fear of writing

I’m reading my freshman writing text in preparation for classes next week. I’ve assigned the chapter introducing writing to students. There is an entire page devoted to dispelling the myth that writing is a ‘natural talent or gift’ instead of a skill to be learned and acquired. The teacher copy says to take a poll in class to see how many of the students believe writing is a natural talent, especially one they don’t possess. I can guarantee, without doing the poll, that most the kids in my classes would say yes to this question, especially being placed in the developmental class instead of 101. this idea began with romantic poets during romanticism in the 18th century. This was at the time of the industrial revolution, hundreds of years ago. We, in education, continue to value the writing and art from that time period in literature classes throughout high school. We also impart skills on reading for information, so our own valuing of these texts seems to be hurting our students writing skills in the long run. What do we do to change the opinion of writing in our current culture? We certainly haven’t embraced online writing as a skill, even though millions of people engage in that type of writing every day. Maybe, over time, that will change, and with that change the fear of writing may begin to disappear.