Caroline Breashears, English
Interviewed by Darby Santamour
Darby: What writing classes did you take as a student?
Breashears: In high school and college, three courses shaped my writing in key ways. My high school journalism class and experience on the paper staff taught me how to focus and how to modify my writings for different sub-genres (editorials, news stories, features). My college composition course taught me writing as process: writing, revising, and then revising again. And my experience in courses at Cambridge taught me differences in audience: what works for an American reader might not work for a British one.
D: What have you learned about writing from your teaching?
B: While teaching, I discovered that the most common problem for students writing academic papers was coming up with something to say. "I don't know what to write about," they told me again and again. That's why then and now I begin by emphasizing questions: good questions lead to good theses, and good theses lead to good essays. Careful attention to ideas at this stage will prevent many problems later, since clear thinking often results in clearer writing.
I also discovered that students benefit from making the writing process more personalized: learning their own writing styles, processes, weaknesses, strengths. To that end, I worked with students to identify their styles and to construct ongoing revision checklists. The checklists would note recurring problems in their essays along with strategies for eliminating them. For instance, Suzy Q might repeatedly write essays with a split focus. John Doe has a habit of not backing up assertions with evidence. The checklist provided a reminder of things to do as well as goals for improving their writing generally. Achieving those goals, they crossed them off their checklists, very satisfied.
D: What are your dos and don'ts for writing?
B: I'm afraid that detailing them all would result in a book, especially since I am constantly trying to improve the way I teach writing. I will say, however, that writing is such a complex process that there is no single way to teach a writing course. A course might focus on just style or grammar or a certain kind of essay, and it could be perfectly lovely.
There are just two things that seem to me out of place in an academic writing course. One is to teach students that they cannot write--that some people have "it," and some people don't. The other is to make students write your own ideas rather than teaching them to develop and shape theirs. A writing course should open up possibilities, not close them down.