A review by lectrice
Why They Can't Write: Killing the Five-Paragraph Essay and Other Necessities by John Warner

4.0

4.5: This book should be required reading in all schools of education and other places where policy decisions are made, because it’s about more than teaching writing. It surveys the depressing landscape of the past decades where pursuing curiosity and learning for its own sake have been sucked out of most students, especially at the middle and high school levels. ‘Teaching to the test’ has created a generation of anxious, grade-grubbing college students with little initiative, imagination, or risk-taking when it comes to learning. Many of Warner’s ideas are practical, sensible, and applicable (at least at the college classroom level, and especially for instructors fortunate enough to have a secure position and freedom to craft syllabi and assignments).