This feels somewhat similar to my last post where I peered into my students’ heads and watched their inner critics berate them into paralysis. From talking to them, I imagined them facing these harsh judges, speaking in the voice of English teachers past, who tell them their work isn’t good enough, saying things like “provide better evidence” or “awkward,” but do not themselves provide evidence or solutions or what exactly makes one thing awkward and another one smooth.

It was interesting to read about rules and plans for this week too, because I think I heard a lot about both as I talked to my students about writing. I wasn’t really sure what I was hearing at the time, but in hindsight, I think they were saying more or less, “what are the rules of good writing, and can you teach them to me?”

Short answer: “No.”

At the time, however, I responded by encouraging them to do extension projects where they wrote either a piece of fiction, or a persuasive piece, or even an analytical essay, and we would go over it together. Getting better at your writing is really an individual project, I told them, best achieved one-on-one and not something I know how to devote class time to. Maybe what I really wanted to say was that first, I needed to see what rules and plans they had, which ones were useful, which ones were unhelpful. I don’t want to prescribe an algorithm for correct writing. Mostly because there isn’t one. But also because I’m more interested in them developing their individual voice and finding joy in writing than in folding them into little boxes of right and wrong.

The other interesting thing about reading the Rose was to reflect on my own very flexible problem-solving methods. I’ve always reacted against strict rules and tried to follow my own intuition. I’ve also never really faced crippling writers’ block. So maybe there is some relation in the way I approach my own writing with curiosity and flexibility to how I don’t really struggle to produce.

I do struggle with judgement, but that’s another story for another day.