Writing Training Module

Issues About Teaching Writing

The teaching of writing to adults is complicated by many factors, not the least of which is a disconnect between how teachers and learners see their task. Many adult basic literacy learners, because they believe that their writing “skills” are not adequate, come to the task of learning to write with a school-based mental model of writing that emphasizes form over content, produces anxiety about making mistakes, and assumes that the writer is using his or her personal experience as data. On the other hand, their teachers often emphasize content over form, and urge learners not to worry about making mistakes, and to view confusion and mistakes as signs of growth, the place where learning to write begins.

For learners whose understanding of process is limited, however, the injunction not to worry about form and to ignore mistakes often serves to raise anxiety rather than dispel it. Adult learners want to know how to get the form “right,” and how to recognize and avoid mistakes, not make them — they often fear that the error will became confused with the right usage, and dislike risking humiliation or embarrassment. From the point of view of these students, making mistakes of any kind is a source of anxiety and confusion, and often marks the place where learning to write ends.

This kind of instructional disconnect about issues of correctness, process, and strategy has been called “conceptual difficulty.” Conceptual difficulty can interfere with instruction, because once an inappropriate concept is learned or an appropriate one not learned, further instruction that presupposes an understanding of that concept might be not only wasteful but also destructive because of the resultant experience of failure and its emotional consequences. It is therefore important not to presuppose that we (as teachers) know what learners think, but to use questioning, observation, and discussion to determine not only what the student’s concepts actually are, but also how teachers conceive their roles as teachers of writing.

The fear of negative effects on students, for example, causes many teachers to resist conducting writing assessment. Others may see assessment as something that takes place outside of instruction, not as part of it. Data from a study of the syntactic patterns and maturity of novice writers, however, indicates that teachers should pay much closer attention not only to what novice writers do, but why they do it as well.

Teaching writing (or perhaps teaching anything) requires that the teacher hold a clear perspective regarding the purpose as well as the expected outcome of the instruction, and that continuous assessment toward reaching the expected outcome be part of that instruction. It is this perspective that effective professional development for the teaching of writing must help teachers to incorporate into their practice.