Write for you, not for me

We have been reading a lot about process and structure. Do I buy it? I haven’t fully decided that just yet.  Many of these processes are about structure and formulas.  I understand that we as instructors need to provide that structure, especially with students in a remedial (my SI kids) class or 101 course.  However, I don’t like structure, rules, and restrictions in writing.  I think this stems from growing up and dealing with dyslexia.  I’ve always had smart things to say, but people get caught up on my spelling, or a missed comma.  My question to that is: why?  Why do we care enough to rip a paper apart because of cosmetic issues? If a problem is consistent (like a comma splice) I highlight that sentence and say “this is a mistake you’re making frequently in your writing, let’s go over the rules of commas together because if you’re struggling chances are someone else in the class is to.”  This cosmetic idea brings me to my next point.  Having an immigrant family I grew up hearing people speak with accents my entire life.  What disturbs me about American culture is the fact that we view people with accents as not intelligent.  This is completely wrong.  If we can understand and accept someone’s accent in verbal language, why is it not acceptable for their academic voice to have an accent?  So they missed an article in their sentence, does that really fundamentally change their argument? No.  All this does is force the student to write for the “institution” which defeats the purpose pf teaching how to write.  This is why I don’t fully buy into some of the structures being taught. I like them and they clearly have the academic research to back their statements up, but I disagree when it comes to teaching something as personal as writing. Writing is a form of art and expression. I don’t care if an article is missing, or there’s a missed comma as long as the student is writing for them and NOT me.