當被問及為什麼作文時，誠實可嘉的學生會答，“老師讓作的。”此言之不虛正是在學校裏學寫作很難的原因。學生被迫寫作命題作文時， 往往是為了完成任務，即為交作業寫作，而不是與人自願分享資訊。學校裏的作文教學，有時忽略了英語作文的最根本存在原因：分享新消息。
      雖然一個人在學校裏一時搞不清“為什麼寫作”的問題，他要在互聯網上發文的話心裏會很明白：作文發文是因為作者有他人沒說過或說得不一樣的話。
      英語寫作與互聯網上的討論可比之處不僅在於他們同樣是分享有意義的新發現的企圖。也在於有無意義，是否新鮮都是完全由讀者定義的。比如“溫哥華的汽車給行人讓路” 這個資訊對於中國的很多行人來說是新發現，而對於當地人來說就是老生常談了。
      學校在教寫作時對讀者是誰的重要性重視不夠。換句話說，學校對寫作老師的角色沒有清晰的定義。ESL學生很少被告知這樣一個應該是為人皆知的假設：老師不是你作文的真正讀者，儘管他們往往是唯一讀過你的作文的人。因此這些學生常常誤以為寫作是給老師看的。也就是說，他們把老師當做讀者了。
      可以用一個類比有效地說明寫作老師的角色。如果學生作文可以比作廠家製造產品的話，老師就是質量控制員，產品就是作文，讀者就是用戶。老師作為質檢員的責任就是保證產品，即作文，能夠給用戶想要的東西，在此處就是新鮮資訊。而且，產品質量和傳遞都應該是一流的。
      作者必須在提筆之前知道在為誰作文。讀者可能是你的家鄉的沒有出過國的同學，你的對中國沒有瞭解的老師和同學，你的父母，你的網友。不論是誰，你都要知道你在給誰寫。有些美國的小學作文教材在教孩子作文時，用表格的形式教小孩子找點子。表格上會問：你要說什麼？誰會讀你的文章？
      每次作文時都問這兩個問題，學習寫作的學生就會寫出可讀而且受自己選擇的讀者歡迎的文章。
      When asked, "Why do you write essays at school?" Some remarkably honesty students would answer, "The teachers ask us to."  That the answer almost always rings true accounts for the challenge of learning English essay writing at school. When students are required or coerced to write on a topic of somebody else's choice, they often write to accomplish a task, namely, homework rather than to share meaningful information. The way we teach writing at school sometimes ignores the very reason why the English essay exists --- to share fresh information. 
      Student writers may be confused about what the purpose of essay writing is at school; as internet contributors, they see the purpose for internet sharing very clearly: one writes because one has something other people have not said or have said differently. The English essay and internet discussions are comparable not only in the fact that both are attempts to share new discoveries, but also in that "new" and "meaningful" are defined entirely by the audience. For example, whereas the statement, "Cars stop for pedestrians in Vancouver" may be unheard of for pedestrians in China, it is common knowledge here locally. Therefore, the audience determines what a fresh idea is.
      Some writing teachers at schools do not stress the importance of audience in writing hard enough. As a result of this lack of stress, the role a teacher plays teaching English writing is not clarified. Many ESL students are rarely told such well-known assumption: although students' writings are almost exclusively read by teachers at school, teachers are not the true readers.  These students believe that they are writing for their teachers. In other words they mistake their teachers as the readers of their writing.
      An effective analogy clarifying the teacher's role in the school writing process is that teachers are quality control people for the manufacturing of a product. Student writers are the manufacturer; essay, the product; readers the end user. The teacher, being the quality control person, is to insure that the product, the essay, is going to give what the end user is looking for in this particular product---fresh information. Of course, the product has to be exquisitely made and delivered. Writers have to know who the readers are before setting out to write. For ESL　student writers, the readers may be their old classmates, who have never been abroad, or their teachers and classmates in Canada who might be interested in learning more about China. They can be students' parents. Whoever they may be, student writers should know for whom they are writing. Some American text books for elementary students contain forms for brainstorming. On these forms, two questions are asked:
      What is your message?
      Who are your readers?
      Keeping these questions in mind, student writers will write essays that are readable and well-liked by audience of their own choice.

      圓德英文學院阿木古朗老師
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