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William Molnar
Writing Difficulties
By
William Molnar
Franklin Roosevelt said in his first Inaugural address that
there is nothing to fear but fear itself.
When sitting down to write a piece of work I begin to feel a lot
of fear. I ask myself what is it
that is giving me the fear! is it that I am afraid that I won"t
be able to say what it is I need to say#
Is it I am afraid of what others might think of my writing# $r
could it be that I might develop
writer"s block and can"tdevelop my thoughts into words# %here
are a lot of reasons why students
have difficulties writing. For me itis past educational
e&perience. I was in advanced 'nglish
coursesfor all ( years of )igh *chool. I spent very little time
learning how to write effectively. I
would have to say that at least +,- of the courses focused on
literature! for e&le Freshman
year was devoted to the 'liabethan 'ra. *ophomore year was the
year we studied mostly
*hakespeare and books like /anterbury %ales and Beowulf. My
0unior and *enior year was also
literature based. When it came time to go to college I had to
take a composition e&am prior to
admission! I failed the e&am and was forced to take remedial
non1credit 'nglish and found it
e&tremely difficult. I realied I had no writing
e&perience at all and was afraid to write because
everything I wrote would be returned to me with red marks all
over the place. %his placedmore
fear in me. I think the number one reason why students have
difficulties writing is 2ust the fear
of writing.
$ther fears can grow in other ways based on reaction of another
person. If I write a composition
and get a bad reaction from my readers this can grow into fear.
I would wonder why the readers
are reacting the way they do. Is it because of the topic at
hand# Is it that there is poor grammar#
/ould there be plagiarism# Whatever the reason it is placing
more fear in me. It wasn"t until
7/21/2019 Writing Difficulties
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William Molnar
my years in graduate school that I felt comfortable with my
writing skills. If it wasn"t for that
remedial course and the wonderful professors I had in graduate
school then I don"t think I would
have the courage to try to write the way I do today.
%here are various strategies for addressing difficulties of
scholarly writing. 3s a teacher even
though I teach music and not compositionwe emphasie a lot on
writing skills. 3s a teacher in
an urban district the writing skills are e&tremely poor.
Most of our 4thgrade students are writing
at a 5rdand (thgrade level. %he one strategy that we teach
students to use is a writing web or a
6enn diagram. %his diagram consists of a central theme in a
circle in the middle of the diagram
and various threads coming out of the central circle like spikes
on a wheel. %hese threads direct
the students to various issues in the essay they are
writing.
%he second strategy that can help is brainstorming. We teach our
students to 2ust 2ot down what
comes in their head whether it be asentence fragment or a
complete sentence. 3fter the student
has e&hausted all his thoughts he goes back to the beginning
and begins to tie in the fragments.
'ventually the fragments and incomplete thoughts will become
sentences and soon an essay
will develop.
7sing these two methods is a start to help with 8uality writing.
%he only area the writer needs to
be aware of is plagiarism. %he writer needs to be very conscious
of what he9she is writing when
writing based on something that was read. If one is going to use
an e&act 8uote from a reading
be sure to cite the source. %he best way to avoid plagiarism is
to try and use one"s own words
and ideas and give credit for copied or paraphrased
material.
