Perhaps It's Not What We Think

I was sitting here on our creaking couch, when a thought occurred to me. The biggest academic issue in the homeschool world today is English, and to be more specific, writing. Parents fumble around, desperately trying to teach their students coherent thought and expression.

This is reflected in the many homeschool curricula that try to teach students how to write. Go to any homeschool convention. A great many of the talks will be variations of "Teaching Your Student to Write - Guaranteed!" and "The Subject We All Hate Most - How to Teach Writing". Yet though there are lots and lots of people who claim to understand the art of using words, the facts belie their assertions. The inability to write permeates our society, and homeschooled students are on average no better than public schooled students.

If you glance into these numerous curricula and books, you'll find mostly the same material. They tell how to doctor up your sentences. Add conjunctions here, turn this into a gerund, use more adverbs. They show transition strategies and essay organizations. And though this is all very well and good, I have to say, none of the profuse works on writing seem to be making much of a difference. Even when students do all of the doctoring, expanding, and transitioning that is required in their exercises and essays, their work still seems mediocre and out of place. They seem uncomfortable in the words, phrases, and organization they use.

Now, let me ask a question. What if what makes a good writer is not using these components of good writing but thinking them? Could it be that the good writer is the one who thinks grammatically correct sentences, thinks organized essays and flowing thoughts, not the one who simply fixes his composition? That good writing comes from being comfortable in these (for you Strunk & White fans out there) elements of style?

Let me explain. Anyone can doctor up a piece of work. It's like putting a bandage over a wound, like covering a coffee stain on the floor with a desk. But the result is never as satisfactory as if the wound had never been received, as if the coffee had never been spilled. I am here suggesting that it is the writer who thinks stylistically, grammatically and fluently whose work is truly good. It's the difference between who you are and what you wear. What you wear may fit you or not, but it is not your actual self.

Not that this cannot be learned; on the contrary, it must be. No one is born feeling comfortable in great style. It is merely that you must learn to think great style, not just copy it. I believe that it is not enough just to "fix" your writing. Though all writing will always need to be reworked, you must begin to think in terms of the tools you use.

Perhaps, then, all the curricula and guide books are wrong. Maybe we ought not to teach students how to use tools, but how to be them. Quality should not be a mask we put on, something we use to hide who we really are. It ought to become a very part of our being, the very essence of our souls.

Don't be content with cover-up. Have your students become the style that at first they only emulate.