7 Things That Reveal a Bad Writing Teacher

The recent press release by Newt Gingrich (or his press secretary, hard to tell really) has made me eager to share what I know about teaching writing. Someone with a college education wrote that press release--the possibility that it was a professional writer, someone who went to college in order to be trained to write, chills me to the bone. No one is obliged to be a brilliant writer--the very attempt to be a "brilliant writer" is deeply misguided--but everyone with an education is obliged to avoid being a painfully bad writer. Absolutely obliged. Now, my Ph.D. in Composition/Rhetoric/Literacy hasn't conferred on me any real wisdom but what it has given me is the narrow, specific knowledge of how to teach writing. Perhaps more importantly, it has taught me how not to teach writing. So, for what it's worth, here's the absolute truth about it.

7 Things That Reveal a Bad Writing Teacher

1. You are given "worksheets" of any kind. This includes computer software of any kind. Though it is possible that worksheets for the invention process could be helpful in generating ideas and creative thinking, such worksheets would be presented as strictly optional and in a spirit of levity. The day you, as a student, are given a worksheet that is meant to "teach" you something or to "exercise" a "skill," drop the class and get as much of your money back as you can. Writing can't be taught like that--it's probable that nothing really can be. The idea that writing can be distilled into "skills" is, in itself, a dead give-away that what you have at the head of the class is a trained grade-school teacher and not a university-level professional.


2. Your work is returned to you with line-by-line corrections. This is the mark of a teacher with a need to demonstrate his/her technical knowledge at the expense of students' learning. Any teacher who wastes his/her own time doing such a labor-intensive thing when it's absolutely certain not to help the student learn, is either psychologically messed up or completely uninformed. Either way, run.


3. First drafts are returned with technical errors marked. See the explanation for #2--it's exactly the same. The teacher who does this is in the wrong profession. S/he should have become a copy editor, not a writing teacher. As such, I promise you, this teacher only loves the students who don't need help. (If you are a student who believes s/he doesn't need help anyway, you're probably unteachable. I'm trowing that little nugget in here as a lagniappe. You're welcome.)


4. You are required to write only a first draft and a final draft. This is probably a sign that your teacher has too many students to teach properly. This is not the teacher's fault but it is a sign that you don't want this class--probably this school. A teacher who doesn't require you to play with multiple ways of working a piece is either over-worked or uninformed--there is not a third possibility. Get out of that class if at all possible. Your time and money would be better spent reading well-written books--an activity which is, by the way, the only thing all good writers have in common.


5. You are encouraged to use a thesaurus. Good writing is not done this way. Using a thesaurus is a great way to make your writing sound contrived and is an invitation to the worst thing that can happen to a writer: being unintentionally funny. However, a good writer makes ample use of a dictionary to be sure his/her natural vocabulary is truly under the writer's control. If your writing teacher doesn't know this, something is very wrong.


6. Class time is spent generalizing about writing. The only conversation that will actually help you learn about writing is one that is about an actual piece of writing. The only generalization that can be made about all writing is that all good writing is an appropriate response to a specific context. Without a complete understanding of the context and the expectations appropriate to that situation, a piece of writing can't be properly judged. So, if the teacher brings you a reading and wants you to discuss the subject matter of that reading rather than the choices available to its writer, your time is being wasted. This teacher wants to teach literature or social science, or whatever the content of the readings happens to be. Go find someone who wants to teach writing.


7. Student writing is never shared with the rest of the class. Because of the points I just made in # 6, discussing the writing done by the students in the class is the most efficient use of class time. It has multiple benefits to both student and teacher. The teacher who does not make the students' writing the topic of discussion is probably guilty of #2 and #3 as well. Again, this is someone with a psychological need to be an authority, not a teacher. This person is getting his/her payoff by standing at the front of the room, not by seeing you progress. This is a person who should have gone into acting or who has no training as a writing teacher--bad for you either way.