On the importance.......................

 

................................of schools teaching writing.

Writing for an audience is a completely different cognitive exercise than writing for yourself. When you write for yourself, you can skip the hard parts. You already know what you mean when you say something, you don’t have to explain your logic, and you can be as elliptical and associative as you want. When you write for an audience, you have to think about what they need to understand. You have to structure your argument so it actually lands. You have to use a sentence that communicates, not just a sentence that feels right in your head.