Break the Rules. Just Do it Well.
Ah, the new school year looms…
I found out that I’m teaching freshmen next year (insert evil cackles of glee right about now), but one of the reasons I’m looking forward to it a great deal is that a largish chunk of those pee-wees should, in the fullness of time, be my AP students of the future, so by teaching freshmen now, I’m basically vertical-teaming with myself — which I’ve found is actually the most effective method of vertical teaming.
Anyhoo, I have found that my AP students fall into two very general groups as writers: Group One and Group Two. The papers of Group One students invariably include a thesis statement in the expected location; they include exactly the amount of evidence you told them to include; they provide 1-2 sentences of explanation of that evidence, and their papers are largely free from mechanical, grammatical, and structural errors. They’re also more boring to read than the illicit love child of Eliot’s Middlemarch and the U.S. Revised Tax Code.
Then there’s Group Two.
Group Twos are not always to be found in AP. In fact, many of them have been in remedial English not in spite of their Group Two-ness, but ironically because of it. They’re the kind of kids who start off essays like this:
“Nietzsche observed that out of chaos comes order — or maybe it was Stewie on Family Guy. I forget. In Pride and Prejudice, though, it seems that out of order comes chaos, which proves definitively that Jane Austen was, like, the anti-Nietzsche. But I digress.”
I believe I forgot to mention that, just as student writers fall into two groups, so do teachers. Group Two teachers will immediately recognize that this student, though not a perfect writer, is a gem. For one, cutting to the very obvious, she’s getting to her point immediately: that in Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, chaos ultimately rises out of order. She hasn’t defined (yet) what she means by either of those two key terms, but that’s okay — reading this writer, you’re confident that she knows she needs to do that.
Conversely, a Group One Teacher will notice things also, but they’ll be different things. They’ll notice that the reference to Family Guy is largely irrelevant to the author’s point, that there are other irrelevant first-person comments (“I forget…but I digress…”) and worst of all, she started a sentence with a “but.”
The Group One teacher, if she allows rewrites, will get something like this:
“Nietzsche observed that out of chaos comes order. In Pride and Prejudice, out of order comes chaos.”
Though technically “correct” and much pithier, the composition now is well on its way to being suckworthy. The Group One teacher has managed to take filet mignon and turn it straight into Spam. Gone is that elusive quality of composition known as “voice,” that element of writing that allows the reader to hear the reader’s authentic voice as if she or he were speaking right in your ear, using all the unique, quirky, comedic, sardonic, or vivid language at the author’s disposal. It “sounds like” the real writer — and no one else, any more than Hemingway sounds like Poe or either of them sound like Annie Dillard.
Kids in Group One get along well with Group One teachers, as you can imagine. Group One teachers tell students a set of comforting rules that, if followed, will result in an acceptable composition, just as a recipe will, if followed, result in a decent meal. Group One students, because they basically enjoy rules and enjoy following them, and want a checklist of things to do so that they can do them, are comfortable with Group One teachers.
The Group Twos? Suffice it to say that they find the experience soul-crushing. It doesn’t take long before they realize that the elements about writing they love the most — the search for le mot juste, the allusion to an unusual or unexpected source, a pairing of apparently unrelated ideas to tease out a non-obvious conclusion — are precisely those qualities that will be invariably and inevitably red-penned by the Group One teacher. If Picasso had had a Group One teacher, she would’ve told him to quit putting the eyes on the same goddamned side, already.
All that Group Two really needs from a writing teacher is a checklist — a “shopping list” of writing tasks that need to get accomplished in some reasonably logical order before the end of the composition. The “shopping list” usually looks like this, and yeah, the order’s reasonably important:
- Author and title of the work in question
- The main point you, the writer, are making about that work
- The major ways in which you’re going to prove your point to be true
- The hard evidence that supports that point
- The context — the who, what, where, when, why of the evidence
- The explanation — why the evidence proves your point, what specific words “lock it in.”
- The conclusion
For freshmen, who are basically writing paragraphs, I simplify this a lot, building on an idea I found on the AP’s English listserv. The technique I teach for paragraph structure is called “SQuEES,” and it’s short for Sentence (topic sentence with the author’s name and title and main point being made), Quotes (the hard evidence), Explanation (the who, what, where…), Elaboration (the explanation why the evidence proves the point) and Sentence again (a transition to the next paragraph).
