GLASSWORKS
  • home
  • about
    • history
    • staff bios
    • community outreach
    • affiliations
    • contact
  • Current Issue
    • read Issue 30
    • letter from the editor
    • looking glass spring 2025
    • interview with Dale M. Kushner
    • interview with Jessie vanEerden
  • submit
    • submission guidelines
  • looking glass
    • spring 2025
  • editorial content
    • book reviews
    • opinion
    • interviews >
      • Dale M. Kushner
      • Jessie vanEerden
  • flash glass
    • flash glass 2025
    • flash glass 2024
    • flash glass 2023
    • flash glass 2022
    • flash glass 2021
    • flash glass 2020
    • flash glass 2019
    • flash glass 2018
    • flash glass 2017
    • flash glass 2016
    • flash glass 2015
  • media
    • art
    • audio
    • video
  • archive
    • best of the net nominees
    • pushcart prize nominees
    • read and order back issues
  • Master of Arts in Writing Program
    • about Writing Arts at Rowan University
    • application and requirements
  • Newsletter
  • home
  • about
    • history
    • staff bios
    • community outreach
    • affiliations
    • contact
  • Current Issue
    • read Issue 30
    • letter from the editor
    • looking glass spring 2025
    • interview with Dale M. Kushner
    • interview with Jessie vanEerden
  • submit
    • submission guidelines
  • looking glass
    • spring 2025
  • editorial content
    • book reviews
    • opinion
    • interviews >
      • Dale M. Kushner
      • Jessie vanEerden
  • flash glass
    • flash glass 2025
    • flash glass 2024
    • flash glass 2023
    • flash glass 2022
    • flash glass 2021
    • flash glass 2020
    • flash glass 2019
    • flash glass 2018
    • flash glass 2017
    • flash glass 2016
    • flash glass 2015
  • media
    • art
    • audio
    • video
  • archive
    • best of the net nominees
    • pushcart prize nominees
    • read and order back issues
  • Master of Arts in Writing Program
    • about Writing Arts at Rowan University
    • application and requirements
  • Newsletter
GLASSWORKS

Preventing the Hatred of Writing

4/1/2018

0 Comments

 
by Ashley Haden

Spending time on a college campus as finals near always leads to hearing familiar complaints in the air. These are complaints about the workload, upcoming exams, and, of course, writing papers. “I hate writing” is one of the most common complaints that I’ve noticed at a wide variety of grade levels. Students will often actively try to avoid writing if possible. Why is this?
A lot of it depends on the individual, but part of the problem can be found as early as elementary school. This is the time when  children are learning how to write. They are taught grammar and mechanics and the “correct” way to do things. Their papers become marked with red pen. Fix this comma. You cannot start a sentence with “because.” That’s not how you spell that. It’s simply exhausting. Getting papers back that are marked with corrections to the grammar and formatting becomes discouraging, and even more importantly, it’s missing the entire point of improving student writing.

While good writing does include knowledge of grammar and mechanics, I would argue that good craft is even more important. Craft is how successful writing develops, and when it is ignored, students grow only in grammar and cookie-cutter formats. They lose their creativity due to a lack of encouragement and lessons about craft itself. Then, they end up hating to write.

Picture
Creative writing deserves it’s own time in the classroom aside from grammar and mechanics. It should be time when  students can write without fear of the red pen and receive encouragement for improvement of craft. We see this at the college level within writing centers. These centers do not correct papers for mechanics; their goal is to help create stronger writers. The tutors focus on the craft of the piece instead of fixing grammatical errors. This can easily be done at the elementary level as well. All it takes is a little creativity.

