Response+to+Goldie's+on-Let's+stop+teaching+writing.

The article talks about having conversations with students regarding their writing. At the University Writing Center many students come to brainstorm with me. We talk about ideas. Only yesterday a young lady came with a self-help book titled //Hurt Feelings//. She had to do a book report and she had already read the book. All I did was give her prompts after listening to her and skimming through the book. I said first tell the reader why did you choose this book. Do you have many hurt feelings? What do you do with these hurt feelings? She said "I'd like to be alone when I am hurt." I said "That means you bottle up these feelings and erupt every now and then." She said that I was right. So I asked: "What did the book tell you on how to deal with hurt feelings?" Her answers came quickly: to seek support from parents, and if the parents are not available emotionally or physically, to seek support from support groups, to read self-help books to learn how to cope and tools to manage the anger that accumulates as a result of hurt feelings. The student and I talked. All we did was generate ideas. So the idea is to give prompts to the student. In //What is College Level Writing// the author of the chapter about home schooling writes that teacher-given prompts are very helpful for student writing, and that she herself (A good writer) finds them so very helpful. I find teacher prompts helpful too and I will use them more and more in my own pedagogy to make the students' writing process more interesting and fun.