the name for the school subject "writing"

[alpacinou]

Is there a specific name for "writing" in school curriculum? And when does it start?

For example, what would someone say about writing at school? I want to make this correct, accurate and natural:

Writing is a 2-credit part of school curriculum since the second grade of primary school.

 

[probus]

When I went to primary school it was called penmanship. They were talking about just learning to form the letters. That was in the late cretacious era so things may be different today. In high school we had to write essays and that was called English composition.

 

[alpacinou]

Does anyone know if these days children are taught writing in primary or secondary school? And what's the official name of the course?

 

[Tarheel]

That was a long time ago for me, but in high school they just called it English where I went to school. In elementary school they didn't have a word for it, or if they did they didn't tell us kids.

 

[emsr2d2]

If, by "writing", you mean "how to form letters", I would say that if they're still having to teach that in secondary school, then something has gone very wrong!
If you mean "composition" (essays, etc), I'm afraid I don't know. I don't know any school-age kids.

When I was at first school (that's what's now called primary school), the lessons in which we learnt to form letters, both cuneive and cursive, was just called "writing". In middle school (now called junior school), our standard English lessons covered punctuation, a bit of grammar, and how to construct an essay. In high school (secondary school), English was split into two subjects: English Language and English Literature. The former concentrated on essays, precis construction, writing poetry etc. The latter involved reading a Shakespeare play, a few novels, and some poetry and then writing essays and answering questions about them. We certainly weren't being taught how to form letters at middle school or high school.

 

[tedmc]

Where I come from, there is no subject called "writing" in school. "Composition/essay writing" is part of English, together with comprehension, grammar, etc.

 

[Barque]

Different educational systems across the world have their own way of doing things. It's quite possible that a topic which might be part of a larger subject in a school in one country might be a separate class in schools in others. I've never had a stand-alone class called writing.

I remember English was, for some time at my school, split into just plain 'English' (essays, literature, poetry) and English grammar (purely grammatical aspects). But when it came to exam time, we had a single paper covering both.