Outline; Initial Way To Form Sentences!

Would you be able to develop a sentence structure without knowing what to write? Would be able to develop a sentence without making an argument first? In order to do that you need to first think about what are you going to write. What's your arguments that you are trying to make!

When Dr. Fish said we, as college students,
don't know how to form sentences.

According to Stanley Fish in a blog he wrote called, "What Should colleges Teach? Pt 3". He argued that middle school and high school english teachers do not teach effective writing skills good enough to prepare them for college. I personally agree with him on that specific point, but he also argued that sentence structure is the most important thing in essays which I understand his point. In my opinion, I would not say that sentence structure is the most important thing and that all students should learn and ace that skill. I mostly agree with Stanley Fish, but I believe the outline comes first then the sentence structure comes after.

Trying to come up with what to write for an
essay without an outline!

Everybody writes their papers differently. Especially in college where all students come from all around the world and its much diverse than other secondary schools. With that being said, we all come from different cultures, backgrounds and education levels. There are students who have had opportunities to the highest education. On the other hand, there are students who did not have similar opportunity and so they received an average education. We can't just come and argue that everybody doesn't know how to write a sentence because I personally believe that there is no specific style of writing sentences. In addition, if all our sentences look like each other then where is the interesting and unique part that every story should have? Everyone would just expect the same outcome every time. I personally would rather read a story that somebody wrote which is unique to them than read a story that's predictable and without anything interesting to look forward to.

Essays are never the most fun to do, but once you
finish your outline then the rest is going to be easy!

I do agree with Fish that teaching sentence structure is important, however it is not the most important factor in the process of writing a college essay. Breaking down my thoughts into steps, I had to figure out how I wanted to start this blog. I was not concerned with how I wanted to form sentences right away and instead focused on what I wanted to talk about. Relating to that, I conducted an observation at the Writer’s Studio at The Ohio State University at Newark tutoring sessions and observed students receiving help on how to write a paper. In the process, the tutor advised the students to come up with outlines to best help in approaching their topic. With this experience, it helped me realize pre-writing is a very important element and could be considered to have more importance than sentence structure formation. If one does not have their ideas properly laid out in front of them with a plan to approach them, the sentence will no longer matter with unorganized ideas. Along with observing, I also put together a survey, interviewed an English professor and I continued with a library research. In the interview I conducted with English professor Lydia Saravia, she defended the significance of outlining by stating: “ I would argue that outlining isn't just important for college-level writing. I think having a system to order ideas for any written piece is important. It's just important to think of what ideas we have and what order we want them to appear in our writing.” As an English teacher who provides me with other pieces of useful writing advice, it makes it easier to trust her and continue to defend my thoughts. Each of those proved my reasoning correctly allowing me to have a better enforced argument to my opinion.

When you go into an English class and
realize you know the steps of making an essay!

Fish did have a good point that students should learn how to create a sentence, but Instead of giving importance to the actual writing part, it is necessary to give time to pre-writing. There are many types of pre-writing that should be taught in classrooms that play an essential role in writing. Such as brainstorming, clustering, and mapping outlines and many more. To answer the question previously asked: no, developing sentence structures without knowing what to write is very complicated and counter productive. Although sentence structure is needed to deliver the argument, it is not the main importance or focus in college level writing. I think that college professors shouldn't worry about teaching their students how to write sentences, but instead I think they should focus more on the outlining and pre writing activities because that is what will help their students in the future.