[t-3]

Reading more is the best way to learn though. Having good examples to imitate and build off of make writing clear, engaging prose much easier. When my math teachers told me "just do the practice problems", I also thought they were idiots, but they were actually right...

[latexr]

> Reading more is the best way to learn though.

It’s useless advice to a student asking for specific help. A cooking student asking “why is my rice always soggy” should hear “let’s start by examining how much water you’re using”, not “watch more cooking shows until you understand through osmosis”.

The point of a teacher is to teach. If the only guidance they can muster is “consume more of what you’re trying to create”, there’s no point to having a class.

[misterprime]

Yes, not everyone can notice the important element of what they're witnessing, especially not a novice.

I've seen a lot of baseball and golf, and I still don't know how to even try to swing those things properly.

[Disruptive_Dave]

Reading as a reader is kinda different than reading as a writer. Different mind states. As a reader I'm getting lost in a story, not picking up on writing styles and patterns. You're not wrong. Just need the caveat of reading with the intention (or partial intention) to pull yourself out of the story and check out the architecture.

[awestroke]

Reading more is good, but what if the teacher had pointed out the sentence length and told the student to start reflecting on sentence length while reading?

[strgcmc]

Outside of classroom-style dedicated instruction, this really does seem to be the best form of learning, i.e. a semi-active/not-fully-passive approach.

There is generally no "hack" that the student can use to avoid having to read a lot of stuff, in order to learn and especially to become an expert. What a student needs to read, isn't necessarily textbooks or the traditional orthodoxy of materials, but still there is undoubtedly a lot of reading that must be done, to "get good" as they say.

That being said, for a teacher to GUIDE that reading, to give some hints, pointers, themes, interconnections, sequencing (start with X, then read Y to deepen your knowledge of X), etc., is absolutely invaluable.

To me, this seems like the Pareto-optimal 80/20 breakdown, where 20% of the teacher's investment in time and energy can get you 80% of the benefit of having teaching at all (i.e. don't need a full curriculum or full-time commitment to dedicated instruction, but do need to spend some time/energy pointing the student in various directions and giving them some ideas to think about while reading).

[Qub3d]

This is all brushing up against the central theme of "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance", which approaches its core thesis by dissecting the process of teaching college students how to "write Quality".

[Zababa]

> When my math teachers told me "just do the practice problems", I also thought they were idiots, but they were actually right...

Reading more would be reading problems. Doing practice problems is equivalent to writing and having someone/something point out if it's good or not.