Fleming (2002), to find the hard but accurate word on the state of the profession.
He surveyed the field and concluded that the typical composition curriculum is
lacking “substance” and is “intellectually meager” (p. 115).
If instruction and evaluation do not address content, then the only legitimate
factor in assessment is form, or style. This is where grammar instruction comes
in. However, the stress on style forces us to adopt a peculiar view of what con-
stitutes good writing—form without substance, the mechanically correct essay
that contains absolutely nothing worth reading. In an attempt to skirt the inher-
ent problems in this definition, several scholars and many teachers, as already
intimated, have sought to define good writing as “authentic writing,” which ex-
presses an “authentic voice” (see Davis, 2004; Elbow, 1973, 1981; Macrorie,
1970; Coles & Vopat, 1985). “Authentic writing” consists exclusively of per-
sonal experience writing. Lindemann (1985) noted, for example, that “Good
writing is most effective when we tell the truth about who we are” (p. 110). But
as I’ve noted elsewhere (Williams, 2003a), the “authentic writing” that receives
the highest praise seems inevitably to be that in which students reveal their
most painful personal experiences (p. 64). Writing becomes a form of confes-
sion and the teacher a voyeur. Private writing is made public by the misguided
authority of the classroom. A moment’s reflection should prompt us to question
not only how this approach prepares young people for real-world writing tasks
in business, education, and government, but also whether the role of voyeur is
professionally appropriate.
College teachers of 1st-year composition see the consequences of such writ-
ing instruction every year: Students who received good grades in high school
English, where personal experience writing served them well, are stunned
when they get their first papers back with low grades largely because the writ-
ing is vacuous. One unfortunate result is that college teachers in all disciplines
complain bitterly that high school writing instruction fails to teach students
how to produce academic discourse. They blame high school teachers.
It therefore seems that current practices in the public school language arts
curriculum may minister to certain intangible goals, such as convincing large
numbers of students that they are reasonably good writers and thereby artifi-
cially enhancing their self-esteem, but they do not appear to have any beneficial
effect on actual writing performance. Of course, anecdotes from college pro-
fessors may not be compelling, but National Assessment of Educational Prog-
ress (NAEP) data should be. They show that writing skills among our students
at all levels have been in steady decline for more than 20 years. A 1999 assess-
ment of writing in grades 4, 8, and 12 found that the percentages of students
performing at the basic (below average) level were 84, 84, and 78, respectively.
24 CHAPTER 2