Further Reflections on the Teaching of Writing

 

A few days ago, when I posted random ruminations on the 40 years I have spent in trying to teach freshmen how to improve their writing, I figured that next to no one would be interested. But I was wrong. As of this hour, some 86 comments have been posted, and the thread keeps on going.

With this in mind, I would like to direct the attention of Ricochet readers to a remarkable piece on this subject, entitled Getting the Words Right, which Tracy Lee Simmons published in National Review on Sept. 11, 2000 and sent to me when he read my piece. At my request, Tracy got the folks at NRO to post his article online at this link.

Here is how it begins:

Once upon a seminar in the mid 1980s, a cadre of graduate teaching assistants gathered to hear a talk delivered by the author of a textbook designed for courses in freshman English. “This is an exciting time to teach writing,” she intoned, “because it’s not just about writing anymore.” She extended her arms from a billowing smock of clashing colors and balanced an invisible balloon upon her head. “Writing is about self-realization. You have the power to help your students discover their own uniqueness.” Mere writing, stringing words together with concision and clarity, suddenly seemed pedestrian. What those TA’s could not figure out, though, was how her textbook, damp with its New Age mist of self-discovery, could help to teach any­one how to write anything one might generously call English.

She didn’t ride the fringes. She spoke for the New Way. For over the previous 20 years the academic instruction of writing in America had been trans­formed from an apprenticeship in careful utterance—burdened with grammar and rules of usage and endless red-pencil­marked themes—to a smooth path to an easy grade. Everybody can do it. Just open the dikes of the repressed psyche and watch the creative tide flow to the broad, calm waters of mental and emo­tional health. Our New Age author was right: It isn’t just about writing anymore.

Would that it were. Writing well has been a thorny task at all times; the best practitioners of the craft have always borne witness that good writing doesn’t come naturally. It’s a sweaty, punishing business. And it is a job made no easier by larding on greasy desiderata for self-fulfillment and, a not-always-stated purpose, political awareness. How did anyone fob off the idea, sometime be­tween the Beatles’ first LP and disco, that writing one’s language simply and accurately isn’t enough for one course?

The rest is even better than that. You should go back to the link, tap on it, and read the whole thing. It is better written than my squib and far more thoughtful. It is the sort of piece that every college freshman should be made to peruse.

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  1. Jon Gabriel, Ed. Contributor
    Jon Gabriel, Ed.
    @jon

    “Larding on greasy desiderata for self-fulfillment” is my new favorite phrase.

    • #1
  2. Paul A. Rahe Member
    Paul A. Rahe
    @PaulARahe

    I should perhaps add that, when I arrived at Hillsdale, Tracy was ensconced in an office two doors from mine. He now lives in his beloved Virginia and continues to teach youngsters how to read literature and to write.

    • #2
  3. Valiuth Member
    Valiuth
    @Valiuth

    I wonder how much the complaints about the writing talent of the average student or person is driven by the fact that today, perhaps more than ever, more people are forced to express themselves in writing. Consider the ubiquity of e-mail, text messaging, online discussion forums, company memos etc. In the past only a small and rather elite group of people engaged in writing on a regular basis as part of their everyday activity. Today probably half of adults do so on any given day. Maybe we are not worse off than we ever were, but technology and a changing culture, has simply revealed a hidden truth.

    We always love to complain on our side of the philosophical divide about the crumbling of culture, but how much of our complaining is do to a false perspective? Maybe if in 1950’s half of high school students went to collage the average collage essay might have been just as poor as they are today. Of course this doesn’t mean we do not have a problem with bad writing, but rather that the problem might not be its teaching.

    After all if one considers the spoken language can any one argue that our speaking of English is worse today (on average) than it was in the past? Do more people miss use words when speaking today than they did in 1950? Everybody speaks English and our standards for what is acceptable spoken English, I suspect, are far lower than what they are for written English. If more people write today I do not see why our written standards should not also be set democratically lower.

    Language both spoken and written is what people make it out to be. It is a rather arbitrary thing when one actually considers it, and there maybe nothing we can do to alter where the gravity of the public consciousness pulls the language and its standards.

    • #3
  4. user_554634 Member
    user_554634
    @MikeRapkoch

    Good writing, like knowledge, maketh a bloody entrance. I have never “discovered” myself while writing anything.Truth is I wouldn’t want to. I’d just further reveal to myself what a lazy schlub I really am. Much better to lose oneself in the effort to write something others might appreciate than to worry about self awareness. The one thing a good bit of prose will do for you is give you a sense of ACCOMPLISHMENT, an objective measure of who you are.  But every accomplishment worthy of the name requires effort. Easy, breezy writing to find oneself will do what one would expect–produce gobbledigook.

