Writing - The Forgotten Skills

“Writing, that’s a skill my child needs to build for the future.”

“My child really dislikes writing.”

“I am anxious about my child’s vocabulary.”

Do these statements sound familiar to you as a parent? If yes, you agree with the majority of parents we recently interacted with. I don’t claim to be a writing expert, but what if I told you that you may need to build a set of other skills to be a good writer? I am here to make the case that writing may be a by-product of other essential skills we need to nurture in children.

As I wrote this article, I went back to some of the most moving pieces of writing I have read. I thought about articles, books, or stories that impacted me personally. I realized that the writer’s authenticity, the profoundness of thought and empathy that the author showed were what stayed with me. Even in cases where I remembered the lines as I do from Rudyard Kipling’s, “If”, I took away the idea that success and failures could be so alike if we are not careful beyond anything else. Words are powerful, but words are a result of our ability to do other things well.

1.     Critical Thinking: To write a succinct and robust paragraph; what you actually need is clarity of thought. This refers to the author’s ability to draw out the takeaway he/she wants the reader to walk away with. One needs to have the ability to raise questions through the written piece. At Joy of Anubhava, critical thinking forms the centre of all of our programs. There is a difference between just reading and reading to understand, analyze, and interpret. Arguably, a person needs the ability to analyze and come up with critical thoughts and process to form the central purpose of a written piece.

2.     Empathy: Now, you might wonder, why do we need to be empathetic to be a good writer? This is certainly necessary for fiction. The ability to form well-rounded characters whom readers relate to is essential in any story. Long after we finish the book, it’s the characters who stay with us – the complexity of Snape (the Professor in the Harry Potter series), the determination of Anjali (the main protagonist in Ahimsa), the intrigue with Squealer (One of the pigs in Animal Farm) to name a few. The ability to create layered characters ultimately comes down to our ability to understand diverse people from different worlds, even when we disagree with them. Beyond fiction, empathy remains important even when you are writing a newspaper article. If you want to capture your reader’s attention with your characters, you need to understand them to make them relatable to your readers. To do that, you need empathy!

3.    Self-Reflection: We have all heard several authors say, “write what you know”. Now to make meaning of what you know, you also need to make meaning of your thoughts, opinions, experiences, and feelings. You need to connect your experiences to the books you read to form your well-reasoned reviews. A strong self-reflector is always honest in their pieces, and that always comes through in your writing.

So, there you have it. Joy of Anubhava’s reading and learning framework emphasizes these skills because we believe that these are transferable. So, if you or your children want to develop their writing skills, we could think of these three as skills you build life-long to become a better writer (and reader, for that matter!). Vocabulary and grammar matter without a shadow of a doubt. However, these skills ensure that the reader remembers your work because it directly impacts them, and isn’t that the purpose of writing in the first place? What do you think? Share them with us to keep the conversation growing. Till then, continue reading and writing, folks!

References

https://www.sussex.ac.uk/skillshub/?id=277

https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/268749355.pdf

https://www.masterclass.com/articles/how-to-write-what-you-know#4-ways-to-write-what-you-know

nytimes.com/2014/03/30/books/review/write-what-you-know-helpful-advice-or-idle-cliche.html

Poorvaja Prakash, Co-Founder & Executive Director, Joy of Anubhava