ENGL week 8 discussion

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Students understand why Barbie is sexist, but they can't

make their case in a coherent essay.

My students can't write a clear sentence to save their lives,

and I've had it.

In 10 years of teaching writing, I have experimented with

different assignments, activities, readings, approaches to

commenting on student work -- you name it -- all to help

students write coherent prose that someone would actually

want to read. And as anyone who keeps up with trends in

higher education knows, such efforts largely fail.

For a while now, compositionists have been enamored of a

pedagogical orthodoxy that assumes the

following:Composition courses must focus on process, not

just product. Students should compose essays that tackle

complex issues rather than imitate rhetorical modes (as in

the much-maligned "current-traditional" pedagogy of years

past). Writing and reading instruction should be combined in

the same course.

After years of experimenting with those three principles,

here's what I've learned: They rarely work.

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Students understand why Barbie is sexist, but they can't

make their case in a coherent essay.

My students can't write a clear sentence to save their lives,

and I've had it.

In 10 years of teaching writing, I have experimented with

different assignments, activities, readings, approaches to

commenting on student work -- you name it -- all to help

students write coherent prose that someone would actually

want to read. And as anyone who keeps up with trends in

higher education knows, such efforts largely fail.

For a while now, compositionists have been enamored of a

pedagogical orthodoxy that assumes the

following:Composition courses must focus on process, not

just product. Students should compose essays that tackle

complex issues rather than imitate rhetorical modes (as in

the much-maligned "current-traditional" pedagogy of years

past). Writing and reading instruction should be combined in

the same course.

After years of experimenting with those three principles,

here's what I've learned: They rarely work.

First, a simple truth: Students do not revise. This cuts to the

very heart of how most of us teach composition. It is an a

priori assumption that a composition course must

emphasize revision: Writers learn to make rhetorical

decisions based on their audience, and that means the

arduous process of "substantial revision."

But substantial revision doesn't happen in our courses. I

have tried requiring students to write only three essays

developed over several drafts, each of which I comment on

without a grade. I have used peer workshops to help

students respond to each other's writing. I have used

portfolio systems and deferred-grading schemes. I have

cajoled; I have encouraged; I have experimented with more

rubrics than I can count.

The invariable result? Weak drafts remain weak; stronger

drafts get slightly stronger, but not by much.

In peer workshops, while students get more confident in

sharing feedback on each other's work, they generally ignore

their classmates' suggestions. And more often than not,

when they do revise based on peer feedback, it's often

unhelpful and inexperienced advice -- for example, telling a

student that the paper has a clear thesis when it has no

coherent argument at all.

Yes, some professors assert that workshops allow students

to find blind spots in each other's essays. But, as their

teacher, I can do that more succinctly and quickly, and it

wouldn't require the loss of another hour of class time.

A second observation: Even when students engage complex

issues from readings in their papers, they do not use the

basic argumentative structures they need in order to give

their ideas voice, cohesion, and support.

In a recent course, I gave students a set of readings on

liberal education and its role in a democratic society. Now,

class discussion had been interesting, and students had

struggled productively to understand Seneca, John Henry

Newman, Mike Rose, and Rabindranath Tagore; they had

even produced essays with some refreshing insights. But

few of their essays contained a clear and unifying argument,

and many students seemed unable to focus on one point for

more than a paragraph.

Let me put it another way: How can students make effective

rhetorical choices if they do not know what choices exist?

If a student's essay on mass shootings could benefit from a

broader discussion of the causes of violence, but the student

does not know what it means to argue by causation, then in

what sense is an effective rhetorical choice available to her?

Writing well involves making rhetorical decisions, but it's

clear that you can't choose from what you don't know.

Finally, it's a mistake to insist that "critical reading" should be

as integral to a writing course as the teaching of

argumentation, structure, paragraphs, and sentences.

First, study after study shows that reading comprehension is

tied to background knowledge and context. So while we can

teach general strategies for "reading actively" in our

composition courses, there is no such thing as a universal

approach to reading aside from a few basic principles: Read

slowly and deliberately, annotate as you read, make

summary notes, connect to the knowledge you already have.

That's why most composition instructors thematize their

courses. We realize that we cannot talk about "reading" very

long before we have to talk about reading about something.

Second, because "reading strategies" are context-bound,

many composition instructors make their courses about

their themes, which leads to two problems: (1) The course

becomes more about the content than about writing at the

nuts-and-bolts level, and (2) a number of composition

instructors, for reasons stemming from the structures of

higher education, are not academically qualified to be

teaching disciplinary content (e.g., sociology, cultural history,

gender criticism) with any semblance of expertise.