    Personally, I get a lot more self-awareness  from going to confession.

    • #4
  5. Casey Inactive
    Casey
    @Casey

    Valiuth,

    Pick up a copy of Irish Green and Union Blue: The Civil War letters of Peter Welsh. Or some book like it.

    • #5
  6. Basil Fawlty Member
    Basil Fawlty
    @BasilFawlty

    My favorite exercise from when I took freshman comp was to rewrite several paragraphs from a descriptive essay by Robert Louis Stevenson so as to describe coherenty an entirely different scene of my choice, using the identical sentence structure but different words. This was over 50 years ago and I still remember it.

    • #6
  7. Fredösphere Inactive
    Fredösphere
    @Fredosphere

    “Writing is a voyage of self-discovery.” That claim is quite true, but the self the neophyte writer inevitably discovers is one whose mind is full of mush.

    • #7
  8. Fredösphere Inactive
    Fredösphere
    @Fredosphere

    My wife home-schools and used Saxon Math for the elementary years. She hated, hated, hated it. It was all repetition, and it was terribly boring for the teacher. She didn’t reject it on that account, however, because she accepted the idea that the memorization-focused approach was appropriate for that age.

    The classical education theory divides the grades into grammar (facts), dialectic (meaning) and rhetoric (persuasion). The problem is that the rhetoric level is, by far, the most intellectually stimulating level for the teacher. But it’s worthless for students who have not completed grammar and dialectic.

    I suspect the problem stems from bored teachers convincing themselves that what’s best for themselves is best for the students.

    • #8
  9. MarciN Member
    MarciN
    @MarciN

    A wonderful article. Thank you.

    • #9
  10. Valiuth Member
    Valiuth
    @Valiuth

    Casey:Valiuth,

    Pick up a copy of Irish Green and Union Blue: The Civil War letters of Peter Welsh.Or some book like it.

    I assume they are very eloquent. Still is he representative of the average mans writing skill? Time has a way of sifting the chaff. So I am skeptical of such examples.

    • #10
  11. virgil15marlow@yahoo.com Coolidge
    virgil15marlow@yahoo.com
    @Manny

    I don’t have time to read the Tracy Lee article at the moment, but if you want a really good counter-intuitive understanding of writing and style, I recommend Richard Lanham’s Style: An Anti Textbook.  It’s on Amazon.  The notion that “lucidity” is the prime objective of writing is a fallacy, and Lanham shows why.

    • #11
  12. Foxman Inactive
    Foxman
    @Foxman

    About fifteen years ago I went to the Detroit Institute of Art.  There I learned the true meaning of the word “Masterpiece”. I had always thought that a masterpiece was a very good piece of art, perhaps the artist’s best.  I learned that, while a masterpiece must be a fine work, it was not necessarily the artist’s ultimate.

    The particular piece I was looking at was a piece of furniture.  In the old guild system a young man wanted to be a furniture maker he would apprentice himself to a master.  After a period of time, if he showed proficiency in the craft, he could become a journeyman.  After a period of time refining his work he could apply to be recognized as a master.  He would build a piece of furniture to demonstrate that he had mastered all the technical techniques required to be a master furniture maker.  It was like a master’s thesis. If after the guild masters examined the piece and they agreed, he would become one of them. The same type of thing was required for all the arts. (cont.)

    • #12
  13. Foxman Inactive
    Foxman
    @Foxman

    (cont.)

    The point is, in order to be recognized, even as a journeyman, you first had to demonstrate technical skills.  Imagination and creativity are fine, but without technical skills you cannot be an artist.

    Today it seems that the only skill required is a mastery of bovine excrement.

    • #13
  14. Foxman Inactive
    Foxman
    @Foxman

    Valiuth:

    Do more people miss use misuse words when speaking today than they did in 1950?

    I’m sorry. I could not help myself.

    • #14
  15. Casey Inactive
    Casey
    @Casey

    Valiuth:

    Casey:Valiuth,

    Pick up a copy of Irish Green and Union Blue: The Civil War letters of Peter Welsh.Or some book like it.

    I assume they are very eloquent. Still is he representative of the average mans writing skill? Time has a way of sifting the chaff. So I am skeptical of such examples.

    Actually, Peter Welsh wrote like an average person who was taught how to write.  He wasn’t writing literature.  It wasn’t flowery.  But the letters are sensible and orderly.  And I think one finds that quite often when reading old letters from ordinary people.

    More people write today but in short-form, off-the-cuff style.  Meaning is drawn out through the conversational interplay and not explicitly and clearly expressed in a single document.  One probably needs to be able to do both but the latter is not emphasized.

