writing skills - why can't people write??

I count myself lucky that I have a good command of the English language - my writing skills have been my bread and butter for years. That said, I had an unconventional schooling experience which was extremely literature orientated.

Part of writing well is having broad exposure to an array of prose, not just literature which I don't think high school students get enough of - and if they do, they hate it, so it's not exactly helping. It's not enough to put sentences together, you need to have vocabulary also. But if I was forced to read To Kill A Mockingbird (for the sake of example), instead of getting to drop it and choose a different, more interesting book, I would have learned nothing and been miserable. I had a strong voice entering university, but it's taken the four years to develop - journalism and everything else were great for that, writing every day on top of school assignments.

All that said, my first year at uni I had to take an English course (I AP'ed out of two of the three required courses) and it was absolute hell. People did not know how to write. What you're taught to pass tests and pass high school English is this absolutely horrific five paragraph formulaic essay wherein each five sentence paragraph has an introduction and conclusion. You're essentially restating yourself for all of the essay. Total garbage.

I don't know if that same formula is taught in UK schools, but for the love of all that's good and holy I would hope bad writing is just because students aren't writing - not that they're being taught something which won't help them in the real world.

I agree with therani. I learned how to write by my reading other people's work and trying to amalgamate everyone's best bits.

I don't have much respect for the way English is taught in high school in the US. While I did well in English class, there were always students who did better than me, yet I was always the one who wrote the best papers in other courses and got the most positive comments on my stories and poetry. According to the people I work with, one of my greatest strengths is being able to communicate complicated topics in a way that's clear, interesting and useful to the audience. No English teacher ever helped me to do that.

I graded undergraduate essays as a TA in the US, and in my experience, freshman essays were, by and large, CRAP.  Badly written, badly structured.  They came on in leaps and bounds before they graduated with a degree, though.  It seemed to me that many weren't getting good instruction in writings skills in high school.  At least they were getting them in Uni, I suppose. I should clarify, I'm not picking on teachers.  And I'm sure it's largely dependent on which HS you go to.  I don't think you can overvalue writing skills, as they are the basic method of communication in all professions. 

All that said, my first year at uni I had to take an English course (I AP'ed out of two of the three required courses) and it was absolute hell. People did not know how to write. What you're taught to pass tests and pass high school English is this absolutely horrific five paragraph formulaic essay wherein each five sentence paragraph has an introduction and conclusion. You're essentially restating yourself for all of the essay. Total garbage.

It stinks but a lot of teaching nowadays is geared to the standardized tests which the teachers don't like!

We have to teach our students that formula, but I'm glad we switched programs so that we also get to teach them other ways of writing, which will hopefully make them more well-rounded writers.

Something weird happened the other day, and I wonder if it has to do with British education being so specialised:

I was out to lunch with a bunch of workmates, and a guy who apparently has a pyschology degree started explaining the Oedipus and Electra complexes to everyone (it was related to the conversation) and everyone else was acting like this was brand new information, and that he was absolutely brilliant and was an expert in psychology for knowing anything about Freud.  I didn't say anything because I didn't want to sound snooty or make him feel bad (perhaps the other people felt the same and were trying to be nice), but all I could think was that this is something the average American kid learns in junior high school.

Can a bunch of educated, professional British people have gone all the way through university without ever having learned this? 

Can a bunch of educated, professional British people gone through university without ever having learned this? 

Yes. I was never taught that stuff at school.  At Uni, we studied a tiny bit of Freud in Women's Studies (that was in New Zealand, mind you, not here where a BA is similar to the US in structure) but really unless you studied psychology at some level, you'd not be likely to come across this information in your general education.  At most British unis, you only study the subject of your degree, eg, psychology or sociology or history or whatever, there's no "minor" like in the US and not usually many opportunities to take any papers from other departments.

FWIW I first heard of Oedipus when I had a boyfriend who was in a band called "oedipus Wallaby" !!

How unusual.

When I went to university, you had to complete 120 credits total, of which I think only around 40-60 had to be in classes in your major. You were expected to do a significant amount of work in advanced classes unrelated to your major.

