Secina Afeworki

In her essay, Elizabeth Wardle writes that it is impossible to teach in “general” and that it is foolish & harmful to make it seem that way. In simple terms, Wardle’s argument makes complete sense. (Wardle 30) Every element of writing is specific whether it’s the setting, the structure, the audience, etc; no piece of writing can be generic. With that being said, Avia Freedom and Christine Adam from Carleton University have studied the differences between targeted learning such as case studies & fact-based scenarios and real workplace writing such as reports. (Freedman and Adam 1)The question at hand is how can teachers learn to try NOT to teach writing generally & incorporate more specificity.

When high school students enter college, they are faced with the harsh reality that college is nothing like high school; from class structure to your relationship with your teacher to class material, nothing is the same. With that being said, one of the hardest subjects to teach is writing. It must be tailored to every student’s needs and the development of writing techniques requires much longer than the time your average semester gives you. With careful consideration & reading several essays, I have come to the conclusion that the best way to teach writing is to set up specific scenarios for the student that can be categorized under a general writing assignment.

The hardest thing a college student has to adapt to is writing. In high school, English teachers have to teach their students writing techniques that will ensure flying colors on exams & college acceptance. These essays have an introductory paragraph, 3 body paragraphs, & a conclusion paragraph. College, on the contrary, doesn’t have so many restrictions. There’s an assignment, a format, & a word count leaving the rest of the paper up to you. Adjusting to that is already hard enough. In his book, Keith Hjortshoj talks a lot about this. In the first chapter, Hjortshoj writes, “High school teachers can’t accurately predict your college experience, and college teachers can’t reliably imagine your high school background because high schools, colleges, and the transitions between any two of them are actually quite diverse.” (Hjortshoj 9) Simply put, because high school teachers can’t predict your college education path and because your college professor can’t guess what you were taught in high school, it’s up to the student to step up to the plate & alter their high school techniques to better fit their new college agenda. That’s a lot of pressure to put on a student and the sad truth is that there’s not much a teacher can do to help the student in that area, however, if assignments were more tailored to that student’s interests, it could make the transition that much easier. 

It may seem like such an impossible task to accomplish but imagine the results. For example, let’s say the general assignment is a research project. A marketing major could research & write about various marketing strategies & highlight what they think is the best one. A fashion major could write about the ever-changing industries & a strategy they could use to stay on top of it (it being the fashion world). Career-specific writing assignments are pretty rare up until a student’s junior or even senior year in college & when it is assigned, it’s usually in the career-specific class that the student is writing rather than in their English or writing class. The downside would be that teachers would have a harder time grading these papers, but the overall outcome could result in more engaged students who are not only engaged in their writings, but also in the class.

In their essay, Learning to Write Professionally “Situated Learning” and the Transition from University to Professional Discourse, Avia Freedom and Christine Adam talked a lot about this specific topic. In their research, they found “…Even in courses where the instructor is directly simulating a workplace task through a factually based case study, the nature of the writing is fundamentally different because of the radical differences between the two rhetorical contexts….” (Freedman and Adam)The research done by this team confirms that career specific assignments don’t necessarily accurately represent an actual workplace, however, with that being said, it does give a student familiarity with the subject. Freedom & Adam pointed out that the biggest difference between factual case studies & real-life workplace situations is that case studies are done with the intention of learning whereas real-life workplaces are real-life workplaces with a job that needs to get done. (Freedman and Adam)There is no changing that for a student, but that doesn’t necessarily knock the ball out of the field just yet. Let’s imagine ourselves in another scenario. Let’s say we are employees at Starbucks. Personally, I’m somewhat of a Starbucks addict and I know more about the coffee world & Starbucks than your average joe. Now, when I begin my employment, I’m not going to immediately be able to make every drink perfectly. That would require practice in my workplace, but my knowledge in coffee gives me the upper hand because now I know what tastes good together and I know what doesn’t which makes it that much easier to recommend drinks, learn how to make drinks, & perfect my technique. The same goes for any career out there. Familiarity does not guarantee perfectly tailored work, but it does guarantee experience! The benefits students can receive from career-specific assignments are endless!

Citations

• Wardle, Elizabeth. “You Can Learn To Write In General.” Bad Ideas About Writing, West Virginia University Libraries Digital Publishing Institute, Morgantown, WV, pp. 30–32. 
• Freedman, Aviva, and Christine Adam. Learning to Write Professionally “Situated Learning” and the Transition from University to Professional Discourse. 1 Oct. 1996, www.deepdyve.com/lp/sage/learning-to-write-professionally-ewEPHE0oXl. 

Hjortshoj, Keith. The Transition to College Writing. Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2009.