The beginning of writing time can start with a mini lesson that highlights a form of craft that they can use in their own writing. Then, the students should be able to write independently in a notebook that is personal to them. It is during this independent writing time that the writing conferences occur.
Picture
Writing conferences are perhaps the best tool available to help encourage students. These conferences should be brief, where the teacher sits beside the student and observes the writing before providing one thing the student is doing well and one suggestion for the work. The key here is that there is no criticism, and the child retains ownership of his/her  work by the teacher refraining from holding it or collecting it. The feedback should always be more than “I like…” because it does not matter what is liked. It matters why the craft being used is successful. By pointing that out, the student understands what he/she is doing, why it works, and will be encouraged to keep doing it in his/her writing. For example, a teacher pointing out “one thing you’re doing well is using different speaker tags, not just the word said” and suggesting, “next time, you can try some repeating phrases like we saw in the story Saturdays and Teacakes” provides feedback that the student can use. Plus, referencing a book that was read in class such as Lester Laminack’s Saturdays and Teacakes allows the student to better understand the suggestion.

Compliments can be found everywhere. Even a student who spelled a word incorrectly, but took the time to sound it out in a way that makes sense, can be complimented on that effort because it can still be read. The conferences also provide a good time for the teacher to make note of what the student may be ready to do in the future and what the whole class may need to work on in a classroom lesson.

By structuring conferences this way, the teacher is building the student’s confidence instead of pointing out things that are done incorrectly. The grammar lessons are saved for another time with different pieces of writing. Conferences provide a time to praise children who may not be used to getting positive feedback. If a child has done something particularly well, it can even be highlighted to the entire class, which will likely make that student’s entire day. It leads to students who believe in themselves and can do more than format an essay “correctly.” By lifting students up in this way, we can prevent the hatred of writing and craft better creative writers.

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    May 2025
    April 2025
    February 2025
    January 2025
    December 2024
    November 2024
    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    September 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    September 2018
    August 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    February 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    February 2017
    November 2016
    September 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    September 2015
    August 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    October 2014
    April 2014
    January 2014
    March 2013
    February 2013


    Categories

    All
    Accessibility
    Art
    Audio
    Bestseller
    Bibliotherapy
    Books
    Bookstores
    BookTok
    Career
    Cartoons
    Celebrities
    Censorship
    Characters
    Cliche
    Code-switching
    Comedy
    Comics
    Controversy
    Culture
    Disability Awareness
    Dyslexia
    Dystopian
    E-books
    Editorial
    Education
    Emoji
    Encyclopedia
    English
    Facebook
    Fandom
    Fanfiction
    Fantasy
    Fiction
    Film
    Future
    Gamebooks
    Gender
    Genre
    Ghostwriting
    Google
    Grammar
    Habits
    Halloween
    Health
    Identity
    Journaling
    Kinesthetic Learning
    Language
    LGBTQ
    Library
    Literacy
    Literature
    Manga
    Marginalia
    Media
    Mental Health
    Movies
    Multi-genre
    Multimodal
    Music
    New Media
    New York Times Best Seller List
    Nihilism
    Nonfiction
    Normalcy
    Nostalgia
    Obscenity
    Op Ed
    Pandemic
    Podcast
    Poetry
    Politics
    Process
    Pronouns
    Publishing
    Race
    Reading
    Rebuttal
    Research
    Review
    Rhetoric
    Rules
    Science Fiction
    Search
    Self Publishing
    Self-publishing
    Sequels
    Series
    Sexism
    Social Media
    Spoken Word
    Sports
    Standards
    Storytelling
    Student Writing
    Superheroes
    Teaching
    Technology
    Television
    The New York Times
    Trigger Warnings
    Trilogy
    Video Games
    Visual Novel
    War
    Wikipedia
    Workshop
    Writing
    Young Adult
    Zines


    RSS Feed


Picture

Glassworks is a publication of
​Rowan University's Master of Arts in Writing
260 Victoria Street • Glassboro, New Jersey 08028 
[email protected]

​All Content on this Site (c) 2025 Glassworks
Photos from RomitaGirl67, wuestenigel, shixart1985 (CC BY 2.0), ** RCB **, George Fox Evangelical Seminary, shixart1985 (CC BY 2.0), educators.co.uk, andreavallejos, .v1ctor Casale., shixart1985, ginnerobot, brizzle born and bred, edenpictures, Phil Roeder, markus119, andreavallejos, kevinmarsh, steevithak, shixart1985, Joris Leermakers, Book Catalog, shixart1985