Students seem to like writing as much as adults like public speaking: It’s almost universally dreaded.

But there are few assignments that can tell us as much about how well a student can think.

Can they stay organized? Can they communicate clearly and simply? Can they communicate forcefully? Can they be persuasive? Can they care about something? Can they live comfortably with ambiguity? With nuance? Can they address counterarguments and contradictions? Can they make concessions? Can they change their minds?

These skills are very much  in demand.

So how can we help students become better writers?

The best student writing I see is usually produced by the students who do the best research. The poorest student writing I see is usually produced by the students who think of reading and writing as separate activities. 

These latter students appear to assume that their classmates write well from some magic they themselves weren’t born with. This misunderstanding is probably a mix of comforting and disempowering: comforting because if they identify as a “bad writer” they can excuse themselves to focus on skills that offer less resistance and more affirmation; disempowering because it suggests that being a good writer is beyond their control.