what they've read, and synthesize those ideas into a well-written, understandable product...all without abandoning their own voices. However, I've begun to think much more about how teaching styles impact those abilities. Whereas I started with a "grammar must be perfect" stance, I've realized that (a) "perfect grammar" is somewhat subjective, (b) trying to produce a grammatically-correct writing often stifles student voice, and (c) students are often unexpectedly inspired or crushed by instructor comments.

I've begun to understand that for many students, writing is risk-taking: they want to be "right" and their egos are on the line. In much the same way that children often consider their parents invulnerable or view the exercise of parental control as a form of sadistic entertainment, students tend to think of their instructors as know-it-alls who judge them and torture them for fun. Some want to be "right" because they are preprogrammed to strive, some want to be "right" to disprove teacher expectations, and some of them have given up hope of ever being "right." Many of them really believe that we instructors never struggle with writing and, for some, that triggers resentment. So I've begun to acknowledge those expectations by openly exposing myself to risk. Because my students love freewriting and hate the structured assignments I require of them, I've started "sharing their pain." I loathe freewriting, so I have agreed to freewrite and let them read it. The results have been startlingly positive: suddenly they view me as a fellow struggler, and that has made them far more receptive.

Perhaps what I'm trying to say is that my teaching philosophy hasn't so much changed as it has adapted to include those students who experience genuine fear of writing and "terror of error."