We Could Teach Writing, but It Will Take Resources

I was very encouraged to read a recent New York Times article by Dana Goldstein that asks what students “lose when they stop writing.”

Truth be told, I was a little bummed not to have been interviewed for the piece, given that I was one of the earliest out of the gate championing the need for us to actually double down on teaching writing in a world with AI, but I’m not going to let the dent to my ego get in the way of noticing that the concerns I’ve been voicing for years are making their way into the mainstream.

As to what is lost when students don’t write, the answer is lots of things: the ability to think, plan, research, brainstorm, draft, revise, edit and so on and so on. Students lose a mechanism for understanding and articulating self-knowledge. They miss an opportunity to have their views heard by communities of other humans.

Writing is much more than producing “fluent prose,” an argument I make at length and, dare I say it, quite persuasively in More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI.

One of the other benefits of this shift in the conversation is a renewed appreciation for the full scope of what writing means and what we should be learning when it comes to writing. It seems that outside of the most passionate boosters of AI, there’s a growing sense that we should indeed be teaching writing, not automation-assisted document production.

Writing matters.

But even as I say this, it’s clear that at the structural, institutional level, writing does not matter, as the resources put toward the teaching and learning of writing are not commensurate with the importance of the experience or the challenge of the task. AI has both clarified what we should be doing when we teach writing and made it much harder to teach writing than in the days prior to the technology’s existence.

As much as leaders may say that they still value writing and thinking, the evidence suggests they are not willing to put their money where their mouths are. A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about Harvard’s baffling choice to reorganize its writing center and dismiss its director of 20 years, Jane Rosenzweig. Dismissing one of the leading voices on how to preserve writing in the face of AI is not the kind of move one makes if they think writing is important.

The neglect of those who teach writing is nothing new. The conditions under which first-year writing is taught did not discernibly improve over the 20 years I worked in the space, and things have become only more fragile since. The vast majority of front-line jobs teaching writing are done by precariously employed faculty working for substandard wages teaching more students than can be engaged with in ways that foster effective teaching and learning.

This is frustrating and has been for the entirety of my involvement in higher education. A huge portion of my book Why They Can’t Write is dedicated to identifying the structural barriers to teaching writing—barriers that have nothing to do with our knowledge of how to teach writing and everything to do with the money and resources put toward teaching writing. “We” say that it’s important for students to learn to learn to write and then do very little provide the resources necessary to make that apparently desirable outcome happen.

So, what would welcoming conditions for the effective teaching of writing look like? Some thoughts.

1. Writing instructors are paid a professional wage to do the work sufficient to dedicate themselves to the full-time execution of the job and not necessitating significant outside employment to be reasonably financially secure. This wage may vary by institution and location, but let’s presume a floor of $50,000 per year. This modest amount is significantly higher than even my highest salary during my teaching career.

Many writing instructors in today’s system not only don’t make a professional wage, they also do not meet the threshold for what we would consider a living wage.

2. Writing instructors are responsible for no more than 60 students spread across three separate sections. The NCTE recommends 45 students per instructor, but I don’t want to be unreasonable. I am going to engage in some informed speculation and posit that a majority of first-year writing teachers, perhaps an overwhelming majority, have larger student loads than this. It would be easy to see if your institution meets these criteria.
3. Writing instructors should have reasonable expectations of job security through multiyear or rolling contracts subject to all the necessary oversight and evaluation that should be part of any faculty teaching position. I never had anything other than a year-to-year (or semester-to-semester) contract in my career. Again, any instructor working as an adjunct is teaching under these conditions.
4. Writing instructors should have access to professional development opportunities that help them adjust their instruction to meet the challenge of generative AI in education. This is not an intractable problem by any means, but it is a problem that needs to be addressed directly and collaboratively.

There are probably other conditions we should consider around self-governance and opportunities for professional advancement, but I’m going to keep it simple by leaving my list at the bare minimum to create reasonable benchmarks for success.

I understand that resources are not infinite, and making a budget requires making choices, but it is very difficult to imagine that teaching writing is often viewed as an area that institutions should bolster, as opposed to one of those areas early in line for further reductions.

The only reasonable conclusion is that teaching writing is not something that is viewed as particularly important at most postsecondary institutions.

It’s possible that this is indeed the case, including at places like Harvard. Some Harvard students apparently think this is the case.

If it is the case, I’d encourage institutions to own it. They’ll still come in for criticism from folks like me, but at least we can have an honest conversation.