Writing as Action in Living

Abstract

matically on paper in return for the dullness of vague ideas, shadows of feelings, and well-organized trivia. Instead of living in writing and instead of seeing linguistic acts as forms of life, student writers look upon writing as mere expression. When students express themselves on paper and when they read what they wrote, along with the writing teacher's comment, Your ideas are fine, but you express them poorly, student writers wonder whether writing is worth the paper it is written on. Coached in the gimmicks of organized expression and bribed by the letter grade, even better student writers live in a frozen style comparable to a Nixon charm-a charm that ends very close to its beginning. The kind of writing Ken Macrorie called Engfish and the English teacher's belief that to write some-