write a writing response

Welcome Back, N{y Ungr&mmatical Students By Mark Goldblatt

fTl he fall is mere weeks away, I another college semester I either under way or soon

to be. Ifyouire one ofthousands of freshmen nationwide, Yodve just discovered You've been placed .in a remedial English class.

'TIow can this be?" You're ask- ing yourself. "I got straiSht As in high schooM love writing stories and poems! fm good in English!"

The culprit is your gmtnmar- and, just to be clear, tm using the word "grammar" in a general way to refer to the overall me- chanics of your writing, including punctuation, syntax and usage. Students in remedial English classes are almost alwaYs smart enough to write college-level prose, but they don't know how to put sentences together in waYs that clarify, rather than cloud, what they're trying to saY. The form of tleir expression gets in the way of the content of tleir expression, which is not helPful for a college student.

Sure, grammar might not seem like a big deal if Yofre compos- ing a text message, or uPdating your Facebook status, or tweet- ing about what You've just had for lulch. Your reader, in such cases, is someone who wants to know what's on Your mind who has an emotional stake in the in- formation . . . who likes You. Your college professors may or may not like You.

They'll smile at You, but they'll also be weeping on the in- side over the stacks of Papers they have to grade. The last thing

they want, the last tling anY reader who's not Yow "BFF" wants, is to wade through a bog of your ungrammatical writing.

Suppose, for examPle, You don't know that a semicolon is properly used to join two closelY related independent clauses. Based on tlree decades of teach- ing English prep courses, I can assrue you this is a safe supposi- tion since no more than one in a

Unlike your friends, who will excuse your errors, your college professor may or may not like you.

hundred remedial students can define the term'tlause." Youlre therefore liable to write some- thing like this: "Oedipus attempts to avoid his fate bY rurming awaY from home, ifs a decision he will come to regret."

Thatt wrong. You're using a cornma where you should be us- ing a semicolon. But does it re- ally matter? After all, the reader can still figure out what You're trying to say.

Yes, it does matter. It reallY matters. As the reader's eyes scan down the lines of Your Page, deciphering your meaning, he's going to come to that comma- and ifs going to look wrong. He's going to think, "That looks wrong," or maybe even 'tIeY, shouldn't that be a semicolon?"

But at the moment he's think- ing one of those things, Suess what he's no longer thinking

about? He's no longer thinking about what you're trying to say.

Though,tlere are many geffes of writing, and many variations within each genre, the one char- acteristic that unites all good writrng is that it communicates effectively what 'the writer wishes to say, Whatever gets in t}te way of that process, whatever gwts up tlrc works, is a Problem.

While there is definitely such a thing as good writing, there's no such thing as good grammar. The belief that there is betraYs a basic misunderstanding of gram- mar's purpose-which is to illu- minate, not to sparkle. You never come to t}te end of a newsPaPer article and think, 'nVow, the grammar in that story was fierce." The best thing You can say about a writer's grammar is that it's competenq it doesnlt get in the way. Competent grarnmar is grammar you don't notice.

Doiyou detect a trace of elit' ism in what I've just said? Well, lm a freaking college Professor! L'dlite, c'est mof. But in case You haven't notice4 that's the door you're knocking on. ffYou toryh out the next four Years to Your bachelor's degree, that's Your parting gift-you'll join the elite of the college'educated. It won't make you a nicer Person, but it will give you lots to think about.

You're going to come away with many opinions-and a de- sire to write down those opinions and to have t}tem taken seriously. But they'll never be taken seri- ously ifyour reader keePs getting sidetracked bY Your faulty Pro- noun antecedents. Thatt whY it's absurd to claim that teaching

students standard grammatical rules and expecting students to abide by them is a form of oppression. There are 'bther" grartmars, or so the argument goes: grammars of the victim- ize4 the ostracized, the margin- alized.

Please. Nothing Prolongs the socioeconomic struggles of his- torically victimized People more than an inability to communicate effectively with t}te broader culture. They have a desPerate incentive to make themselves heard-not in waYs that gram- matically underscore generations of hardship but on t}re Precise linguistic terms of that broader culture.

Frederick Douglass understood this point; his writings are a testament to it. so did Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois and Martin LutJrer King Jr.

So take your medicine. It won't be fun, but You need it. Learn what a clause is, what a gerund is, what a misPlaced mod- ifier is-because your father did not shoot an elephant in his Paja- mas. If youire going to stew over your workload flne.But cast the blame where it belongs. You should have learned this stuff a long time ago, maYbe instead of writing, a few of those ungram- matical stories or Poems.

Now get out of here. Class is about to start.

Mr. Goldblatt teaches at Fash- ion Institute of rechnologY of the State llniversitY of New York He is the author, most recentlY, of the novel "T\DerP" (Random

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