Reply to How do you feel about students hiring private writing tutors?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]If it helps them with the process, organizing thoughts, fine. It's not going to make them surpass a child who is naturally an extraordinary writer so don't get upset about it.[/quote]

And what if it does?  Would you be opposed to it then?[/quote]

There is no such thing as a "naturally extraordinary writer." Writers learn to write by reading and writing on a regular basis. It's learned. Rince, repeat. Writing is probably the skill that is most easily learned from experience; unfortunately, there are not many shortcuts for learning how to use language well.

I think a tutor who helps a student to problems in writing and provides individualized feedback can help a great deal. In fact, its lack of such consistent practice and feedback that makes so many students poor at writing. Combined with regular reading, its a great idea.

Of course, this instruction should never include writing essays for students. That goes without saying.

[/quote]

This is PP - I couldn't agree more. The writing instruction happening in the classroom is often quite poor - at least that is what I concluded from teaching and tutoring college freshmen.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure that kind of writing pushed to gifted high school students (the AP essay) is good for very much besides writing AP essays. Alas.

I agree writing can be taughts. But few teachers teach "writing". They give writing assignments and grade them but don't teach brainstorming, mapping, flow charting, etc.

Mostly they say, have a good introductory sentence that states the thesis, a couple of supporting sentences and a conclusion.

Some kids can't become good writers with that type of instruction.[/quote][/quote]

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