My students, excluding maybe one or two, told me that they were average, or mediocre, or middle of the road writers. Most of them told me that good writing, or the metric with which to evaluate writing depends on sentence structure, or coherence, or generally grammar. When pushed to examine our writing class alongside this metric many of them noticed the direction I was looking, and started to push against it or re-evaluate what they said. I don’t think anyone entirely reworked or redefined what writing is or what good writing is during or after our conversations but I think many of them left not really knowing what they meant or what they wanted to say.

A few of my students specifically talked about their process. One, mentioned to me that for a long time he always had an experience not unlike the “blockers” in Rose’s essay. He would spend hours staring at a blank page, unable to write anything. We didn’t diagnose the root cause of this but he did say that at this point that he had come up a tentative solution. He now does one of two options, either he does an extreme form of brainstorm (we referenced it as word vomiting) or he transcribes the notes from the class he is writing for and then uses the content on the page as a jumping off point. For him, staring at the blank, white abyss is what shuts him down the most.

Some students referenced the ability to enter a sort of “flow state” as indicative of a strong writer. Someone who can write efficiently or without pausing is a good writer. This would make me personally a pretty bad writer, but I wasn’t really quite sure how to assess or respond to their statement besides a weak hmm. 
I think the quickest summary of what my students are thinking when they sit down to write is “what am I supposed to be saying/writing right now?” I think in some ways this aligns with what I’ve been telling them, or the curriculum I’ve been delivering to them. I’ve been telling them over and over to figure out who their audience is. But also, I’ve been trying to break down the idea that they are supposed to write a particular thing, to one particular person (namely me). Like Rose suggests, I’ve been operating within the mindset that if they have super particular and rigid parameters then they will ultimately be stymied and confused. But, now I sort wonder if all my declarations about audience are actually significantly different from the idea that they are supposed to write something very specific. I’m not quite sure how to articulate this distinction them or that I’m not exacerbating any writer’s block.