Jonathan Silverman's Essay: How Writing Is Thinking

First and foremost writing has always been a bit of a challenge for me. My writing in high school was mostly regarding essays about a book I was assigned to read and analyze. I've noticed that there's a difference between my writing in high school and the essays i've wrote so far in college. My writing in college seems to be far more formal and includes complex wording. My writing in college tends to be longer than most essays i wrote in high school and far more detailed.

As seniors about to embark on a journey into the adult world, it’s important to be prepared for what college professors expect in an essay. The article, What do College Professors Want from Incoming High School Graduates, was very insightful on how different the rules are. It states the different skills and mindsets an incoming freshmen must have to succeed in more advanced writing classes. It explains how high school and college writing differ, also how the two are similar. In order to be successful in school and in life one must become independent and open to change.

I agree with how Valerle Struss the way she explains how students are supposed to be taught Writing in college. In this day in age, many student struggles with ability to know how to even write a simple sentence. The main reason students in college are not able to do this simple task is because as technology advances more and more people rely on it. This is sometimes a good thing, but not always. People have learned to rely on the technologies they have around them. Which at the end of the day won’t do them any good? So, let’s take the advice of Mrs.Struss and the way she thinks how college students should actually be taught.

In Dan Berrett’s article, “Students Come to College Thinking They’ve Mastered Writing,” the idea of freshman thinking they are or must be a refined writer is discussed. Students may think this way coming into college, but their teachers do not. While students might feel satisfied and think that they are prepared with their writing skills, professors found that these students did not necessarily meet the expected level (Berrett 1). Many students reported that they would normally write around 25 hours every week. They said that most of those hours of writing was for more formal purposes like passages to make changes in society (Berrett 1). It was found that one reason the new students might feel this way is that their assumptions about writing differed greatly from those of faculty members and their expectations. One big thing that students will not get for a while, is that good writing is not just listed as a bunch of steps one is to follow that automatically make one’s writing good. Good writing requires one to be in different mental states; it requires the understanding of how to write for different audiences and different reasons (Berrett 2). Berrett includes in the article that writing is not just universal and that in order to do very well, writers must use different forms of writing specifically for their purpose (2). It seems as though students think that, before they even take a class, they are supposed to know everything about writing; in reality, they are supposed to learn new skills and enhance others (Berrett 2). Berrett says that many believe the schools these students previously attended with their test focus might cause these feelings about writing (2). Berrett ends his article by saying that students these days do not think that informal writing actually counts as writing, and that students should practice writing for informal purposes because it can help them (2). Even if they feel like it, students are not fully prepared to write in all contexts when they arrive at college.

In this article, “College Success” written by Bruce Beiderwell, Linda Tse, Thomas J. Lochhaas, and Nicholas B. deKanter, they explain the differences of high school and college writing, expectations of the instructors, and the types of papers that are assigned. Most students who struggle in their writing are usually still going through their transformation into college, without even knowing it. Though, how can you see these symptoms? “Students who struggle with writing in college often conclude that their high school teachers were too easy or that their college instructors are too hard” (Beiderwell, P. 1). When going into college there are all sort of ways of writing an essay, in high school you were taught the five paragraph basic

In “How Do I Write a Text for College” (The World is a Text, 2006), Patty Strong said that writing in in college is much more different than writing in high school and so as the purpose of it. In high school student were told to write texts depending on their prior knowledge while on an institution of higher education students have the flexibility to write not only about what they already learnt but what they are trying to learn. In addition, writing in college requires a higher level of critical thinking and understanding, but it will unequivocally expand their knowledge.

