Coaches First My Thoughts On Writing example essay topic

414 words
Reminecing back to when I was in high school I was terrified of writing. I probably could say that I continue to feel that way at times. Teachers usually think of themselves first as teachers and not at all as coaches, at least not when I was in school. As I read the topic of "Teacher as Coach" I thought that if my school teachers had that mentality I probably would look at writing in a more positive manner. Most often than usual, we would turn in our writing assignments and when they were returned back to us there was red ink written all over our papers and a grade. (Usually not a passing one.) It seemed like we couldn't ever be good writers.

I used to blame it on my Hispanic background. I thought that you had to use fancy words in order to be considered a good writer and there was no way that I, being Hispanic, could ever learn "big words". So I thought of myself as a terrible writer and I had all that red ink to prove it. We never had a chance to go back and correct our mistakes or sit down with our teacher and discuss what went wrong. This idea would have helped me overcome my writing anxiety and would have been a positive approach in helping me "adopt more effective writing behaviors" when "encouraged and corrected". If my teachers would have thought of themselves as coaches first my thoughts on writing would be positive and I would have enjoyed it a lot better.

This section made me realize that teachers have a great impact on the way their students develop skills. We need to try to encourage our students to not be afraid of writing by showing them what they did wrong in a positive approach and by not paying so much attention to the little mistakes they make. Teachers pay too much attention to those little things, and, although they are important, the content of the paper is what really should matter. Perhaps a positive way to deal with "bad writers" is by returning their papers back to them with written notes (no red ink, please) on more ideas of what could be added or elaborated and then giving them a chance to rewrite them for a better grade. This would have helped me overcome my writing anxiety.