The Importance Of Writing Badly By Bruce Ballenger

The essay I was assigned is “How To Write With Style” by Kurt Vonnegut. After reading the essay, I found that a theme that would best summarize it is “effective communication. Kurt Vonnegut writes in his essay about how one should write in order to attract the reader and effectively communicate your thoughts. His advice to writing as he calls it “How To Write With Style” provides an insight to some elements that allows the writer to effectively communicate his thoughts and be true to him or herself. Keeping it simple, Have the guts to cut, Sound like yourself, Say what you mean to say, Pity the readers are his advice to writers to become effective writers. After reading the essay, I looked at several stories and poems that shared a similar

As I began to search for an article in the paper to write about that interested me, I was immediately drawn to a title that threw me off; "Why Kids Can't Write," by Dana Goldstien. Considering myself a kid I decided it would be worth a read to try and decipher what I agreed with in the article and what I did not. Early on in the article, the author begins talking about the probable root of the issue; how kids are being taught. She says, "Focusing on the fundamentals of grammar is one approach to teaching writing. But it's by no means the dominant one." As early as second grade, I remember learning grammar, spelling, and punctuation. When deciding what to write about, the topic of discussion was what one did over the weekend, or had for dinner

I observed Dr. Jenny Crisp’s English 98 class on January 19, 2016. The class began at 12:15 PM and lasted until 1:20 PM. The room that the class met in was on the third floor of the Liberal Arts building, and the room had individual computers for each of the students to work on. The class was divided into two sections on this day because Dr. Crisp had scheduled an introductory visit to the writing lab, which began at 12:45. Prior to the visit to the writing lab, Dr. Crisp guided the class in a discussion on the topic of revision in regards to the first paper that the class had submitted. The stages of revision were discussed and the students were shown where additional help could be found within the book. Dr. Crisp told the students that the reason that their grades on the essays were significantly lower was because the essays were lacking in detail and had Type One errors. She stated that revision is important and that could help bring up the grades on the essays.

Mike Bunn’s article, “How To Read Like a Writer”, simply does what the name implies: it is trying to encourage readers, students for the most part, to ‘read like a writer’. Bunn briefly reveals how he came acquainted with ‘reading like a writer’, and then goes on to explain to his audience how to ‘read like a writer’ themselves. From the opening sentence, to the closing statement, Bunn is encouraging students to analyze how a certain texts were written and why they were written that way. Bunn claims that by using this way of reading, you not only understand the text better, but you also become a better writer as you learn and develop the skills you analyze. Bunn is hoping that, after reading his article and adopting his methods, students will

Mike Bunn in “How to Read Like a Writer” begins with a revelation: that writing is a process in which individual words are specifically chosen and strung together in a way that impacts the reader. With this in mind, Bunn encourages his students to read like a writer. Reading like a writer is different from just appreciating the message. Bunn compares reading like a writer to an architect studying a constructed building. The goal of reading, then, is for students to examine how a piece was constructed with the purpose of recreating a similar effect in their own writing. Bunn establishes the fact that students are made to read so they can learn to write before showing students how to go about this. Before reading, the context should be evaluated, he

On the evening of Thursday July 23, 2015 I conducted an interview of Alex Benavides- a senior mechanical engineering major at Oklahoma State University. Benavides describes his experiences in his english courses as enjoyable, and notes that it helped him become a better writer. Benavides also states, that from personal experience during summer internships, that there are ineffective writers in positions where clean, flowing, and proper writing is a necessity. Proper grammar is essential in professional writing situations, according to Benavides, and is also often the first area critiqued by professors and teaching assistants. “You only get out what you put in when you write”, says Benavides, “be serious and grind, it makes the difference”.

Bruce Ballenger has a problem with getting his students to write badly. Something he wishes they'd do, at least at first. Not all of his colleagues share his wishes. On contrary it's not uncommon to hear condemnation of students work. He comments that he thinks there's a bit of elitism among those that do so. Mostly by those that focus more on simple mistakes instead of what the writer is actually saying, maybe it's out of lack of interest.

