Why Is Writing So Difficult?

 　　On the very first day of my very first class as a teacher, I asked my students a very NAIVE¹ question: Why is writing such a difficult thing to do?

　　The complaints came bubbling out of my students, and I was not prepared for the volume or substance of their GRIEVANCES². In a lather³, I spent the entire class hour writing their concerns on the blackboard. When the black board was filled, we wrote more complaints on pages torn out of my notebook, which I thumb-tacked⁴ to a wall of the classroom. When the hour was up, we all sat numbly⁵ still, staring at this overwhelming sea of bad news. After the students had filed MEEKLY⁶ out of the classroom, I wrote down the contents of the blackboard in my notebook, collected the pages we had tacked to the wall, then went back to my office where I locked myself in. Suddenly, teaching students how to improve their writing seemed like an impossible task.

　　In many ways it is impossible, because the learning never ends. There is no such thing as the perfect writer because there is always something more to learn, another skill to master. Even now, no matter how hard I work to strengthen my writing, there is always something I can't do as well as I would like. My GRAMMAR skills are still weak and I still struggle to find the best structure for each of my writing efforts. Until very recently, my writing was horribly disorganized.

　　But my writing has improved and most of that growth can be ATTRIBUTED to this embarrassing confession⁷: I started to practice the process skills I had been preaching to my students. I started to listen to my own advice.

　　Writing is so much more than simply taking a piece of paper and a pencil and SCRIBBLING⁸ away. There are so many things I need to take into consideration before I make my scribbles⁹.

　　I have repeated the exercise I did in that first class in every writing course I have taught. I find it interesting that there are a few core complaints my students have about writing which show up on the blackboard every time I do the exercise. What I would like to do now is introduce these core GRUMBLINGS to you and talk about how this course and this computer program intend to make these concerns more manageable. Do you recognize these? Do you HARBOR some of the same complaints about writing?

1 naive   

adj.幼稚的，轻信的；天真的

参考例句：

• It's naive of you to believe he'll do what he says.相信他会言行一致，你未免太单纯了。
• Don't be naive.The matter is not so simple.你别傻乎乎的。事情没有那么简单。

2 grievances   

n.委屈( grievance的名词复数 )；苦衷；不满；牢骚

参考例句：

• The trade union leader spoke about the grievances of the workers. 工会领袖述说工人们的苦情。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• He gave air to his grievances. 他申诉了他的冤情。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 lather   

n.(肥皂水的)泡沫，激动

参考例句：

• Soap will not lather in sea-water.肥皂在海水里不起泡沫。
• He always gets in a lather when he has an argument with his wife.当他与妻子发生争论时他总是很激动。

4 tacked   

用平头钉钉( tack的过去式和过去分词 )； 附加，增补； 帆船抢风行驶，用粗线脚缝

参考例句：

• He tacked the sheets of paper on as carefully as possible. 他尽量小心地把纸张钉上去。
• The seamstress tacked the two pieces of cloth. 女裁缝把那两块布粗缝了起来。

5 numbly   

adv.失去知觉，麻木

参考例句：

• Back at the rickshaw yard, he slept numbly for two days. 回到车厂，他懊睡了两天。 来自汉英文学 - 骆驼祥子
• He heard it numbly, a little amazed at his audacity. 他自己也听得一呆，对自己的莽撞劲儿有点吃惊。 来自辞典例句

6 meekly   

adv.温顺地，逆来顺受地

参考例句：

• He stood aside meekly when the new policy was proposed. 当有人提出新政策时，他唯唯诺诺地站 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He meekly accepted the rebuke. 他顺从地接受了批评。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 confession   

n.自白，供认，承认

参考例句：

• Her confession was simply tantamount to a casual explanation.她的自白简直等于一篇即席说明。
• The police used torture to extort a confession from him.警察对他用刑逼供。

8 scribbling   

n.乱涂[写]胡[乱]写的文章[作品]v.潦草的书写( scribble的现在分词 )；乱画；草草地写；匆匆记下

参考例句：

• Once the money got into the book, all that remained were some scribbling. 折子上的钱只是几个字！ 来自汉英文学 - 骆驼祥子
• McMug loves scribbling. Mama then sent him to the Kindergarten. 麦唛很喜欢写字，妈妈看在眼里，就替他报读了幼稚园。 来自互联网

9 scribbles   

n.潦草的书写( scribble的名词复数 )；乱画；草草地写；匆匆记下v.潦草的书写( scribble的第三人称单数 )；乱画；草草地写；匆匆记下

参考例句：

• The scribbles on the wall must be the work of those children. 墙壁上的涂鸦准是那几个孩子画的。 来自辞典例句
• There are scribbles on the wall. 墙上有胡乱涂写的字迹。 来自辞典例句