Practical Writing II

Ok, after reading what I wrote on my last post, I feel like I didn't really get my point across.
I wasn't necessarily saying that English course DON'T all together implement practical writing in their courses, but more so that this should be the emphasis and as of now, it is not.  After all, when we go into our careers and use writing in the real world, it's not going to be to construct a character analysis.  Let's be honest, after college, that kind of writing won't be relevant...unless you become a teacher or professor of this topic.  But getting back to the point, I think it's odd that most English courses emphasize this type of writing, but not practical writing.  Granted, I come from a smaller high school where the only English courses offered consisted of your basic 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th grade English class or AP Lit and AP Lang.  We didn't have any interesting writing classes; they simply taught us how to write a formal essay and so far, with my one semester of college, this is still the case.  Maybe I'm basing my conclusion off of too narrow of evidence, but I feel like, for the most part, writing courses aren't emphasizing practical writing enough.  I do agree that it's important to learn how to write formal essays. It teaches us how to think in a different, more in depth manner, but at the same time schools (at least in my case) are failing to help students use these writing they have established and transfer them to real life situations.  So I'm not claiming that schools are all together disregarding practical writing, but they are definitely not emphasizing it enough.  Personally, I think a shift in this emphasis would be worthwhile.