Group Two students know, usually through the osmotic wisdom of having read a great deal themselves, that they must accomplish these tasks. What they want is the freedom to do them in the way which works best for them as writers.
That’s why I end up giving two completely contradictory pieces of advice to my students. I’ll explain about Group One and Group Two. “You yourself know which group you’re in,” I’ll say. “If you’re reassured to have the SQuEES technique and always follow it and find it comforting, you’re probably in Group One, which is fine — if you follow those rules, you’ll end up as solid, competent writers. On the other hand, if you’re sitting there thinking, ‘NOOOOO!!! These arbitrary rules! Aiee! They crush my voice — they will not let me SING!’ then you’re most likely in Group Two. Where you are is up to you to determine, and you get to change that at any time. If you’re a One and decide you want to be a Two, you have my blessing.
“Group One, I want you to follow the rules, which you want to do anyway. Group Two, I want you to break the rules, which you also want to do anyway. The only proviso is this: If you’re going to break the rules, you’ve got to do it well.”
I’ve been happy overall with the quality of writing I’ve gotten. Ironically, even though you might think that the Group Two people would end up writing disorganized crapola that’s all over the map, they really don’t. Surprisingly — or not — they get everything done, and ironically (or not) in the same SQuEES order I’ve taught them at the beginning of the year.
This brings me, in roundabout fashion, to talk about how I was a real idiot: I turned into a Group One teacher with my own favorite pupil.
Child has been taking a distance ed. ninth-grade class through Generic Midwestern University for a month or so now, and unlike Child’s previous distance ed. class, this one requires a heck of a lot more writing — about nine paragraphs per lesson or so. Realizing that what was called for was a writing technique that would give him/her some more structure to his/her writing, I taught Child the basic SQuEES technique. S/He figured it out, wrote about three paragraphs that way without much difficulty, and then seemed to hit a COMPLETE. BRICK. WALL.
Every writing assignment became a grueling match of patience versus procrastination. Child would delay starting the writing even after reading the selection, taking notes, brainstorming, doing all that good lay-the-ground prepwork writers (in whatever group) need to do before they have something to say. He/She would definitely have an opinion about the work, which I would encourage him/her to put in. Dickering and delay would follow, with maybe one or two desultory sentences squeezed (or SQuEESed) out at a time with painful slowness and constant encouragement.
Finally, this all came to a head when we read an O. Henry story which Child had read before and loved. The assignment was simple: Discuss how O. Henry uses suspense.
Child took notes on suspense in the beginning, middle, and end of the story. At the end, he/she produced a composition that sounded a lot like a Group One piece of work:
In “The Gift of the Magi,” O. Henry uses suspense throughout the story. At the beginning of the story, O. Henry uses suspense when Della wonders what to give Jim for Christmas….”
It was perfect…if you were a Group One teacher.
Problem was, where was the soul?
I came to the conclusion that we were in over our heads. We shouldn’t've skipped eighth grade English, I figured, even though seventh grade had been easy. We should back out now. Just give more time, more experience, more room to season her/his skills, to read more, to take the pressure off. The best thing to do would be to quit, or at least to put the course on hold, if we could, and come back to it at a later time. He/She just didn’t seem to be getting it and this struggle was becoming painful.
But when I was driving, I wondered, What if he/she’s…? Could it be that the problem was…?
I went home and told Child a version of what I tell my students about Group One and Group Two and the two sets of rules. “But what about if it’s too long?” he/she asked.
I was heartened. This is a classic Group Two question.
“So it’s too long. We’ll email the teacher and ask. In the meantime, to heck with the rules. The only thing you have to do is write about how O. Henry uses suspense in this story. That’s it. However else you want to do it, you go for it. You want to be funny? Be funny. You want to make comparisons to other things? You do that.”
The composition Child wrote is on the refrigerator now. When I read it, I laughed so hard I cried. Sardonic, smartalecky, quirky, it focused on O. Henry’s suspense throughout — ironically or not, with quotes, with explanations, with all the other stuff on the “shopping list.” It sang with voice.
