By Anna Vyshegorodtseva
Every single writer has something that influenced or continues to influence them, explains Andrea A. Lunsford in their article “Writing Is Informed by Prior Experience.” Everyone had some episode in their life that left a great impact on what they think about writing, Lunsford states:
For many people, it turned out, prior experience with writing had been negative, and this attitude and these feelings went with them throughout their lives so that they dreaded writing or felt inadequate when faced with a writing task. (54)
There is also personal life that changes the way people write and view writing, Lunsford continues. They conclude by saying that prior knowledge in writing always plays a very important part. Writers use the strategies they are accustomed to in their new task, Lunsford explains, however, a situation of this new task may be different, so the old understanding of writing would no longer be useful.
Furthermore, personal knowledge of writing, personal way of seeing writing through a prism of family, culture and environment can form individual authors, who will continue dealing with new things using old knowledge, argues Kathleen Blake Yancey in their article “Writers’ Histories, Processes, and Identities Vary.” Writing and learning writing went through different stages: from prehistoric times of drawing on the cave walls to the today’s schooling systems, which changed the perspective of viewing writing and exercising it, Yancey discusses, though even nowadays, when the environment seems the same, writer’s techniques vary.
Everyone has their own history and identity, every person is individual and special, which makes it impossible to create a system that would allow all the writers to develop in exactly the same way, Yancey states, “neither writers nor their contexts are static: both change over time, which introduces yet another source of variation and which also means that variation is the normal situation for composing and composers” (54).
Wiring is indeed very personal. Once typical way of learning to write cannot be applied to every single student because they are very different. Some may reach a certain level of writing skill faster than others. Some can linger on one stage not knowing how to get over it and learn something new, since without that skill the next one cannot be understood. Schools should provide a measuring system that would place students with approximately equal level of writing skills together.
However, one way of teaching still may not work fully for all of them. Some may need a different approach than others. They may be on the same level but have special ways of learning. The problem of schooling systems in the world has been brought up and lingered in a status of a question to consider for a long while now. A system as a way to teach does not always work. I myself am homeschooled, though I did attend a public school for the first seven years, and that left me with a scar on my psyche, because that system obviously did not work for me. Yet, I was not alone.
System is a hard thing. System that would work for all is impossible. Some may argue about it, but the world’s history continues to prove it to be so. Writing can be taught systematically, only if teachers will find a way to avoid the system or step aside from it even while teaching by its techniques, because we all are very different.
