Good for you. What do you teach? What level?
It is a great skill.
My employees could barely string together four words in an email.
My kids can write, and it sets them apart from their peers.
I teach at the maritime college in Maine and was hired 30 years ago this Friday. Our program in international business and logistics has grown so much that I teach principles of economics (micro and macro) and an on-line graduate course in transportation economics.
And I agree with you, it is a great skill to have.
I am a community college librarian and I have worked in my position for twenty-five years. Over those years on several occasions I have read lots of research papers and essays students will just print out and then walk out and leave, never to return to collect. The writing quality has been on a spiral downward, especially in the last ten years.
I have student workers who ask me to critique their assignments every semester. I always tell them before giving their paper to me to read, read it yourself and imagine you were reading it like a news reporter. Would your audience be able to understand what you are trying to get across. That usually helps them to write a better product.
I have preached to my children about being able to write a coherent essay with an introduction, the body of the paper and a conclusion. I have also told them to learn basic mathematics and be able to speak to a group of people clearly and succinctly and they would be ahead of the game in the workforce.
The high schools in this country are failing miserably in the products they are graduating and now the college are having to try and teach these students just the basics of everything in regard to education.