New slant on writing encourages participation

Yet outside of school, students and others are writing -- e-mails, Facebook entries, text messages, blogs, job letters, resumes and more.

Writing has become so ubiquitous that we are now living in the Age of Composition, according to Kathleen Blake Yancey, past president of the National Council of Teachers of English and Hunt professor of English at Florida State University.

"Through writing, we participate -- as students, employees, citizens, human beings. Through writing, we are," she wrote in report called "Writing in the 21st Century."

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She defines the switch this way: "We're moving from submission to participation."

Now, she said, "Writing curricula that are smart invite participation because that's what people want right now. Where you can invite participation, people stay engaged."

She thinks some schools try to erect a firewall between the writing students do outside of school and in school.

"It's just counterproductive," she said. "If kids have learned something about composing outside of school, a really interesting question is how can we connect to that?"

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Two reasons some view writing at school negatively are punishment and tests.

Dr. Yancey recalls as a second-grader having to write "I will not stay out too long at recess" 100 times.

As for exams, Dr. Yancey wrote that writing has "historically and inextricably been linked to testing."

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Fast forward to high school and the anxiety over producing a 25-minute essay for the SAT college entrance exams. Many students, teachers and test prep programs focus on writing a five-paragraph essay: a topic sentence, three supporting points and a conclusion.

While she doesn't address the five-paragraph essay in the report, Dr. Yancey said, "It's a faux task for a faux audience and everyone knows it.

"It's interesting that that world exists alongside the other world that's filled with participation, filled with meaning making, which is what writing has always been about."

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Elizabeth Shannon, an English teacher at West Allegheny High School, said she does a "real quick, two-day cram" on the five-paragraph essay before the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment writing tests.

"I tell them, you'll never write this way again," she said. "If they go off to college and write that way, they won't be looked on as good writers."

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