What is wrong with the system?

Due to the availability of the WW book I had decided to post without it for now.

To begin, I would like to say that I was pleasantly surprised by the reading selections. I expected them to be dull and excruciating like many composition manuals, but they were actually interesting and thought provoking. Thank you, Julie!

The two selections from WTL shared the theme of diagnosis. Though I have often disagreed with writing teachers it never occurred to me that the system is flawed or archaic. After reading Hairston's article I am convinced that the writing community is in fact suffering from a "paradigm shift." It is time to move on from the misnomer that writing is linear and focus instead on giving students the skill set that is required to customize their writing process. Once that process is established, a personal writing style is sure to follow. My personal writing process changes dramatically based on a number of variables. Often, during the first few days of the semester I spend a little time customizing that process for each class.

Hiarston had another point which caused me to answer out loud. She claims that writing teachers should write. Well, of course they should and often! How can one teach that which they do not practice? After thinking about this for a little while I realized that I can remember very few times in my pre-college education where the teacher used her own writing as an example for class to follow. However, as an undergrad student I have encountered essays written by professors on a number of occasions. Another example is one particular professor who will sometimes implement a short free-writing session before discussion. The Prof. always participates and shares these thoughts. Because of this, I know that person understands writing as a multi-purpose educational tool. If more teachers would participated in writing exercises revision would be generally less painful and more educational. I think it is important for students of all ages to see that their mentors are also constantly striving to sharpen their skills.

Murphy's article was much less straight forward. Obviously he is advocating storytelling a crucial component of writing. He seems to feel that students do not understand the difference between expanding the scope of a story and "gunking" up a good paper. This is a pretty abstract concept to learn as a writer. "Gunk" was never truly defined in the article, but I am guessing it is the overuse of adjectives and description as a substitute for depth and psychology? Murphy pointed out that there is a specific communication problem between teachers and students. However, he seems to be unsure himself where in the teaching process communication fails. So the only solution I see is to teach educators new methods of extracting non-gunk details from students.