The Poison Fish (1970)
kristisiegel.com
kristisiegel.com
There's some truth to this, although his protests are misaligned. Regimented English classes are not the proper breeding grounds for writing with individualistic expression, they are simply to teach students how to communicate eloquently. Essays and research papers are meant only to communicate and persuade, not enrich and entertain, as one commenter has implied.
If one wishes to dine with Twain and Bonte, they can do so in the myriad of creative writing courses available to them. But there is simply no practical use in the idealistic battle between creatives and the man, the corporates, the zombies here.
It's a noble pursuit and should flourish, but it's barking up the wrong tree.
English teachers consider writing to be something that needs to flow and be emotive, but for the vast majority of tasks it should simply be an efficient way of conveying some piece of information.
Basically, students are optimising their writing for teachers approval, which isn't useful for the vast majority of real life, like the example of asking for directions; "Will you show me the most effective way to the bus stop?" vs. "How do I get to the bus stop?"
To make it worse, all the teachers (having previously been good students) use these same words, and so the students naturally try to mimic the teachers. (Personal observation: science writing is like this x100, packed to the gills with unnecessary words.)
Further, the author contends the problem isn't just too much complexity, but that mimicking this form distracts from the important pursuits in writing: telling a story, expressing your own unique experience, writing something memorable and enjoyable.
A phrase that stuck out to me was: "Most English teachers have been trained to correct students' writing, not to read it" – which is challenging, because to read the writing you have to engage with the content not just the form, and then having engaged with the content you can critique the form now that you have some idea what the writer is trying to say. The reading can't be rote if the writing isn't to be rote, but try that when you have a stack of poorly written stuff made by kids. It's also challenging because the writer doesn't necessarily have anything to say when the writing is assigned, so you might search for something that isn't there.