How to release reluctant students to speech is the first problem for the teacher of writing. At times the young find it as difficult to express their inner thoughts in words as do those whose minds have solidified into all but unbreakable moods. But why, after all, should this inability to speak with the heart as well as with the lips be blamed on 'restrictive teaching'? Is it not more a case of restrictive thinking (induced by restrictive living) causing this muteness, which perhaps no teacher can cure? One can suggest reading to such students — great poetry, great novels — to help allay the fear of speaking. But one cannot be sure that the students will dare to understand the words that other men have said. It takes courage to say things differently: caution and cowardice dictate the use of the cliché.… Most adults, having somehow lost touch with the great simplicities, have forgotten that to write is to speak of one’s beliefs. Turning out a typescript with the number of words neatly estimated in the upper right hand corner of the first page has nothing to do with writing. Neither have questions about the prices paid by Harper’s Magazine or The Atlantic Monthly or The Ladies’ Home Journal or Esquire. Writing is something else entirely, as the young instinctively know.
'The Teaching of Writing' [reprinted in Words That Must Somehow Be Said: Selected Essays of Kay Boyle, 1985]
Use the link below to visit the website of a US-based
organisation dedicated to celebrating the life and
work of writer, educator and political activist KAY
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