Assignment 03
1) Write a brief persuasive essay (5-8 paragraphs) on "Why you can or cannot teach someone how to be a good writer". Include at least one argument from all of the following: the heart, from values, from character, and from reason. You may also include logical fallacies if you think they will be effective in helping you persuade your reader. Identify each "appeal" [argument from... and fallacies] immediately you use it like with brackets and in a different color [like I am doing now]. Be sure to identify your audience before you write your essay. (i.e. Audience: Dr. Malesh OR Audience: The Chronicle of Higher Education OR Audience: My Mother to whom I am explaining why I got a "C" in my writing class).
[Audience: My High School government and Politics Teacher – who would understand the references and arguments presented here.]
You can teach a person to be a good writer you just can’t teach them to be really good. Writing involves a certain amount of intuition and attentiveness to the flow of a piece. If a person cannot tap into that certain creativeness, that artistic truism, then they simply won’ have that edge. Of course one begs to differ that even when one does have that “talent” for lack of a better word, their writing may still be worthless. This is true but it brings the argument back to the original point: Even if a writer is trained to the umpteenth degree, they are unlikely to produce anything that has that extra edge, that spark, the flair, that life because there is one thing that simply cannot be taught and that one thing is a natural in-born talent.
This brings us to our point. A person can be taught to write, they can even be taught to write well but they cannot be taught raw natural talent. Formal training in one’s ability to write and manipulate language in the page consumes roughly one-fifth of a person’s educational life-span. This according to some random statistic I heard as a child and thought about ever since. Even if it’s not true, the implications of such a claim are a formidable enemy to digest. According to this notion, four hours a day – the same time allotment as eating – are spent on writing, grammar, spelling, and the like; every day f a person’s life from about age five to about age twenty-one. It’s no wonder so many rules regulating the page become instinctive. [personal values/conviction] The more interesting fact is that if a person then decided to pursue such avenues in their life’s work they then proceed to double or even triple these commitments. The implication here is that with all this time and effort poured into learning about proper form, style, composition, word-choice, word order, grammer, spelling and so on and so forth, there are bound to be those whose skill with the manipulation of language reaches levels such that their skill may be marked as “unsurpassed.” Indeed great writers can be trained, and their merit shows in their ability to get hired and to get paid.
This however does not count for those who are great writers and had little to no formal training. There are those whose affinity for the written language is what can only be classified as innate. Their ability to compose and to conjure cannot be blamed on years of meticulous training and study. There are those such as Shakespeare who exist in the literary world. They are the writers who possess intuition, creativeness, artistic flair and vision, they have what can only be described as talent, and though many have tried, it is a recognizable difference which cannot be replicated in any semblance of complete form.
[reason] There are those also, speaking of presidential writers, who cannot seem to get it right no matter how many years of training they have. No one will ever measure up to Shakespeare, though many have tried and will continue to. And as educational institutions continue to crank out degree-bearing infants calling themselves writers, the world will continue to idolize the select few “talented” and the few and far between truly genius writers. There will one day be many Michael Gersons (presidential speech writer for Bill Clinton) but there will continue to be few to no Poes.
Even if a writer is trained heavily, dedicates their life to writing better than the rest and obtains degree upon degree, they are unlikely still to produce something which has both precision in it’s form as well as that extra edge that classifies them as having talent because that spark cannot be taught and it is natural in-born talent which is the only thing that separates great from better. [heart] A person can train to be a good writer and that’s the point, it is there that they will stop if the don’t have that passion, that heart. The ability to move people with written words requires this and so much more. [character]It takes dedication and a love of writing to succeed at, and though writing involves intuition and heart. Even if a person can tap into that edge, if they then do not apply themselves to learning proper form, their talent will have been wasted. And of course it comes down to this: What is “talent” without skill, what is skill without talent: worthless. This is true but it brings the argument back to the original point.
[Audience: My High School government and Politics Teacher – who would understand the references and arguments presented here.]
You can teach a person to be a good writer you just can’t teach them to be really good. Writing involves a certain amount of intuition and attentiveness to the flow of a piece. If a person cannot tap into that certain creativeness, that artistic truism, then they simply won’ have that edge. Of course one begs to differ that even when one does have that “talent” for lack of a better word, their writing may still be worthless. This is true but it brings the argument back to the original point: Even if a writer is trained to the umpteenth degree, they are unlikely to produce anything that has that extra edge, that spark, the flair, that life because there is one thing that simply cannot be taught and that one thing is a natural in-born talent.
This brings us to our point. A person can be taught to write, they can even be taught to write well but they cannot be taught raw natural talent. Formal training in one’s ability to write and manipulate language in the page consumes roughly one-fifth of a person’s educational life-span. This according to some random statistic I heard as a child and thought about ever since. Even if it’s not true, the implications of such a claim are a formidable enemy to digest. According to this notion, four hours a day – the same time allotment as eating – are spent on writing, grammar, spelling, and the like; every day f a person’s life from about age five to about age twenty-one. It’s no wonder so many rules regulating the page become instinctive. [personal values/conviction] The more interesting fact is that if a person then decided to pursue such avenues in their life’s work they then proceed to double or even triple these commitments. The implication here is that with all this time and effort poured into learning about proper form, style, composition, word-choice, word order, grammer, spelling and so on and so forth, there are bound to be those whose skill with the manipulation of language reaches levels such that their skill may be marked as “unsurpassed.” Indeed great writers can be trained, and their merit shows in their ability to get hired and to get paid.
This however does not count for those who are great writers and had little to no formal training. There are those whose affinity for the written language is what can only be classified as innate. Their ability to compose and to conjure cannot be blamed on years of meticulous training and study. There are those such as Shakespeare who exist in the literary world. They are the writers who possess intuition, creativeness, artistic flair and vision, they have what can only be described as talent, and though many have tried, it is a recognizable difference which cannot be replicated in any semblance of complete form.
[reason] There are those also, speaking of presidential writers, who cannot seem to get it right no matter how many years of training they have. No one will ever measure up to Shakespeare, though many have tried and will continue to. And as educational institutions continue to crank out degree-bearing infants calling themselves writers, the world will continue to idolize the select few “talented” and the few and far between truly genius writers. There will one day be many Michael Gersons (presidential speech writer for Bill Clinton) but there will continue to be few to no Poes.
Even if a writer is trained heavily, dedicates their life to writing better than the rest and obtains degree upon degree, they are unlikely still to produce something which has both precision in it’s form as well as that extra edge that classifies them as having talent because that spark cannot be taught and it is natural in-born talent which is the only thing that separates great from better. [heart] A person can train to be a good writer and that’s the point, it is there that they will stop if the don’t have that passion, that heart. The ability to move people with written words requires this and so much more. [character]It takes dedication and a love of writing to succeed at, and though writing involves intuition and heart. Even if a person can tap into that edge, if they then do not apply themselves to learning proper form, their talent will have been wasted. And of course it comes down to this: What is “talent” without skill, what is skill without talent: worthless. This is true but it brings the argument back to the original point.
posted by Shannon Hollender @ 5:27 PM
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