Path: utzoo!censor!geac!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!turpin From: turpin@cs.utexas.edu (Russell Turpin) Newsgroups: comp.edu Subject: Re: Against educational fads (was: math credit) Summary: The tool required for writing ... Message-ID: <15607@cs.utexas.edu> Date: 8 Dec 90 22:19:39 GMT References: <15404@cs.utexas.edu> <15425@cs.utexas.edu> <15488@cs.utexas.edu> <39937@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <15541@cs.utexas.edu> <39960@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> Organization: U. Texas CS Dept., Austin, Texas Lines: 52 ----- In article <39960@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> thom@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu.UUCP (Thom Gillespie) writes: > THere is no cofusing the tool with the skill if you realize that > there is no separation between the tool and the skill. If you can > play the piano, the violin, the flute, then you can play music. > If can't use the musical tools than you can't play music -- there > is not music without the tool. ... > > Can you write before you can handle the tools of pencil and > paper -- they are tools just as much as a word processor is > a tool. ... There is some truth in what Mr Gillespie says, but he presses the point too far. Yes, the student must be able to use *some* writing tool in order to write. It is also true, as others point out, that some tools are more convenient and easier to use than others. But for writing, mastery of the tool is NOT the same as mastery of the skill. One can be adept at word processing, and be a terrible writer. There are countless examples of this. Conversely, one can be an excellent writer, despite not being good with any tool; such as an author who writes only with pencil and paper, and that in a crabbed hand that only the author's dedicated secretary can read. (A real example is Stephen Hawking, who is a good writer, but I doubt there is *any* writing tool at which he is proficient, unless one wants to count his assistant as a "tool" rather than a kind listener who transcribes his work.) This is where the analogy with music falls flat. To be an excellent musician, one must be excellent with some instrument. Not so writing. In writing, one can master the tools, and still be a terrible writer. Is this true in music? (Some might say that there are technically adept players who lack musicality, but are we not now distinguishing degrees of excellence, rather than proficiency from ineptness?) When I speak of writing, it should be clear that I am NOT talking about penmanship, typing skills, word processing ability, nor any other skill that produces a physical transcript that is easy on the eyes. Instead, I am talking about the ability to put words together in a way that effectively expresses one's thoughts: narration, composition, and rhetoric. The tool that is required for this is one's mind, and it is this tool that it takes years to teach students to master. Obviously, there must be some channel to the physical medium. But the skills required to use these different channels are (for most of us) easy to acquire compared to the difficulty of becoming a good writer. Teachers who think that they teach writing by teaching adeptness at these various channels are greatly mistaken. Russell