ABSTRACT
Much of this may read as quite an indictment of the practice of writing in secondary schools, although some of the observations are positive in nature. The list as a whole will inform this discussion on the role of writing as part of the English curriculum. Writing needs to be considered in the context of other aspects of English and of teaching and learning as a whole process, and in relationship to reading on the one hand and speaking and listening on the other. It is also helpful to cast an eye at the same time on the historical conditions which have given rise to the current situation. Monaghan and Saul (1987:91) distinguish writing in schools from reading, characterising the former, potentially at least, as the more active:
Many writers would question whether it is appropriate to view reading purely as a receptive skill but writing is without doubt a potentially liberating, active force: centrally concerned with production as opposed to reception. And yet . . . we keep coming back to this word ‘potential’. The reality ‘on the ground’, as some of the observations on writing listed above suggest, may be quite different, and certainly not liberating. If we compare writing in education to speaking and listening, again with the historical development of the curriculum in mind, a contrasting picture emerges. Green (1993:213), while tracing the imposition of formal schooling and a curriculum based heavily on reading and writing on a centuries-old, all too often unrecognised, oral tradition of learning, shows this process to have been in part at least a means of maintaining social control. He alludes to
The central tension concerning the role of writing in the classroom is inescapable: a means of control inflicted on a more or less unwilling pupil population, as against a liberating and creative means of expression. The reality of school life may serve to disguise this tension, and indeed the actual experience of most pupils most of the time may lie somewhere between the two poles. It may be instructive, given the opportunity (and it frequently is given, especially to student and beginning teachers), to shadow a group of pupils and observe just how much writing is asked of them, and the nature of the writing activities. This is not to criticise teachers and their curricula, and there is no doubt that writing takes many forms appropriate
to different types of learning, as we shall see, but rather to begin to argue for a distinctive role for the English teacher in fostering effective writing.
