Writing Amid Lit Article

While reading Writing Amid Literature Part One: Other Than Essays, I found myself agreeing with all that he had to say. I think that by not allowing students to be creative and not allowing them to break away from the dreaded essay every time, it will not allow students to enjoy the subject. Unfortunately, for many of my friends their least favorite subject was English during high school and middle school which I feel shouldn’t be the case. Students should be able to express themselves in English class because thinking about it, they cannot exactly express themselves in Math or Social Studies, the facts are the facts and many times they cannot be creative and think outside the box. Two things that I want to talk about that I could see myself doing is the idea of having them mimic an old passage or form of an author and making it their own and more modern, and also the short part on prose. One quote that really got my attention was, “Imitating the forms of professionals in fun, instructive, and confidence-building. The model usually provides just the right amount of framework to lead students into their own language” I agreed with this because I myself remember doing this. We had read a Shakespearean sonnet and then had to mimic the form, and it made me appreciate his style and diction a lot more. Lastly, I could see myself using the journal entries, news article or the fictional paper. These are very fun activities that students can do to be creative while they also have to get into the character’s heads and really understand them. Students should not hate English class and only have to write strict-style essays, but instead engage in different types of writing as well to keep English fun and enjoyable as well.