No reading whatsoever

[breakinglight11]

Every now and then I’ll be reviewing a student’s writing and be gripped with the certainty that “This is a person who does not read.“ At all. Not even in the common sense of “doesn’t read” in they don’t read books much, or as often as they used to (like me.) But does not read anything— not books, not newspapers, not magazines, not scripts, not anything —more than a few lines of very, very informally typed text.

Because if they did, they would know writing does not look like this. Honestly I feel like this is how people really understand how writing works and how it ought to be put together— by observing, constantly and consistently, how other people express ideas in words. Grammar is huge and hard to remember ever detail of, but getting a functional, naturalistic sense of it is a matter of practice and habituation. This is possible even if you don’t know what a participle is or how to diagram a sentence.

I have many students who write with the conventions of speech, which is understandable and has a logic to it, even if it’s not strictly correct. I have many who stick to basic rules so closely it becomes awkward and unnatural. But I swear it’s only in the extreme absence of this absorption that a certain level of struggle with written communication can occur.

And I still don’t have a way to say this that doesn’t come off profoundly judgmentally. Like I’m telling them something that’s wrong about them. And therefore it’s of no educational use.

Comments

[valleyviolet]

I would suspect that it's also going to be a result of some of your students being non-neurotypical. I've known people who were fine readers and who could speak with eloquence, but who wrote barely coherent mess. We don't all interface with the world the same.