Academics

John Sheehy - Writing

Photo of John Sheehy "Writing is absolutely necessary if you want to know something,” says John. He explains that writing is an essential part of the learning process because it forces people to organize and present their thoughts with a discipline, something people don’t always do when they are simply reading or talking about what they’ve read.

Before Marlboro, John helped run the writing center at the University of Washington, where he both tutored students and trained writing tutors. He also taught composition and literature at Washington, and in many of his courses used computers as tools for helping students develop both writing and reading skills. John maintains that e-mail writing discussion groups are an excellent forum for students to critique each others’work and to present their own. He adds that many students who feel that they can't write an essay are often quite adept at writing email messages. "In email," he says, "people are unconsciously particular about their tone, content, word choice essentially their delivery and they are very aware of their audience. These are really the foundations of all good writing. The job of the writing student is to become aware of these aspects of their writing and to learn how to control them."

John helps students determine the strengths of their writing whether those strengths are found in academic papers or emails to friends and then capitalize on them, using them as a basis for improving all facets of their writing. "Good writing comes from everywhere," he says. "Most bad writing comes from bad teaching."

B.A., Montana State University, 1987; M.A., University of Washington, 1993; Ph.D., University of Washington, 1997; Marlboro College, 1998 -