A Method for Teaching Writing

The Problem Is English really your native tongue? So wrote a Dartmouth Freshman English teacher on his student's essay. English teachers try not to think about how often this comment fits the essays they grade. My hypothesis is that students seldom learn to write in these courses as well as one could expect them to do as natives. They write essays which lack the skills and competences that they seem naturally to possess in their normal command of language. Of course there are important differences between what students are naturally good at with language and what is required for college essays. But these differences are not so complete as some maintain. There could be more transfer of learning than there usually is.