This article shows great details of how bad writing can be fixed. The article begins by showing logos of what high school and college students are struggling with the most. The reason is that it states key examples of what the students at New Dorp high school aren’t good at. The article shows a lot of opinion from teachers by telling their ways of fixing the students. It is also repetitive by saying that the main reason the kids are not good writers is because they are lazy. In certain ways, this article is using pathos by the teachers. I do think the writer could have used more proven facts.

When I was reading Writing is Easy by Steve Martin, I was thinking if writing was actually that easy. Then I finished the article and realized that writing will never be easy. Mr. Martin examples on how to make writing easier make no sense. His tip to getting over writers block gets the writer nowhere. He says “got to an already published novel and find a sentence that you absolutely adore. Copy it down into your manuscript” (Martin). What he is saying is plagiarism. If I was to use this method to overcome writer block I would be thrown out of college. I still believe that writer block is real because even the greatest authors struggle with writers block.

Ballenger an accurate statement when he said that “Most of us have lurking in our past some high priest of good grammar whose angry scribbling occupied the margins of our paper.” Most teachers overlooked what we had written and just looked for grammatical errors. This always made me feel like my writing was never good enough. This discouraged when it came to writing papers because I always felt like I was just writing to have my essay covered in errors that I needed to fix. After getting so many red markings on my essays I always questioned my writing. In my head I could not figure out what I was doing wrong and I did not know how to fix my writing. It became really stressful to write essays and I always dreaded when

Writing is a process, not just a final product. “All good writers write” shitty first drafts (LaMott 221). The first try for most things is not perfect, but there is almost always something to be taken from it; to be learned. Students are driven by result, where final grades determine success. By doing so, often times students miss the point of education.

1. At the beginning of the essay Merrill seems to be a bit bashful about poor writing. But Merrill also uses “Poor” and “Principle” in his title “The Principle of Poor Writing.” This irony shows that it can be a negative or positive. Another example of Merrill using irony can be found on page 428 “Many scientists actually do write poorly, but they probably perform by ear without perceiving clearly how their results are achieved.” Merrill’s title, introduction or advice did not tip me off because many people in today’s society do struggle with writing.

Have you ever wondered whether a writer’s voice and the standard rules of academic writing can exist on the same page? According to Dr. Debra Pena, English Professor, University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) and Mathew Teorey, English Professor, University of New Mexico and the author of "Using Freshman Composition to Analyze What Students Really Know about Grammar" a writer’s voice and the process of academic writing can exist on the same page (Personal Communications February 13, 2017, Teorey 2). However, my first essay In Freshman Composition II titled, “Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE): Is it the New Death Sentence for Future Athletes Playing Sports in America?” where I lost the power of my voice to the process of academic writing.

Writing varies from a text message to a novel. Writers often have a difficult task in creating a piece of work that truly identifies the meaning of good writing. Every good writer usually starts with the basics such as genre, audience, rhetorical situation, and reflection of the piece. Throughout this semester, we have gone through all of these key terms in great detail with each new assignment that has come our way. In doing this, not only as students but also as writers, we have come to create our own theory of writing. Every writer has a different theory of writing though most are very similar. Now, at this point in the semester after doing countless journals, in-class exercises, and final assignments, I think I have figured out my own

In the beginning, there was… disgust, as I walk up the steep stairs toward the English 1 classroom the only thing I thought was, how did I get here? I felt ashamed of myself that I even had to take this transfer class. It was unequivocal, one of the worst feelings I had felt since the death of My Great Grandfather. Then, for the first time when had an essay that sadly I simply wrote in a day; my thought processing at the time was to sit, write, laugh, then let it ‘simmer' down and then check for grammar mistakes, obviously trying wasn't in the cards. To me, it never will be, until I reread one of the Lind essays, and then the Pope excerpt. Although these two seem extremely different on the writing spectrums, I assure they are connected in