Overdrive: That Classroom Blogging Grail, and How Teaching and Grading Obstruct It

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Overdrive: That Classroom Blogging Grail, and How Teaching and Grading Obstruct It
Oh goodness yes: "Anybody who's taught high school English should know why most students hate to write in schools. It's because they're taught to write badly." And even more to the point: "If I assigned any of you to write about ideas that aren't self-selected, in forms that aren't self-expressive, for an over-worked audience of one that puts two or three words, random red hieroglyphs, and a permanently-branded number into a ledger that threatens to determine your fate, face it: you would learn to hate writing (and school) too." I want to teach writing some time. I used to teach writing (it was a class called 'Critical Thinking' but I kind of repurposed the content, focusing on helping students pass their other classes rather than forcing them to pass mine). More...