A lot of people talk about the flaws in science and math education in this country, but in my opinion there is too little attention given to the shortcomings of our English education. I'm talking specifically about essay writing. By the time students are asked to start writing stories in elementary school, they have been read to for years! Yet the same approach is not true with essays. I have tutored dozens of high school students, and all of them are expected to know how to write an informative essay before they have read more than one or two of them. Informative essays are not easy, and without seeing examples of how it can be done well, it is no wonder that students hate essay writing. There is more to it than learning how to write a research paper or creative essay – there is learning how essay writing can be beautiful and fascinating.
I have heard many teachers complaining about the widespread practice of students downloading free informative essays online. For little or no money, students can download an informative essay from many different websites, or even have one custom written for them. Although I don't dispute the fact that this is an unethical thing to do, I question whether or not the teachers themselves have a role to play in this unfortunate state of affairs. I have talked to dozens of students, and even the best of them hate writing essays. If they even know how to write an informative essay, it is only because they have followed the teacher's guidelines word for word and given them just what they wanted. None of them understand how to write a creative essay, putting originality and thought into the topic.
It is no wonder that so many students choose to download an informative essay. Having no idea how to write one themselves, they need to look at someone else's and plagiarize it. While this doesn't completely forgive the act of passing off someone else's work as your own, it certainly goes a long way to explain it. If students were taught that an informative essay can be a way for them to express their own thoughts and ideas and share them with the teacher and the class, the problem of cheating would be much more limited. Students would not want to cheat – they would want to participate in their education. Unfortunately, I think many teachers and school boards are too shortsighted to see this.
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