The Freud stuff is something that you would be expected to know, at a very basic level,  even if you never went to university at all. 

I wonder if this is something that we Americans should be conveying in our CVs, e.g. if someone with a degree in History should be pointing out somewhere that as part of this degree they've taken courses in Advanced Organic Chemistry,  Chinese Literature, etc.

I don't see why the Oedipal complex would be taught in the UK to students, other than those studying psychology A level.  I would assume most people have heard of Oedipus; we had a Greek mythology book in our school library which I latched onto at about 9 years old, which is my excuse.  But I don't think that schools generally teach basic Freud.  But I don't think this is really important.  I am more shocked at my peers who can't do long division!

Vicky

When I went to university, you had to complete 120 credits total, of which I think only around 40-60 had to be in classes in your major. You were expected to do a significant amount of work in advanced classes unrelated to your major.

But all universities are different, even within the US. At my university, the only required courses were within your concentration (we didn't call it a major). If you were going to concentrate in English Lit, for instance, you need never take a science or maths course.

I don't see why the Oedipal complex would be taught in the UK to students, other than those studying psychology A level.  I would assume most people have heard of Oedipus; we had a Greek mythology book in our school library which I latched onto at about 9 years old, which is my excuse.  But I don't think that schools generally teach basic Freud.  But I don't think this is really important.  I am more shocked at my peers who can't do long division!

Vicky

I think there are some things that every reasonably well-educated person should know - like Newton's three laws of motion or the plot of Hamlet. You miss out on a lot when you don't recognise allusions to other things. You also miss the opportunity to take what you know from one field of learning and apply it to a problem in another field.

Chary, if you didn't have to take a science or maths course with an English lit concentration, did you at least have to have a lot of science/math courses in high school in order to be admitted?  What would be the lowest level of science or math education you could have and still get a bachelor's degree? 

ETA: For those who don't know basic Freud, do you appreciate what it means to call someone anal retentive? 

I went to art college in the US (I have a BFA in painting).  I did not have to take a single math or science class in college.  I did take Chemistry and Algebra in high school--I did ok, but it was a huge struggle.  In art college I had to write some essays in Art History and Creative Writing.  Art History was required, Creative Writing was an elective.  I had strong writing skills because I did very well in high school in those types of things and also it was something I had a natural proficency for, unlike math and science.

As far as basic Freud, that is not something one would learn in high school or even college unless you took a basic psychology class.  If it wasn't for my own post college studying (study and reading I did and still do for my own pleasure and growth as an individual) I would not have known about Freud, Jung, Women's studies and many other related topics.  Education should never stop when your school / university days are over.

I agree with Professor Potts that things like Oedipus and basic Freud are important to understand, but I suspect that is because they are things that greatly interest me.  Someone else may feel I am uneducated because I don't know how to build a stone wall or how to plant vegetables.

If you get an art degree at an art college, you are more likely to not have to take math or science or whatever. I started my BFA at a state Uni (Penn State) where they did require math, science, etc. But I finished my degree at an art college where they required humanities (art history, lit, psych) but not anything else. So I got the best of both worlds!

At my high school the average student would have taken either basic psych or sociology. If you were having problems with the basic, average classes, though, you would probably end up missing out on some of those 'electives'.

All in all, IMHO, I still think the US system is more well-rounded for the average and above average student.

balmerhon--I started out at Penn State, too and then switched to an art college!  I'm sending you a PM....

Chary, if you didn't have to take a science or maths course with an English lit concentration, did you at least have to have a lot of science/math courses in high school in order to be admitted?  What would be the lowest level of science or math education you could have and still get a bachelor's degree? 

My university didn't mandate a specific minimum requirement of math or science courses to be taken at the high school level. Obviously, I took the classes that were required by my high school. It was a pretty competitive university, but one that put more emphasis on learning than on grades and test scores. It didn't use GPAs at all.

I'm almost sure my art college didn't care about GPA's either.  Nor did it care much about SAT scores.  My art portfolio was the main consideration.