7/23/2019 Writer's Journal Entry #1

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Writer's Journal Entry #1

Sunday, 30 August 2015, 8:41 PM

byWill Misenheimer

 In light of reading "Unteaching Writing Myths" and "Students' Right to Their Own Language," Ihave come to the conclusion that many of the ideas expressed in the readings were very accurate. In

fact, I feel that many topics, such as the main theme in "Students' Right to Their

Own Language," hit a sore spot that needed to be reflected upon. For example, it is quite certain in

our society that many speakers of the so-called "Standard English" look upon other dialects with

inferiority, an act that I have been guilty of at times. Our society has praised the British dialect of the

English language, while other, pieced together and choppy dialects are looked at with disapproval.

The reading does a great job of exposing this truth, and further suggesting that it is the content and

idea of the writer that is to be graded, while the insignificant troubles, such as misspelled words,

should be looked at with a more forgiving attitude. However, misspelled words and grammatical

errors may be too distracting if they occur very frequently. I believe that "Unteaching Writing Myths"also discussed key points that I can easily relate to. I can vividly remember my English teachers

preaching the 5-point paragraph. While I believe that this format may be a good starting point and

instructive tool, it would be silly for every argument to have exactly 3 points and body paragraphs.

While it is vital to have sentences that outline or provide a main idea for the argument, it would be

ridiculous to limit a thesis statement to the traditional format (ie. Baseball is the best sport becauseit

is fun,it is played by several countries, andit is our nation's pasttime.) To effectively handle the

situation, there needs to be more application to real-life writing in the high school stages and less

direct reiteration of the 5-point paragraph.