Readers Respond: Can Writing Be Taught?
From the article: Can Writing Be Taught? Can writing be taught? The question seems to invite skeptical replies. Kurt Vonnegut used to say that he couldn’t teach people how to write but, like an old golf pro, he could sometimes help them take a few strokes off their game. The poet Theodore Roethke insisted that writing can’t be taught; it can only be “insinuated.” And Wallace Stegner said that writing can be taught–but not to everybody. Now we’ll hear your thoughts on whether writing can be taught. Tell Us What You ThinkIf you can read . . .I’ve been writing and editing since I could read; not because I really enjoyed it, but because I could do it. I also believe that a good writer is a voracious reader. I had many friends who worked hard at being writers, only to get so muddled down with their own ‘style’ that they usually made little sense. However, having said th