    • #15
  16. liberal jim Inactive
    liberal jim
    @liberaljim

    I’ve read these posts with interest.  I assume Hillsdale’s admission standards are higher than the average public college and that they either do not bother ascertaining if the applicants  can write or accept many of them even though they are aware they cannot.  I also assume that since Prof. Rahe finds the same deficiencies in upper level students that he saw when they were Freshmen, it is not necessary  for advancement.  I am guessing these students go on to graduate still not having acquired the skill.  I conclude the skill is not learned in school because it is not necessary to learn it to succeed in school.  I assume at one point at Hillsdale reasonably good writing skill was the acceptable standard and then profs began accepting something less and that became the new acceptable standard.   Maybe the problem is that the students and not the professors are really in charge.

    • #16
  17. Paul A. Rahe Member
    Paul A. Rahe
    @PaulARahe

    liberal jim:I’ve read these posts with interest. I assume Hillsdale’s admission standards are higher than the average public college and that they either do not bother ascertaining if the applicants can write or accept many of them even though they are aware they cannot. I also assume that since Prof. Rahe finds the same deficiencies in upper level students that he saw when they were Freshmen, it is not necessary for advancement. I am guessing these students go on to graduate still not having acquired the skill. I conclude the skill is not learned in school because it is not necessary to learn it to succeed in school. I assume at one point at Hillsdale reasonably good writing skill was the acceptable standard and then profs began accepting something less and that became the new acceptable standard. Maybe the problem is that the students and not the professors are really in charge.

    Things are far worse in the larger world than you imagine, and they have been getting worse now for more than forty years. Hillsdale is rather selective. Once you get a smidgen below the ivy league in your ability to pick and choose, you run into this problem — and it is hard to deal with given the bad habits that have become ingrained.

    Some of our students do learn what they need to know. Three recent graduates have clerked for the Supreme Court. They would never have been able to do so had they not learned to write exceedingly well. Others, however, slip through without dramatic improvement.

    We are, next year, I believe, adding a new course to the core — in Rhetoric and Logic. Its aim will be to tackle the writing question head-on.

    • #17
  18. Peter Robinson Contributor
    Peter Robinson
    @PeterRobinson

    My entire comment here?  God bless Paul Rahe–and Tracy Lee Simmons, and all the members of the small, dedicated cadre who continue to insist that good writing in high school and college matters. What consolation it might provide Prof. Rahe for untold hours of editing student essays, I cannot say, but in my own experience, the four professors I most admired at Dartmouth all insisted–just insisted–on clarity of expression among their students.  Even now I fall short of their standards, but Dartmouth professors Jeffrey Hart, Vincent Starzinger, Charles Stinson, and Rob Oden changed my life–literally.  Dozens of students no doubt feel the same unrepayable debt to  our own Paul.

    • #18
  19. liberal jim Inactive
    liberal jim
    @liberaljim

    Paul A. Rahe:

    liberal jim:I’ve read these posts with interest. I assume Hillsdale’s admission standards are higher than the average public college and that they either do not bother ascertaining if the applicants can write or accept many of them even though they are aware they cannot. I also assume that since Prof. Rahe finds the same deficiencies in upper level students that he saw when they were Freshmen, it is not necessary for advancement. I am guessing these students go on to graduate still not having acquired the skill. I conclude the skill is not learned in school because it is not necessary to learn it to succeed in school. I assume at one point at Hillsdale reasonably good writing skill was the acceptable standard and then profs began accepting something less and that became the new acceptable standard. Maybe the problem is that the students and not the professors are really in charge.

    Things are far worse in the larger world than you imagine, and they have been getting worse now for more than forty years. Hillsdale is rather selective. Once you get a smidgen below the ivy league in your ability to pick and choose, you run into this problem — and it is hard to deal with given the bad habits that have become ingrained.

    Some of our students do learn what they need to know. Three recent graduates have clerked for the Supreme Court. They would never have been able to do so had they not learned to write exceedingly well. Others, however, slip through without dramatic improvement.

    We are, next year, I believe, adding a new course to the core — in Rhetoric and Logic. Its aim will be to tackle the writing question head-on.

    Great news.   Provide the necessary support, expect success and don’t accept less.  I suspected Hillsdale could do it.

    • #19
  20. Palaeologus Inactive
    Palaeologus
    @Palaeologus

    Fredösphere:My wife home-schools and used Saxon Math for the elementary years. She hated, hated, hated it. It was all repetition, and it was terribly boring for the teacher. She didn’t reject it on that account, however, because she accepted the idea that the memorization-focused approach was appropriate for that age.

