I have been thinking about the purpose of college writing. Is it the class for students to develop their sense of identity, voice, audience and writer/reader responsibility in order to be a better writer? Or is it to prepare students to accomplish their academic writing? I was observing a college writing class last semester and was amazed by the way the professor taught the class. Students were asked to write paranormal stories and peer response was also incorporated into the writing process. I am not sure how much the students can transfer what they learned from the class to real academic writing; however, I believe that this kind of writing encourages students to develop their imagination and the peer response can stimulate their critical thinking. Also, there’s another college writing class for ESL students in which students are asked to write poems. Without the pressure of forming perfect grammar and sentence structure, students may gain their confidence in writing in a different language. I really like the idea of implementing creative writing in the class in order to raise students’ awareness of every element in writing. However, how much can those elements be transferred to students’ academic writing? I think that teachers’ and students’ expectations are different. It is important to clarify the purpose of the way we teach writing and be open-minded toward communications with students.
If the writing class is designed to incorporate creative writing skills, I wonder if plagiarism is taken into consideration. We cannot assume that students have fully learned what plagiarism is and are able to apply it to their writing before coming to college. On page 65, Leki mentioned that a professor does not care if students reproduce her lecture words. I was really surprised to see this. If there’s no standard for plagiarism from professors for students to follow, what should students do? How do we cite from a lecture?
Writing is not an easy task. It takes time for a person to write well. I wish that there was an academic writing class for me to attend when I first came here because I was panicking about writing for the class. I would love to learn how to do creative writing as well because I have never learned writing in that kind of style.
I was thinking that a lot of articles we’ve been reading are always putting the blame on teachers and schools systems for not being prepared for ESL students and place ESL students as victims of the educational system. I wonder if any articles acknowledge ESL students’ responsibilities and attitudes towards studying in a different country. Some of them might not be efficient with their writing, but if they are to attend American universities, they can’t just see university as a way to learn English, but also professional knowledge. Of course schools should provide them with real assistance in writing and speaking (it’d be better if it is throughout the 4 academic years, but is it possible?); however, I think ESL students should hold some responsibility as well.
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It strikes me that you have mentioned about (taking a course on) creative writing. Though creative writing is one of my interests, I also see the shortcoming of it when it comes to teaching ESL students because students themselves do not recognize this type of writing as academic writing. I believe we have to be careful on what we want our students to write about in thier classes. It also reflects on how and what skills you want your students to learn from you. I hope this makes sense.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment! I agree with you that students might not see how creative writing can assist their academic writing. It is important to have communications with the students to know what they want from us and what we want them to learn.
ReplyDeleteI always wonder why we conceptualize creative writing something separate from academic discourse. Why do you think creative writing should be a part of the English curriculum (especially, ESL)? What are the benefits of teaching students how to write a poem or how to construct a multigenre project where they can use hybrid forms of writing practices? Personally, I do see many benefits. I would like to hear what our class thinks about this.
ReplyDeleteActually, I certainly agree that creative writing helps students, especially ESL, to develop their writing skill as I have published a paper on this. However, there is always the issue of 'legitimate' discourse for these students who come with their ideologies and thoughts about how the 'academic discourse' is supposed to be like.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to the issue of plagiarism and professor expectations, I think that it's necessary to look at the difference in how disciplines view the issue of plagiarism. In a science or psychology or medical course, very often the professors will want their students to be able to give them back (verbatim) whatever they have lectured. I think that this is because there are different reasons and applications for the writing. English writing is generally based in the idea of creating and protecting intellectual property, but a lot of other disciplines do not view writing in this way. I think that it is really important to make sure students know about these different expectations because often they do try to use the same writing skills across the board and they wonder why what works in one class doesn't work in another.
ReplyDeleteon the issue of teaching creative writing within within a course on academic writing, i think creative writing helps students go beyond the formal requirements of an academic essay or paper. Leki (2006) mentions that many professors do not regard 'traditional' five-paragraph essays as good academic writing any more. But this is often exactly what ESL students are taught. like Bee and Wan-Ning said, creative writing leads to more confidence and thus more freedom in writing, which might help go beyond the narrow definition of traditional essay.
ReplyDeleteat the same time, i agree with Bee, that students' beliefs about what constitutes academic writing and how it is to be taught need to be addressed, otherwise students will be resistant to the elements of creative writing. if they do not see how it they could be relevant and will not use it outside the writing course, teaching creative writing becomes redundant, no matter what the teacher's intentions are.