Here are our answers:
You’re either born a good writer or not. FALSE. No one is born a good writer—most of us can’t read or write until we enter school! It is a skill that takes practice and everyone can improve.
Once you’re in middle school (or high school) you should already know everything you need to know about writing. FALSE. Even professional writers are still learning more about writing as they do more and more writing. Additionally, most people will be asked to write in new genres and for new audiences as they advance in school, in their jobs, and in life.
“Writing” includes all kinds of texts: slide shows, webpages, letters, magazine articles, timelines, and infographics. TRUE. We do a lot of writing in our lives each day (how many texts did you send today?), and it all counts as “writing,” even when we use images, animation, colors, charts, and other visual elements to send our message.
Reading our writing out loud helps us notice mistakes. TRUE and FALSE. This is true for some writers who grew up speaking English: when writing in English, they may hear things like missing words, confusing phrases, and wrong word endings. It won’t necessarily work for all writers though.
If you’re good at writing one thing, you’ll definitely be good at writing everything. FALSE. We’re good at writing what we have practice writing.
Writers who speak a different language at home always need a lot of help with their writing in English. FALSE. Not necessarily: it depends on so many factors. In addition, most people do not consider the small errors that multilingual or second language writers might make to be a big deal. Some people do not consider them mistakes at all—just a different English.
Having good grammar and punctuation is the most important thing. FALSE. While in some situations a polished draft is important and expected, correctness isn’t everything. People don’t enjoy reading texts because they are correct; they enjoy a text or are persuaded by a text when the content is engaging and interesting.
All essays should have five paragraphs: one introduction, three body, and one conclusion. FALSE. Essay length varies depending on the message. Some assignments might require a particular length or a particular number of paragraphs for students, but this isn’t the rule for all essays.
There’s a right way and a wrong way to write. FALSE. It’s true that readers have expectations when they approach a text and sometimes violating those expectations can cause confusion or worse. However, there are no universal right ways and wrong ways in writing that apply to every situation, genre, and medium.
Someone can have a learning disability and still be a strong writer. TRUE. Some writers will need to proceed differently with a particular writing task. For example, some writers might do better using voice to text to compose their first draft. Nonetheless, whether or not someone has a disability doesn’t determine if they can write well.
We get better at writing by writing. TRUE. The more practice we get writing in a variety of genres for a variety of audiences, the better we’ll be when we face a new writing situation.