The other day, as we were planning out the course of her most recent English essay, one of my students mused “You know, Bryan, I don’t know if I like writing essays.” Fair enough! Every person certainly does not need to love the often-torturous process of writing. Yet as I talked with my student about the difference between writing essays for class and writing for yourself, I couldn’t help but reflect on all the ways I’ve seen students struggle with writing over my past three years as an educational coach. There are of course the usual pitfalls of bad grammar and syntax (it’s an epidemic), writer’s block, and never having read enough to internalize good examples, but the more I work with students, the more I’m noticing bad writing habits baked into their very instruction. Sometimes it feels like students are charging into a minefield laid out for them by their teachers. Needless to say, I’ve become concerned with the state of secondary humanities instruction, and indeed for these students once they arrive at college and experience an inevitable, painful re-wiring of their writing process they thought they were just beginning to figure out. If you will indulge me, then, what follows is a reflection on the actively bad writing instructions I have seen students receive from the very people who are supposed to be teaching them best practices.... Read More