That is why students in a composition course can talk about,

say, the role of sexism in children's toys, but can't write a

clear sentence about it. In short, the more time a course

focuses on "critical reading" and content, the less time it

spends on structure, argument, evidence, logical reasoning,

and concise, clear prose -- the tools a composition class

should give undergraduates.

So how can I help my students write better?

Some of the following injunctions might reek of the "current-

traditional." But they have been my interior manifesto as I

move forward with this fall's set of 100 students:Students

need to write an actual essay and receive feedback on it

from me very early in the course. Whether I use neo-

Aristotelian rhetoric or process pedagogy, by Week 2 of the

semester, students need to have written a short

argumentative essay and received feedback on their thesis,

use of evidence, and integration of sources. There is no

excuse for students to be halfway through the semester

without having received this kind of clear response. Students

need to spend less time on difficult texts and more time

writing arguments. The more time one spends on content,

the less time one has for structure and form. Even if I require

only three major essays developed through several drafts,

more homework assignments should be short essays that

receive clear feedback. Alternatively, I might structure a

course around many short argumentative essays that

emphasize rhetorical structure, building up to larger essays.

Either way, the point is frequent essays, frequent feedback.

Not every essay requires multiple drafts or peer response. I

have foolishly assumed that students cannot submit an

essay before having spent at least one class period hashing

over a draft with their peers. That should change. Yes,

students should be encouraged to read each other's writing

and learn to respond to it. But let's face it: Unless one

believes a writing teacher's feedback carries no more weight

than anyone else's, this is unnecessary for every essay.

(Some academics do claim that a writing teacher's

comments are no more authoritative than any other reader's,

but I doubt such instructors tell their own editors anything

like that.) The writing process is a means to an end. Of

course the writing process is important: It can be

therapeutic, formative, an aid to figuring out what we believe,

the record of a mental life, an endless imaginative resource.

But in a freshman composition course, process serves

product. Let me put it this way: If a bright student sits down

the night before a paper is due and hammers out an

excellent essay in one draft, do I fail that paper? If I do, then I

am not ultimately interested in helping students write

effective essays, but in something else. Sometimes it's

better to ditch an essay and move forward. Even

professional writers admit that, at some point, you throw out

a project and start over, or you put a project away to work on

later (or never). Substantial revision is part of writing, but not

for every project. After all, a number of writing contexts do

not require, and might even be hampered by, overwrought

attempts at revision. Sometimes writing has to come out

adequate the first time. And "process" does not have to be

restricted to a single piece. Being a writer is a process, too, a

process of moving from one project to another, of learning

from what worked the last time and what didn't, of knowing

when to revise and when to hit the delete key. My job is not

to save my students from cultural impoverishment. It is to

teach them how to express themselves effectively in writing.

The development of cogent, clear prose is at the heart of

freshman composition. For too long, I have deluded myself

into thinking that my job in a composition course was to

introduce students to a rich academic topic, make them read

difficult texts, make up for years of barely-more-than-

functional literacy and book aversion, teach them to be

critical thinkers, and help them understand the oppressive

structures of late capitalism -- all while helping them write

focused arguments, revise, polish paragraphs, and edit

sentences. Should college students be expected to read

difficult texts? Sure. Should students develop a love of

reading? Absolutely. Should students learn to express their

views and persuade others in cogent, clear prose? Without

question. But that last one is the only unique provenance of

a composition course.

So as much as I want to teach my students to love justice,

be passionate about politics, and to think deeply about the

future of humanity, they are not legitimate outcomes of a

writing course. Neither are fostering a fetishistic love of the

writing process or trying to teach "critical reading of difficult

texts."

My guess is that by the end of the semester, my students will

hate my course because it is "boring," "hard," and "a lot of

work." They probably won't have life-changing epiphanies

about oppressive political structures. And I won't swear to

make them read esoteric academic articles. But if they show

up, do the work, and turn off their phones, they just might

leave my class able to write a sentence.

Joseph R. Teller is a professor of English at College of the

Sequoias.

Credit: By Joseph R. Teller

IllustrationIllustration

Adam Niklewicz for The Chronicle Review; Caption: Sex, Lies,

and Fiction: How Truthful Should Writers Be? 1

Word count: 16851685

Education)

Are We Teaching Composition All Wrong?: Students understand why Barbie is sexist, but they can't make their case in a coherent essay Teller, Joseph R.

The Chronicle of Higher EducationThe Chronicle of Higher Education; Washington; Washington (Oct

3, 2016): n/a.

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