{"id":447,"date":"2012-11-05T23:19:54","date_gmt":"2012-11-05T23:19:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/iamlearner.net\/?p=447"},"modified":"2012-11-05T23:19:54","modified_gmt":"2012-11-05T23:19:54","slug":"writers-teaching-writing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iamlearner.net\/blog\/writers-teaching-writing\/","title":{"rendered":"Writers Teaching Writing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.euansemple.com\/theobvious\/2011\/4\/6\/mass-illiteracy.html\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"float:left; margin:20px 10px 10px 0px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px;\" src=\"http:\/\/www.johnconnell.co.uk\/images\/quill.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Euan Semple has a knack for short posts that force me to confront some assumptions. A recent one is a case in point, entitled <a href=\"http:\/\/www.euansemple.com\/theobvious\/2011\/4\/6\/mass-illiteracy.html\">Mass Illiteracy<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Are those who espouse the primacy of face to face communication really just hiding the fact that they are illiterate? I mean this in the sense that they are not very comfortable  expressing themselves in writing. Most people don&#8217;t really have much experience of putting thoughts down &#8220;on paper&#8221;. Not many people keep journals, letter writing isn&#8217;t what it once was, and business documents are really a very small and undistinguished subset of what is possible with the written word!<\/p>\n<p>Just wondering &#8230;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>It&#8217;s not quite the same issue, but Euan reminded me of something that used to bug me throughout my teaching career: the idea of young people being taught how to write (beyond the mechanics of basic literacy, I mean) by teachers who rarely if ever did any writing themselves. How many teachers teaching writing have ever actually tried their hand, successfully, at sustained writing of any sort: journalism, report-writing, essay-writing, short story writing, writing a novel&#8230;.whatever?<\/p>\n<p>There is a wide gulf between the ability to craft a well-honed sentence and the capacity to plan and write a sustained piece for a particular purpose.<\/p>\n<p>I would be interested to hear if others think it matters.<br \/>\n<!-- technorati tags start --><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:right;font-size:10px;\">Technorati Tags: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.technorati.com\/tag\/euan semple\" rel=\"tag\">euan semple<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.technorati.com\/tag\/writing\" rel=\"tag\">writing<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.technorati.com\/tag\/communication\" rel=\"tag\">communication<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.technorati.com\/tag\/teaching\" rel=\"tag\">teaching<\/a><\/p>\n<p><!-- technorati tags end --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Euan Semple has a knack for short posts that force me to confront some assumptions. A recent one is a case in point, entitled Mass Illiteracy: Are those who espouse the primacy of face to face communication really just hiding the fact that they are illiterate? I mean this in the sense that they are&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1,8,40],"tags":[26,20,17,16,19,18,35],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iamlearner.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iamlearner.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iamlearner.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iamlearner.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iamlearner.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=447"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/iamlearner.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":448,"href":"https:\/\/iamlearner.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447\/revisions\/448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iamlearner.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iamlearner.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iamlearner.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}