Josh Bernoff: How we really should teach writing: "Here��...

Josh Bernoff: How we really should teach writing: "Here���s a radical idea.... Teach... students to write stuff that they���ll actually need to write in life or in an��office:��emails, blog posts, social media posts, marketing copy, research reports, and presentations...

...Take time from��analyzing Plato,��Great Expectations��and��Catcher in the Rye and spend it instead��analyzing great non-fiction writers.... Assign them to write their own��practical, how-to blog posts.... Tweet for a week. Practice short, grammatically correct, practical tweets with links to promote a cause.... Assign students��to write emails that accomplish something.... Require students not just to��research, but to edit Wikipedia based on the results.

For longer pieces, students must prepare��with��fleshed-out ���fat outlines��� or�����treatments,��� not sterile outlines that prepare you for nothing. Train on clever Google research tricks. Write final documents with embedded links along with citations. Turn in all assignments electronically. Grade them with redlines in MS Word or Google Docs, the way it really works in an office. When I was hiring, I would have��paid a lot more for students trained��this way. Why aren���t we teaching this way? (If anybody reading this is actually teaching this way, please tell us about it.) In case you think this is impossible: I���ve already taught this class once. My teen students ate this stuff up....

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