To Teach a Writer

What is the most difficult thing to teach in the teaching of writing, and how do you go about teaching that?

Earnest Hemingway once said to an aspiring writer "You shouldn't write if you can't write." Good advice, but not particularly helpful to those of us who are in the business of teaching writing. Of course, this raises the question: what exactly does it mean to be able to write?

The idea is ephemeral enough in itself. Surely anyone who is able to put words on the page (or on the screen, as the case may be) is able to write. And yet one will find many, including some of our students, who will shrug their shoulders and admit "I can't write." What they really mean is that they can't write well.

When one imagines the idea of a writer, they may picture a moody fellow in a darkened room, drinking coffee or perhaps something stronger, typing lines of tortured verse or stories that cut to the quick of what it is to be human. And certainly, this fellow is a kind of writer. One may also picture those who are recognized to be great writers. They may think of Shakespeare or Milton, of Austen or Twain. And just are certainly, these people were writers. Yet even the greatest teacher in the world, though they labored long and though the students worked diligently, could not produce a roomful of Shakespeares, or even of J.K. Rowlings. Writing is something that must come from the individual, and so each writer must be different. So too, it must admitted that talent plays some part.

However, we are not here only to teach those who have within them the potential to become the next Great American Novelists. Some people do not like to write. It does not come naturally to them, and as much as this grieves me I am very similar in math. I do not like it, and it does not come naturally to me. I am not the next Einstein or Newton. Yet for all that, I was taught to do math at some level. I can multiply and divide and even work equations upon occasion. For each math class I took, I was a better mathematician by the end of it. Just so, our students are capable of improving their writing, regardless of whether or not it comes naturally to them.

Perhaps the most difficult thing about teaching writing is that it is so difficult to define what good writing is. We may say Hemingway was a good writer, and read and analyze his book in the hopes of discovering his secret. But we may also say that Hawthorne was a good writer, though his style was vastly different. We must teach what good writing is in much the same way that a parent teaches a child the concept of beauty. What is beauty? It may be difficult to arrive at an exact definition, yet we know it when we see it. That sunset is beautiful. That woman is beautiful. That song is beautiful. In the same way, we learn from seeing multiple examples what constitutes good writing.

This is why I believe that one of the most crucial aspects of teaching writing lies in encouraging our students to read. In reading they can experience for themselves what good writing is, and so learn, to varying degrees, to imitate it. Good reading begets good writing.