ENGL 110-64

Classmates

When it comes to teaching writing in school, there were always certain rules that we had to follow. We weren’t allowed to use words like “I”, “you”, or “we”, and we weren’t allowed to use apostrophes. This not only made writing very difficult, but it also made students seem robotic, we all sounded the same, and the individuality in our writing styles was harder to shine through. The way that we are taught to write is unnatural and outdated, we should be taught to write in a way that is more similar to how we speak.

Today, writing is taught in both high school and college, but each focuses on different aspects of the skill. In high school, students are taught English as a whole, as well as the mechanics of the language itself; grammar, parts of speech, and punctuation, as well as how to apply them. Fish claims that “you’re not going to be able to change the world if you are not equipped with the tools that speak to its present condition” (Fish 2). Without being taught how English works, one will never be able to use it effectively. In college, students are taught how to write in different styles using the skills that they have previously learned. Once the basics are taught, the different styles become much easier to learn, “there is only one thing to be learned, that a sentence is a structure of logical relationships; everything else follows” (Fish 3). Although the way that we are taught to write as well as to apply these skills makes sense, the writing that students produce tends to still sound unnatural and in some cases, even awkward. 

Each person has their own dialect of English, as well as their own slang, word choice, and style overall. Teaching students a specific style of writing wipes away one’s individuality and makes writing itself harder. There should be no standard style of English because it makes writing unenjoyable and harder to produce a good product. One way to fix this issue is “instead of prescribing how folks should write or speak, I say we teach language descriptively” (Young 4). By teaching students how to incorporate their own language into their writing compared to the right way to write, I truly believe that students will enjoy writing more and as a result, produce better pieces. In modern-day, most people don’t know the proper way to speak English, let alone use it, so why should it still be taught in such depth? “The narrow, prescriptive lens be messin writers and readers all the way up, cuz we all been taught to respect the dominant way to write, even if we dont, cant, or wont ever write that one way ourselves” (Young 4). If we as a society allowed for students to write in the same way that they spoke, writing overall would produce better pieces.

Language is a skill that is taught before one is even born, however, reading and writing are both skills that take time and effort to learn. English itself has many rules and mechanics that we all subconsciously follow and don’t necessarily need to be taught. That being said, “in the United States, the federal government estimates that 14 percent of the adult population is “below basic” and unable to perform functional reading tasks (National Adult Literacy Survey, 2003)” (Moats and Tolman). Instead of teaching students how to change their writing in order to meet a standard, they should be taught how to integrate their previous knowledge into their writing. By doing so, students would be able to spend their time in school focusing on how to understand what they’re saying instead of the right way to say it. “Human brains are naturally wired to speak; they are not naturally wired to read and write” (Moats and Tolman) so when one is asked to change their style of writing for each project, it is more complex than it needs to be. If students were taught how to use their previous knowledge in their writing, more people would be literate due to the amount of time that they could spend applying instead of attempting to learn.

Some people may argue that since speaking and writing, in themselves, are two different skills, one’s writing should not reflect the way that they speak. When it comes to writing, there is one standard that most people are able to understand and produce themselves, but each person’s writing style is vastly different. One reason for this is that “while verbal speech tends to be full of unstructured phrases and even random thoughts, the written word is generally more structured and focused” (Cline). Creating this standard, it allows for all writing to be uniform and generally understood, whereas each person has their own dialect which could make writing confusing. By having students learn a basic writing standard, it allows for easier grading, understanding, and a common literacy in writing. Although this may be true, one’s language is unique to themselves, and their writing style should reflect that.  Cline even agrees, “​​adding slang and simplifying your vocabulary—when done deliberately and thoughtfully—can make your writing more engaging and fun to read”. Not only is writing in the way you speak easier, but it allows for the reader to get to know you better, and can even become a more enjoyable read.

Today, students are taught to write in a specific way that doesn’t reflect the way they speak, thus resulting in their writing sounding both unnatural and outdated. Even in this essay, I’m writing in a way that I was taught. When I speak in real life, I sound less formal, don’t follow grammar rules exactly, and I use many more exclamation points! But due to the way that I was taught, my writing never sounds like me, which is incredibly frustrating. I do agree that there should be some rules in place, a comma here, a period there, it just makes it easier to read. That being said, even when I talk in the way I do in real life, I pause so when I write, I put the punctuation wherever I’d really breathe. I love writing, but I hate when I get points taken off for grammar, or when I forget to capitalize a letter, or when I forget to take out an apostrophe. In real life, these things don’t matter, why should they matter when I write? You know what I’m trying to say, why should we meet a standard that no one follows in the real world?

Works Cited

Cline, Casey. “Do You Write the Way You Speak? Here’s Why Most Good Writers Don’t.” 

Verblio, 11 June 2020, https://www.verblio.com/blog/write-the-way-you-speak. 

Fish, Stanley. “What Should Colleges Teach? Part 3.” The New York Times, The New York 

Times, 8 Sept. 2009, 

https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/07/what-should-colleges-teach-part-3/. 

Moats, Louisa, and Carol Tolman. “Speaking Is Natural; Reading and Writing Are Not.” Reading 

Rockets, 29 Aug. 2019, https://www.readingrockets.org/article/speaking-natural-reading-and-writing-are-not. 

Young, Vershawn Ashanti. “Should Writers Use They Own English?” Iowa Journal of Cultural 

Studies, vol. 12, no. 1, 2010, pp. 110–117., https://doi.org/10.17077/2168-569x.1095.