I disagree with the article, “Some people are just born good writers” by Jill Parrot. Not everyone has a natural ability to write. As the author was saying that back in history the writers and the authors are been chosen and are directly sent by the god himself, omitting the hard work necessary to achieve the highs. And he was describing the 20th-century language theory. This was indeed a false view of people of a lower standard because it was the fact they weren’t exposed to the view of thinking or education.
The writer says “When struggling writers consider writing a piece of art, they become frustrated because they cannot force their writing to look what they expected to be and they have no clue where to begin to make themselves the genius writer they believe teachers, bosses, and readers expect.”
This communicates that writers are trying to live up to the expectation of others and not to the reality of their writing style. When you don’t live up to the expectation of others, but improve on your writing style you enhance your skills to be a better writer. I agree with Parrots disproving you’re born a good writer because writing is something that is a mindset: it is learned and can improve over time with practice.
Likewise, when people are bad at something they tend to give up on the task that they are doing because they feel like only select people are good at the task. Good writers build these habits of mind. A successful writing student -- whether someone working alone, as a professional or technical writer, with a community group, as a university student or any other way is not necessarily one who writes more but one who persists and reflects on the work done as a means of improvement. Instructors exist not to reward the talented genius and punish the unlucky but to provide opportunities for writing, feedback, reflection, remixing and revision of that work as socially located activities with rhetorical awareness. When a previously “bad” writer sees improvement, sees the value of persistence and feels the satisfaction of the metacognitive recognition that they have gotten better, they will know that good writer are not born but come to fruition in the social act of writing itself.
And many people think writing is a talent. True, if you are a good writer you are indeed very talented. But there is an assumption we too often make when we label something as talent: we think of it as a gift - something you either have or you don’t, instead of something that can be taught. The takeaway for all writers is that we can improve, and we are not bound by an inborn, set level of writing talent. Good writers are not born. They are developed. As I am not a good writer but I practice every day to get better in that and develop skills that I need to learn from that and use towards my daily life.
