The Shark is back in town

I found someone that has similar issues as me with English teachers not teaching their kids important mastery of forms before college writing. This is a problem because English teacher's are sending their students to college without the proper material and information they need to succeed in college writing. Stanley E. Fish the writer of the article "What should colleges teach? Part 3”, argues that understanding how to structure and form sentences should be taught in college to help students become better college writers and help them further their career in writing if it is the major they chose to go in.

I somewhat agree with fish, I agree that there needs to be a change with English teacher's curriculums to help improve the writing of their students, but for this to happen the State Education Board should be notified. I agree that it is important that English teachers teach their kids how to create a well written sentence before the transfer from high school to college but on the other hand I believe that learning to craft a well written thesis statement is important as well and if not more important because it highlights the argument of your paper, tying everything together. The thesis is a very important aspect to college writing because it shows the writers opinion, shows the reader a preview of the topic, and shows the reader the chronological order of the paper. 

To back up my claim that the thesis statement is the most important part of college writing, I interviewed Professor Lee, “a high school English teacher in Oak Park, Illinois.”  He was an adjunct teacher at Columbia College Chicago for ten years, but overall has been teaching English for 21 years. I first asked him what he thought one of the most important aspects to consider when writing at the college level. 

He gave me three different things to consider, however, the first aspect was the one that stood out to me. He said that voice was the first aspect to consider. He says, “[you] have to develop your own voice”. A thesis statement is really your own voice; it is your opinion about a topic. When you make a thesis statement you are using your own voice to get across a point.

Whata beautiful voice

You then back up your point with other people’s points; you are using other people’s voice to back up your voice. I then specifically asked Professor Lee how important constructing a well written thesis is in college writing. He said it is very important and “[the] entire essay is dependent on a clear and focused thesis”. If the thesis is weak then the whole paper is going to be weak; the paper needs to start off strong with a strong thesis. Professor Lee also made a great analogy, which helped me understand how important a well-written thesis actually is. He said creating strong thesis is “the same way a house is dependent on a good foundation” .

dude its not easy

College writing is very challenging its self and if you don’t learn the important basics to writing while you’re in high school and middle school, then students will have an extremely difficult time transferring to college writing. Only after coming to college did I realize that the thesis is what I should have been spending all my time on. My first paper I wrote in college I still thought that the introduction was as important as the thesis.

My professor said it was a suitable paper, but that my thesis needed work and she told me it was very important to the paper. My professor told me in the thesis you state your claim and tells the reader what points you’re going to go over. Also, the readers need to know what they’re going to expect in the paper or they would be confused. A thesis also needs to have tension and when I looked back at my thesis, it was not only not appealing, it also had no tension whatsoever.

Furthermore fish and I both believe that there is a problem with teachers not properly preparing their students for college writing. There needs to be a change and the start is for teachers to teach their students how to understand the structure of forming sentences, and the major solution is for teachers to teach their students how to craft a well written thesis.