Um. Yeah, I was an idiot.
Suffice it to say that I now have more sympathy for the Group One teachers who don’t recognize Group Two students. At least from personal experience, I see why those folks are easy to miss. Even a fairly open-ended method like the SQuEES technique can seem scarily rigid to someone with perfectionistic tendencies who’s more panicky than the average bear about making sure it’s done “the right way,” even though they’ve internalized already what “the right way” is and just need the freedom to play with it. It’s like this: Even though you’re good at eating and knew instinctively that there were an optimal number of times a given piece of food should be chewed before being swallowed, wouldn’t it make you paranoid if you thought someone was counting — and judging you?
Yeah, that would suck a lot of flavor out of my personal burger.
The problem is, fear of failure can look a great deal like lack of mastery, which we all know from having had the guy from the DMV sit next to us in the passenger seat. To a reasonable teacher, it can look like there’s no compelling reason to accelerate a genuinely gifted child to a class where they’d be appropriately challenged. If the parent doesn’t have any independent evidence to present — and sometimes, even if they do — they basically have nothing in their hand to show a reluctant teacher, principal, or school official…and then the kid gets relegated to doing activities s/he mastered years ago, and no one learns jack, least of all the kid.
That’s why I’m writing this: to show that it’s THAT easy to miss — but that easy to fix, too.
“Aiee. They crush my voice — they will not let me SING!’”
Adso, I just hope DD has teachers like you this coming year. ‘m filing this one away to share with her.
Such sweeping generalizations … rarely are there two such neatly defined groups. Sure, I teach organization and conventions, but also spend a lot of time encouraging students to find their voice. You’ll find that many students fall into yet another group … not much voice, little style, “diary writing” in place of organization (with no thought of audience). Most comp teachers I know welcome those students who have a voice and take risks … but such students aren’t flooding the classrooms. You romanticize!
No Fallacies, if you’ll peek back at my entry, you’ll notice that I stated that AP students “fall into two very general groups as writers,” suggesting that I was deliberately making a generalization, but thank you for pointing this out.
I’m quite glad you encourage students to write with both organization and voice, but in my experience, which may differ from yours, while some English teachers welcome students who have a voice and take risks, too many of them teach that “good writing” consists only of meeting grammatical and structural rules, and unfortunately, those teachers (for whatever reason) tend to make a deeper impression on students, probably because many students, even (or especially) the really good writers, feel as if they have to write strictly “by the book” with no room left for expression or opinion — much less style.
For a specific example, since you would prefer specifics, I once worked at a school where one of my students received a nomination for a major award for which s/he would have to write an essay that allowed the award committee to learn more about him or her as a person. S/He wrote an unconventional piece in which s/he placed the audience inside his/her head, allowing the readers to observe her/his interactions with other students, academic subjects, and teachers, and truly, by the end of the essay, the reader felt as if he had been permitted inside this person’s consciousness. Plus, it was delightfully ironic and lighthearted — truly representative of this person.
An administrator read it. Her/His pronouncement? “What kind of crap is this?” Regrettably, NoFallacies, this is neither generalization nor romanticism.
No, excellent writers aren’t “flooding the classrooms,” but you’ll notice that I did not make that claim, having said only, “I’ve been happy overall with the quality of writing I’ve gotten.” I regret that you see this as “romanticizing” anything, but perhaps your idea of romance is similar to my idea of contentment. Opinions may vary.
Wishing you a successful academic year,
Adso
SwitchedOnMom, I hope your lovely child just has teachers who catch on earlier than I did! *Smacks own head ruefully.*
Great post, it was very informative. I think its a must read.
