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From: co20wta@sdcc3.UUCP (Bruce Jones)
Newsgroups: net.misc
Subject: Re: Teaching Writing (was Re: Writing, programming, music and mechanics)
Message-ID: <3450@sdcc3.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 27-Jun-86 16:00:37 EDT
Article-I.D.: sdcc3.3450
Posted: Fri Jun 27 16:00:37 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 29-Jun-86 06:19:35 EDT
References: <2671@sdcc6.UUCP> <1445@ihuxn.UUCP> <2679@sdcc6.UUCP> <1452@ihuxn.UUCP> <921@frog.UUCP>
Reply-To: co20wta@sdcc3.UUCP (Bruce Jones)
Organization: U.C.S.D. Department of Communication
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In article <921@frog.UUCP> wjr@frog.UUCP (STella Calvert) writes:
>I do agree with most of what you said.  Standard punctuation and
>grammar cannot make bad ideas good, but they can prevent the loss of
>good ideas in a fog of ambiguity.  
>
>But if, when I creep line by line through someone's text, suggesting
>ways to make their ideas stand out more clearly, I'm not teaching 
>writing, what _am_ I doing?  We both thought I was doing _something_!
>
>				STella Calvert

You were doing something -- calling for a finer focus on the ideas,
which in a sense is what writing is all about.  I don't know if this
should be considered "teaching writing", which  I always thought of 
as the business of grammarians. I might call it teaching thinking if
it weren't such an awkward and presumptuous phrase.

What did/would _you_ call it?

Bruce Jones