“9. In a pedagogical setting, writing is meaningful when it is like the writing that people do outside of school: professional, personal, public writing. Meaningful writing accomplishes some goal or objective important to the writer. When writing is meaningful, students find it engaging. When writing is engaging, students learn.” -Some “Givens”: Things We Know for Sure About the Teaching & Learning of Writing from 40 Years of Research [or What We Think We Know About Writing is Often Mistaken]

This is a “given” when spelled out, but for some reason, some teachers ignore this fact. The writing we do in school should prepare us for “the real world”; so why are students being assigned to write book reports on Shakespeare? Of course, there are many themes in Shakespeare’s many works; however this assignment of summarizing and analyzing an “ancient” play based on the teacher’s lectures about a book that most of the students did not even bother to read is a complete and utter waste of time. Rather than assigning meaningless book reports, Educators should focus on teaching “professional, personal, and public writing” when focusing on creating authors out of their students. In understanding these genres, students will be more prepared after graduation.