James wrote a spot on description of what I think writing should be in our classrooms:
…don’t we ultimately want our students not even to think about the words and grammar before they talk and write? Like while I am writing this sentence the words are just there and they just come out. There is absolutely no conscious working happening, except, perhaps, for stylistic things….
The source of output in speech and writing is the unconscious mind. It is a natural process, one that happens without the person being aware of doing it, as James describes. Lots of auditory and reading input set that up. To consider those four skills as things that should he “taught” to the conscious mind in a conscious way, and be worked with, manipulated, etc. is the height of folly.
Yet how many teachers today across America are doing exactly that – trying to get kids to consciously manipulate their writing and speech? It makes me want to bring a big fist down on their heads. It’s like asking a farmer to grow crops in a week and if they can’t they get a bad grade. Screw that. Then the kids learn to hate one of God’s greatest gifts to us – joyful language.
If we approached one of these teachers who make their kids THINK about language, instead of doing it the way James describes above where after enough input they don’t have to think about production at all, they just write and speak, the conversation might go like this:
Q. What do you do for a living?
A. I make kids feel stupid.