I’m hoping for some common ground, honest, but I experience from your post the same cool response from fellow teachers in my composition department — all of whom are literature majors, many of whom refuse to use the term “argument” (let alone teach it). In grad school, I had life-changing professors in composition theory, classical rhetoric, and stylistics who pointed out the beauty of braiding substance with a style appropriate to the rhetorical situation (that’s why I use Lloyd Bitzer’s “The Rhetorical Situation” in my teaching, emphasizing to my students that text-messaging is fine among friends, but may not play so well with a different audience, occasion, or purpose). The beauty of a rhetorical approach lies in its emphasis on choice: by learning different approaches for showcasing their ideas (depending on audience, occasion, and purpose), they only add more arrows to their quivers. Instead of pouring them into a mold (as often thought), it offers them more conscious choices. Hence, your student above, might have considered her audience, purpose, and occasion a bit more while still taking a few creative liberties. The desire to be limitless can be limiting. Doesn’t it really go back to the Emersonian and American Romanticism of the 19th century (that’s what I meant by the “romantic” reference). In my department, English Literature majors are teaching composition and yearn to be teaching literature. They feel that even mentioning the word “argument” (let alone using its language) sucks the expressiveness out of students. That kind of sounds like those early American Romantic idealists like Emerson who tried but failed to escape the conventions they hoped to transcend. But, let’s face it, even Huck Finn didn’t stay naked on the raft forever (and never really successfully dealt with “society” and its conventions once he came back to shore).
My intent is not to face-off with you, but to try to bridge our differences. It’s a fact we have conventions — of language and genre — just as we do with other types of social behavior. If I can help students find a way of putting a stamp on their writing while still working within these necessary constraints, constraints by which the world goes ’round (mostly for communication and efficacy), then I’ve maybe helped to add to their language flexibility and knowledge of choices.
In Richard Poirier’s timeless book, “A World Elsewhere: The Place of Style in American Literature,” he writes in reference to Mark Twain, Henry Thoreau, Henry James, and William Faulkner that we can “detect a sustained, an acknowledge tension between the writer’s commitment to visionary possibilities and his obligations to certain conventions of expression that tend to frustrate those possibilities, to call them into question. This tension … is a measure of the degree to which visionary experience has to confirm itself within the antagonistic realities of daily life and within the literary artifacts that have shaped those realities.”
The wonderful critic Murray Kreiger suggested that we seek “still movement” in dynamic expression, what he called “the ekphrastic principle.” Even though we “must freeze experience (in language) in order most fully to feel its flow,” we can still aim for expression that captures the “boundless, ceaseless flow of our experience.”
Just this summer, after reading Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” many of my students came up after class and said, “Wow. That was really something.” King’s argument skills are exceptional — but so was his style, one that transcended form with his metaphors, similes, antithesis, etc. It was writing that moved (in both senses of the word), although it was certainly fixed in the conventions of classical argument.
I recommend the recent article in “New York” magazine that analyzed Barack Obama’s language … how his use of antithesis (form) reflects his attempt to join together the very disunited groups he refers to (substance). We read the article together in class (projected on a big screen), and, afterward, students couldn’t stop talking about it. One student said, “His speeches are magic … some of it is just Barack’s unique personality, but now I can actually see what stylistic techniques he’s using to carry through his ideas.” This same student told me before the semester ended that he’s now attempting some stylistic techniques in his own website as a means of making his ideas more effective and persuasive.
I realize this is too long and probably won’t be posted (which I understand), but my goal has always been one of closing the schism that seems to exist in too many composition departments these days. I think we can have the best of both our perspectives, don’t you? I hope you, too, enjoy your upcoming school year. Thank you for letting me express myself.
“The problem is, fear of failure can look a great deal like lack of mastery, which we all know from having had the guy from the DMV sit next to us in the passenger seat.”
How true! Excellent post.
I wish I could have had a teacher who showed us the balance of form and freedom. Too many offered freedom alone, perhaps romantically expecting genius to flourish, but in reality leaving the students to flounder. I like your approach, providing the crutch while also empowering the students who are strong enough to run without it.
No Fallacies, you said, “I’m hoping for some common ground, honest, but I experience from your post the same cool response from fellow teachers in my composition department — all of whom are literature majors, many of whom refuse to use the term “argument” (let alone teach it).”
***You’re putting your finger on what I believe to be a central problem in student writing, actually. I’ve blamed lack of argument on lack of teaching logical thinking outside of geometry (and sometimes not even there), but it’s not a skill that automatically transfers from solving proofs to constructing a plan of attack for a paper. You’re correct in assuming that most literature majors have had little to no training in rhetoric, or at least this is also true in my state.