    The classical education theory divides the grades into grammar (facts), dialectic (meaning) and rhetoric (persuasion). The problem is that the rhetoric level is, by far, the most intellectually stimulating level for the teacher. But it’s worthless for students who have not completed grammar and dialectic.

    I suspect the problem stems from bored teachers convincing themselves that what’s best for themselves is best for the students.

    This an underappreciated (stuff it spell-check, underappreciated is a word and I spelled it correctly) cause of the tragedies we call Ed Schools.

    Sure some of the Leftist cranks running these institutions shove Bill Ayers, Paulo Friere, Michel Foucault, bell hooks, etc. down their students’ throats.

    Many, many more are trying to teach their pupils to recreate an “A-ha!” or “That’s Cool!” educational moment remembered from childhood.  Often these Ed Profs don’t recognize “the moment” likely wouldn’t have occurred if they hadn’t first developed technical competence through boring drills.

    • #20
  21. Fredösphere Inactive
    Fredösphere
    @Fredosphere

    Palaeologus: Many, many more are trying to teach their pupils to recreate an “A-ha!” or “That’s Cool!” educational moment remembered from childhood. Often these Ed Profs don’t recognize “the moment” likely wouldn’t have occurred if they hadn’t first developed technical competence through boring drills.

    Dead Poets Society has much to answer for.

    • #21
  22. Quietpi Member
    Quietpi
    @Quietpi

    Valiuth:I wonder how much the complaints about the writing talent of the average student or person is driven by the fact that today, perhaps more than ever, more people are forced to express themselves in writing. Consider the ubiquity of e-mail, text messaging, online discussion forums, company memos etc. In the past only a small and rather elite group of people engaged in writing on a regular basis as part of their everyday activity. Today probably half of adults do so on any given day. Maybe we are not worse off than we ever were, but technology and a changing culture, has simply revealed a hidden truth.

    We always love to complain on our side of the philosophical divide about the crumbling of culture, but how much of our complaining is do to a false perspective? Maybe if in 1950′s half of high school students went to collage the average collage essay might have been just as poor as they are today. Of course this doesn’t mean we do not have a problem with bad writing, but rather that the problem might not be its teaching.

    After all if one considers the spoken language can any one argue that our speaking of English is worse today (on average) than it was in the past? Do more people miss use words when speaking today than they did in 1950? Everybody speaks English and our standards for what is acceptable spoken English, I suspect, are far lower than what they are for written English. If more people write today I do not see why our written standards should not also be set democratically lower.

    Language both spoken and written is what people make it out to be. It is a rather arbitrary thing when one actually considers it, and there maybe nothing we can do to alter where the gravity of the public consciousness pulls the language and its standards.

    Valiuth, your assumptions and projections on the past are not accurate.  You assert that more people write today, but that explosion in what you call writing is, in fact, nothing of the sort.  Young people use devices with keyboards, indeed, but they “write” in a sort of simple-minded code that is bereft of any real thought – just communicating the simplest, – indeed nearly mindless – emotions.  Challenge these people with the task of actually saying something beyond, “OMG!” or “luv u,” and you will be very disappointed.

    A friend told me about an associate of his who was trying to demonstrate the loss of communication skills, particularly among today’s young people.  This was before a group of educators, or something similar.  Desperate, he tore several pages out of a book he had and handed them out to the group, asking them to individually determine the level of writing, expressed in terms of a school grade.  The ones who didn’t rate the papers as college upper class, rated them as graduate school or higher.

    The pages were torn from The Federalist Papers.  Written by some of the greatest minds ever to inhabit a human frame, they were written for the “average Joe,” the shopkeepers, and published in the newspapers.  The intended audience would have had at most a high school level of education, and many never attended school at all.  But they read, and they understood.  And they wrote their own thoughts about it.

    I read letters written by my ancestors – letters to parents from school, love letters, all sorts.  They were not written by great writers.  Writing was, however, the chief means of communication before telephones, radios and, well, cell phones/texting machines.  Nobody texted.  Everybody – yes, virtually everybody – wrote.

    I recently taught a couple classes that required a great deal of writing.  They were not English composition classes – at least they weren’t supposed to be.  Were those students to enter the workaday world with the communication ability they brought to that class, well, it would not be pretty.

    Thinking skills are bonded to writing skills, and writing to thinking.  Remove either one, and the other will quickly fail.  That’s the part that scares me the most.

    I confess, I do a lot of texting, and I can use graffiti as well as many teenagers.  But I am fully able to actually write, and convey to others my thoughts.  And I do have thoughts that cannot be expressed with happy faces.

    • #22
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