Why I Still Teach Writing

 

Yesterday, I was on the phone with a nice young person (let's call them Lee) who was helping me figure out why my online teacher's IRA retirement account said I had an annuity when I knew I had no annuity.

Lee kindly called the tech people to see what could be learned. Unsurprisingly, nothing could be learned, but my helper Lee promised that the tech people would reach out to me soon.  (They did call, a few days later, told me it was a mistake, then called again to say it was not a mistake---they now called almost anything an annuity.)

As we were saying our goodbyes, Lee mentioned that I needed to make a withdrawal this year. I realized that Lee had looked at my age and decided I was retired, so I needed to make this withdrawal.

"Oh, thanks, Lee, but don't worry. I am still working as a writing professor at Seminole State College, so I don't need to do that," I said with a smile. Lee immediately apologized and said they should have asked if I was still working. 

 I told Lee that no apology was needed. At my age, many of my friends are fully retired, but I am not.

So why am I still teaching writing, especially when ChatGPT was write an okay essay on its own with no input from a human student?

Because I believe with all my heart that writing is important to all of us. Why? Here are three reasons.

1. Writing helps us clarify our thoughts. We often have muddled and unclear ideas floating around our brains. Writing forces us to disentangle the ideas and try to make sense out of them. Writing builds our skills of thinking clearly and being able to articulate our thoughts in an understandable way.

2. Writing communicates effectively to other people. We can talk to each other and imagine we have expressed ourselves well, but surveys reveal that most people hear the first sentence or two that we say and then focus on trying to understand that part. What we say next is not heard at all or heard in bits and pieces. Listening is a skill that takes years to develop, and in the meantime, we mishear or don't hear at all much of what is said to us. The children's game of Telephone shows how a message changes as it's passed around.

3. Writing leaves a record. As we have noted, talking and listening have many pitfalls. Writing is one way to make sure the correct information is heard and acted on, rather than us depending on unreliable memories of conversations. 

Writing is not easy. I am a writer of novels and non-fiction, yet I mostly hate to write. Writing takes time and is hard on the ego. I may write an "inspired" piece and look at it later, noting its many mistakes and odd bits. My inspired piece may bore me out of my wits when I read in a different mood.

But still, I persist. I always have students whose writing improves exponentially, and I have students whose progress is very modest. Changing someone's attitude to writing is my main goal--I want my students to see they can gain skills and become decent college writers if they put in the effort. This is why I teach writing.