***I’ve also (maybe unfairly) blamed the reluctance to argue as part of the generally nonconfrontational ethos embodied in the phrase “don’t judge,” which to me is the equivalent of “Don’t come to a conclusion based on evidence; don’t actually THINK,” but that’s the subject for a whole ‘nother rant.
You said, “The beauty of a rhetorical approach lies in its emphasis on choice: by learning different approaches for showcasing their ideas (depending on audience, occasion, and purpose), they only add more arrows to their quivers. Instead of pouring them into a mold (as often thought), it offers them more conscious choices.”
***You’re largely describing what I do…but not until about second semester are the vast bulk of my AP kids prepared to do it, and not until after they’ve developed their voice to some extent. They have to learn that writing the formulaic five-paragraph essay beginning (literally), “In this essay, I am going to be showing that…” simply will not work on the AP exam, and for some, this is a rude awakening equivalent to discovering Moses’ Ten Commandments to be written on Styrofoam. I’m guessing that your students are better-prepared (or that you have more effective vertical teaming in your school).
Hence, your student above, might have considered her audience, purpose, and occasion a bit more while still taking a few creative liberties. The desire to be limitless can be limiting. Doesn’t it really go back to the Emersonian and American Romanticism of the 19th century (that’s what I meant by the “romantic” reference).
***I think there’s a happy marriage to be found between Aristotle and Emerson, if you know what I mean. I’m not an “unschooler” of a teacher, if that helps. Rather, I’m trying to hit on that golden mean between allowing them their own voice and insisting on argument, evidence, explanation, and the consciousness of audience. The folks I get are generally in love with rules, structure, and order, and there are always two or three die-hards each year who simply don’t get how a student AP sample essay could’ve received a raw score of “9″ when it broke all the “rules.”
You said, “In my department, English Literature majors are teaching composition and yearn to be teaching literature. They feel that even mentioning the word “argument” (let alone using its language) sucks the expressiveness out of students.”
***They’ve never heard of a rant? A blog? Jonathan Swift? Heck, John McCain’s Paris Hilton video?
That kind of sounds like those early American Romantic idealists like Emerson who tried but failed to escape the conventions they hoped to transcend.
***See, and personally, I’m not so fond of baby-tossing in my effort to clean the washtub. I think that rules of composition, especially ones that have persisted since Aristotle, tend to remain relevant because they make fundamental sense and aren’t just arbitrary choices imposed by Those On High. The rhetorical triangle hasn’t fundamentally changed because the nature of argument — of persuasion — hasn’t fundamentally changed, and that’s because, bottom line, people haven’t fundamentally changed enough so that these methods of persuasion don’t work.
But, let’s face it, even Huck Finn didn’t stay naked on the raft forever (and never really successfully dealt with “society” and its conventions once he came back to shore).
***No, I think his best bet would’ve been to move to New Bedford with Jim and take up whaling.
My intent is not to face-off with you, but to try to bridge our differences.
***I don’t think you’ll need the Verrazano-Narrows to do it, actually — my feeling is that we’re closer, ideologically speaking, than you might at first have thought.
It’s a fact we have conventions — of language and genre — just as we do with other types of social behavior. If I can help students find a way of putting a stamp on their writing while still working within these necessary constraints, constraints by which the world goes ’round (mostly for communication and efficacy), then I’ve maybe helped to add to their language flexibility and knowledge of choices.
***I completely agree.
In Richard Poirier’s timeless book, “A World Elsewhere: The Place of Style in American Literature,” he writes in reference to Mark Twain, Henry Thoreau, Henry James, and William Faulkner that we can “detect a sustained, an acknowledge tension between the writer’s commitment to visionary possibilities and his obligations to certain conventions of expression that tend to frustrate those possibilities, to call them into question.
***Well, not to get all poststructuralist (or possibly post-poststructuralist, I suppose), but although Derrida might deride (Derride?) language as being a set of arbitrary signifiers loosely attached to the things signified, the fact remains that we can push language only so far before it begins to lose all referential meaning (and thus its ultimate purpose). I think Rimbaud was coming close to this in his synaesthetic poetry, and God knows, James Joyce lived in that world all the time, so that reading Finnegans Wake is like listening to the language of Babel. At some level, though, in order to reach readers and move them, the word “pipe” still has to mean “pipe,” and a cigar will have to be just a cigar.
