What I think I know about writing (pt I)

"there are no general recipes or designs that can be applied to all contexts, but certain principles and experiences that must be adjusted to the predominant theoretical and pedagogical traditions, to the profiles of instructors and students, and to the institutional resources and to the curricular spaces available." -- Federico Navarro, "Think Globally, Act Locally: How to Design an Academic Writing Course for Students Entering University," p. 112 (https://doi.org/10.37514/INT-B.2025.2739.2.04)

as Rose and Martin (2012) point out, if students are not taught to read and write independently, educational institutions will only reproduce the underlying social and cultural inequalities of their students. (Navarro, p. 119)

Writing encourages a slowing of thinking. That slowing down is good when it allows for inspection and growth. To the extent that a process approach encourages inspection, it is good for writers' development. A process approach that produces change in text without metacognitive awareness is of limited value.

Coaching writers' attention may be more important now than it has been for the past 75 years.

Motivation is pretty important for writing development. The task of motivation ultimately falls on the writer *(not on a teacher), and social elements can contribute to motivation.

Some forms of writing may have more "value" to society than others. Some forms of writing can be a form of learning. Some forms of writing can invite identity-making. Some forms of writing can enable empathetic thinking and feeling. Some forms of writing can encourage the willingness to engage with others' evidence, logic, and perspectives.

Writing as a form of exploring, expressing and (re)circulating values is grounded across and perpetuates epistemological ways of knowing: authority (/credentials/platform) as basis of knowledge, empirical evidence (/observation) as basis for knowledge, intuition (/instinct/common sense) as basis for knowledge, deduction (/rationalism/logic) as basis of knowledge. To the extent possible, writers should have some understanding of the epistemologies they are drawing on.

"Critical thinking" is a problematic construct (in part because it has typically valorized rationality over emotion), and still there is a value in asking writers to think about reasons and evidence.

Critical reading of writing leads to growth. // Imitation can be beneficial.

"Academic" writing may have some shared characteristics across a range of disciplines and fields. Some of the common expectations (eg, "objectivity," use of third person) carry problematic assumptions about the world. Goals of precision and limited ambiguity are appropriate to the purposes of academic writing, and to the extent that standardized language supports those goals, expectations for "formal" language and standard punctuation may be acceptable. 

Genres provide stable-for-now "ways of doing"; when they are recognizable to readers, they reduce the cognitive burden of sense-making. We all function through genres all the time. Increasing diversity of discourses may make genre uptake more challenging than it previously was (or maybe increases in diversity only make differential responses more visible...).

Writing is always connected to the instruments that make it possible (both in terms of its production and in terms of what "facts" it can present). Writing is always networks to other people things and ideas.