When you start to think about it, quickly you realize that almost everything we do in life has some sort of writing around it. Whether it be sending a simple text message or writing a long essay we all have to have the common foundation of how to write. As students progress their way through high school we are often pounded with the rules of writing. By the time you get to be a upperclassman you quickly learn that your days of learning how to write are not over once you get to college. As someone who is looking to study Aeronautics at Liberty University, still, the days of learning to write are far from over. Because Liberty University requires students to participate in two writing based classes my skills will continue to be developed. Even

The survey result Berrett includes shows that students see writing as “basically a performance”. Berrett also introduced an argument from the “Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing” report, which claims that writing is not a “linear process”. The author states that successful writing requires various processes, habits and experiences, such as “curiosity, flexibility, persistence and metacognition”. Since for most highschoolers, writing is ‘’framed as preparation of tests”, they do not have the opportunity to “develop ideas or raise prose”. The author suggests the students require change in their mindset of writing. However, the only evidence the author provides is from a students’ self-reported survey, instead of actual writing assignments. This rather subjective evidence results in a less convincing argument. Despite this flaw in logic, I personally agree with the author. I find the transformation of writing from high school to university is challenging. The main reason is that my writing experience back then was more about “following directions”. The format and structure of the writing assignment was provided, and all the information I need was spoonfed to me. As a result, there was no researching and developing my own idea, and in the first week of university, when I was asked to write a lab report with my own theory, I brainstormed for hours before eventually generated one. Nevertheless, I hold onto the hope that improvements on creativity in writing can be made as I gradually develop my “curiosity, flexibility, persistence and metacognition”. In general, although I agree with the author’s opinion, I felt his claim lacks

My high school years were not spectacular, nor were they terribly productive.I left high school without learning how to proficiently write an essay. However, CUNY's Borough of Manhattan Community College afforded me a desperately needed second chance. It was at BMCC that I sharpened many of the skills I should have mastered in high school. I was able to greatly improve my writing ability. I began college as a student who found writing a 2 page paper to be a terrifyingly daunting task, but due to practice and numerous resources offered by CUNY, I soon was able to compose papers consisting of 10-14 pages with confidence and efficiency.

Society today places so much emphasis on attending a liberal arts college in order to get a degree and succeed in life. The only problem is that liberal arts colleges do not gurantee a job after graduation. Students are going into school expecting to graduate and be able to find a job, but then they find out it is not that easy. The value on liberal arts education is too high compared to the benefits. Results of interviews showed that after getting a job, the employee then had to learn on the job how to use the proper writing style required. Future research should look towards toning down the specialization of writing programs in higher education in order to cover a broader background and better prepare students.

In “Expectations for College Writing,” the author indicates the importance of thinking and communicating to succeed after college. A writer’s style acknowledges a social or academic expression. A writer’s skill to rationalize ideas and think critically demonstrates an essential technique for enhancing communication in the work environment.

The importance of college-level writing is a topic that is very much backed up and accompanied by facts and studies. Writing in the college-level is needed in order to master college work in any class. Basically all classes require you to more than likely submit some kind of research paper or essay. Writing for Learning to Improve Students’ Comprehension at the College Level by Fahad Alharbi as well as Luiza Costa Ribeiro, Writing Essays at College: Why it’s Important both go into detail on how important writing at this level is and all the skills learned for during and after college. As well on how you can benefit from them.

Writing isn’t simply a skill that you can check off your list. The point of taking writing courses in college is to help you grow as an author and researcher. Take advantage of the great writing resources — including required composition courses — that your institution has to offer, to help you become the best writer possible!

As stated above, this section of the book specially emphasizes change of focus of your compositions when you start college writing. In high school your writing assignments are mainly executed using your personal opinions and your own self encounters. On the contrary, college writing is much more factual and involves critical thinking. Instead of your writing being inspired by your emotional thoughts on a subject, your words now need to be backed up by scholarly sources that can prove your information. This, however, does not mean that you will never write about yourself or your personal opinions, it just means that you need to provide proof for your beliefs. College writing also introduces you to different genres such as essays,

To succeed as a writer in college, one must spend time and time and time practicing. We must develop the quality of our thoughts. The writer of these chapters assigned to us states that we, as humans, mainly think in language. Logically, then, we must broaden our knowledge and understanding of our language. Constant inquisitive reading, persistent writing, and human interaction all nurture our linguistic growth. These elements make collaborative writing groups perfect for developing our thinking and language skills.