This tension … is a measure of the degree to which visionary experience has to confirm itself within the antagonistic realities of daily life and within the literary artifacts that have shaped those realities.”
The wonderful critic Murray Kreiger suggested that we seek “still movement” in dynamic expression, what he called “the ekphrastic principle.” Even though we “must freeze experience (in language) in order most fully to feel its flow,” we can still aim for expression that captures the “boundless, ceaseless flow of our experience.”
***That reminds me very much of the effort being made in “Ode on a Grecian Urn.”
Just this summer, after reading Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” many of my students came up after class and said, “Wow. That was really something.” King’s argument skills are exceptional — but so was his style, one that transcended form with his metaphors, similes, antithesis, etc. It was writing that moved (in both senses of the word), although it was certainly fixed in the conventions of classical argument.
***YES. When style is wedded to meaning, it’s an inescapable one-two rhetorical punch.
I recommend the recent article in “New York” magazine that analyzed Barack Obama’s language … how his use of antithesis (form) reflects his attempt to join together the very disunited groups he refers to (substance).
***Was that the NYM issue which had that powerful article about the ex-drug user, or was it one less recent? I didn’t see it.
We read the article together in class (projected on a big screen), and, afterward, students couldn’t stop talking about it. One student said, “His speeches are magic … some of it is just Barack’s unique personality, but now I can actually see what stylistic techniques he’s using to carry through his ideas.”
***YES. What a wonderful breakthrough for them (and a heartening moment for you). With my folks, the brightest students do understand that, to paraphrase Pope, the sound must seem an echo to the sense, that there are reasons WHY one would use anadiplosis here, or parallel structure there, or antitheses some other place — they’re not random choices any more than anything else is a random choice.
This same student told me before the semester ended that he’s now attempting some stylistic techniques in his own website as a means of making his ideas more effective and persuasive.
I realize this is too long and probably won’t be posted (which I understand), but my goal has always been one of closing the schism that seems to exist in too many composition departments these days. I think we can have the best of both our perspectives, don’t you? I hope you, too, enjoy your upcoming school year. Thank you for letting me express myself.
***It was a pleasure talking to you, and I’m glad you wrote back.
Take care,
Adso
NoFallacies said this on August 11, 2008 at 10:49 am (edit)
I enjoyed this. In recent years, I have pondered some of these concepts, and it was great to read your assessment.
Wow. I am SO Group One-y. This is a great post to help me stretch my thinking! Thanks so much. I’m printing and keeping this near me. I’m using it this fall! (With your permission?)
Holy Cow! Is that why I never got a 4 on my AP English exam?:D
Actually, your post resonated quite a bit. We underestimate Grace quite a bit on her wiriting mostly due to age-approprite issues, but what she produces is lovely. I intend to either help her myself, or find an appropriate program to guide her though the mechanics of clear writing in the next few years. That way her own, sometimes whacky-opinionated, “voice” will not be lost amongst the nuts and bolts. Thanks again!
Forte
No problem, OKP — feel free.
Any time, Forte!
Great idea. I’m teaching Advanced English for the first time this year and I plan to use this very idea. Thanks for sharing.
I was rumaging through my Google time machine, to make the final few hours of work zip by ,and was lucky enough to come across your article.I’m not a teacher and I don’t work in the field of education but it was good to find out that the mold at the teacher making factory doesn’t make um all the same mould.
Thank you! Thank you. I’ve been struggling to help my PG child, whom I suspect is a “Group II” student after a semester with Group 1 teacher. She pointed out to me that her most recent writing class used the same techniques and every previous teacher had used with her unsuccessfully. After a great deal of struggle, we’ve got a workable draft of an essay that just needs evidence and a once-over for mechanics. The only thing I really did that helped was allowing her to choose (within a reasonably broad definition of the literary canon) the subject of the essay. I suspect that waiving more of the rules would have resulted in more, better writing faster.