Argumentative Essay On Poor Writing

The last word a student wants to hear from a teacher is the word “essay”. That word is always accompanied by groaning and complaining, followed by nervous thoughts about the essay, dread leading up to it, and misery during the actual writing process. On the bright side, there is at least one positive aspect. As a fellow student, I can attest to the fact that there is no better feeling than clicking print, stapling the pages together, shoving the essay in my folder, and never thinking about the essay again, for fear of bringing up bad memories or having an anxiety attack. All of this fear and dread leads to one thing: poor writing. The education system has been trying to solve this problem for years: why can’t students write? How did such a

Throughout their public schooling experience, students have been improperly taught how to write. Instead of focusing on the ideas behind their writing, students are taught to intently analyze their paper to make sure they did not miss a period or spell a word wrong. Creativity was replaced with nitpicking. Students are taught to convey the teacher’s beliefs to get a good grade, instead of their own. This whole process results in a very bland and meaningless, yet grammatically correct essay. Students hate writing because they are being forced to do something that is not natural. However, Aldrich explains that this problem is not the teacher’s fault. The teachers are just doing what they were taught, and therefore, struggle with writing just as much as the students they are trying to teach do. Aldrich also believes that students do not write enough. Writing is like any other skill, and takes practice to get better. Aldrich thinks teachers are not making students write more because, “they cannot write either, nor do they know how to teach other’s to do so” (184). This all leads to a very toxic cycle where a teacher who can not write teaches a student how to “write”, and that student becomes a teacher and teaches more students how to “write”, ultimately leading

Every single person has their own unique way of writing and expressing their thoughts. It is impossible to declare a correct form of writing, especially since there are so many different genres. Emily Dickinson is known as one of the greatest writers in history, yet if a student handed in something that was written in a similar style to the way she wrote, he or she would undoubtedly fail, due to the very radical style. The Canterbury Tales, a historically well-known work, would not even be published today, due to its confusing style and format. Someone can answer an essay question through poetry, and it may be very well written and completely answer the question, yet they would most likely be forced to re-write it in a traditional essay format. All throughout history writers have been successful in a myriad of different ways. Nobody writes Epic poems anymore, yet Paradise Lost and Beowulf are some of the most popular works f literature of all time. Additionally, one teacher may prefer a narrative type of poem compared to a sonnet or a pastoral poem, and therefore be biased in determining what is a good poem. Hence, there is really no correct way to judge writing, and especially to teach writing. What one considers “good” writing another may declare “bad.” A style that is considered “correct” today may be deemed “wrong” in a hundred