the id, the ego, & the single misfiring brain cell

I was introduced to college English almost 25 years ago. The only lessons from that course I remember now occurred when our teacher came in exasperated with our papers and tried again to explain things that were breathtakingly obvious to her. 

"Okay, Next. How to use periods correctly," she would say, then pause. "I don't know how to explain this better except to say: At the end of a sentence, put a period." (Even then, I thought, "Really? There are people who don't know this?" And yes. There are people who don't know this. And how do you explain something this simple to people who have already completed 12+ years of education and still, for reasons defying understanding, have failed to master this basic concept?)

My problem was that I used semicolons liberally, and our teacher hated me for my freedom. When confronted with my sins, I said defensively, "But they're used throughout Jane Eyre," only I pronounced it "Jane Eyer." 

"It's Jane Air," she responded, "And that was written 150 years ago." 

It had never occurred to me that such a thing simply wasn't done anymore, which is one of the many reasons we go to college--to correct misconceptions we didn't know we had. 

Cut to my life now, wherein I find myself occasionally storming into the classroom and grasping for ways to explain the  obvious to my students. (I employ some hyperbole herein; my approach to these sessions is far lower key than I imply, but my students do understand the gravity of my expectations.) 

Yesterday was one such day. This week, I taught 14 classes and did 20 Extra Instruction (EI) sessions averaging 30 minutes each (in addition to a plethora of "other duties as assigned"). For the week before Spring Break in which I thought I would just be holding out (just like the students), I was terrifically busy (and productive, no less).* Monday, I asked all students who had not begun their paper to raise their hands; out of 46 freshmen, there were two. I suggested** that they schedule EI with me as soon as possible. The rest of the EIs were entirely voluntary. 

* It's my blog and I can abuse parentheses if I want to.

** As the joke goes: "This is just a suggestion, but let's not forget who's making it."

My freshmen owed me the completed essay in class yesterday. Please understand that I instructed them to begin this paper over two weeks ago. It's a project that must be done in steps, so I started them on the first step that first day and gave them class time to begin and ask questions. In a couple of subsequent classes, I preempted the planned lessons to further explain--in detail, with examples--how to develop the required essay further.* If my students fail this essay, it will not be because I have failed to clarify the assignment and my expectations. Still, some of my brightest students had dangerous misconceptions of what they were supposed to be doing (which I learned in EI sessions this week). 

* Establishing timelines and working students through the steps can be construed as hand-holding, but that's such an ugly word. Let's call it "mentorship." 

One of my first lessons as a teacher was this: If my smart students are missing the boat, most of the rest are, too. Thus, when my students came into class yesterday morning, bleary from writing their papers all night, I announced that they were getting an extension.

One in particular was actually angry. He was one of the two who still had not begun the paper on Monday, of course. When I suggested he come see me for EI, I had told him to come with the articles he'd selected to work with, his idea for a thesis, and any ideas he had to develop his argument.

He reported for EI with one article he liked and nothing else. When I prompted him to think, he said, "I just don't know what else we've read that will work with this idea in a way that interests me." He paused, looking at me pitifully. I sat, relaxed and expressionless, looking at him. Five heartbeats later, he began again: "I mean, I want to write about globalization, but there aren't any other articles that overlap in any way that I like...." He gave me puppy eyes. I looked at him and breathed. Five breaths later, he stammered into life again, and I stopped him:

"John, two things: One, you're wasting all your energy thinking about how you don't know what to write about and making excuses. You've let the fog of disinterest cloud your brain and you can't even see what you have to do anymore because of it. All you can see is how demoralized you are. You've already given up. Stop it. I won't do your thinking for you; you have to do it yourself. Thinking is hard. There are no shortcuts."

"Two: Sometimes you have to do things that don't interest you. Welcome to life. Now clear your head and quit feeling sorry for yourself. Get your nose in that book until you come up with some ideas you can work with. Now go get busy."

I dismissed him.

I rarely end EI sessions so abruptly, but I've learned the hard way that such students only waste my time. My time is valuable. (In case you're wondering, the second struggling student was sincerely trying, so he got all the encouragement and help he asked for and needed.)

So when John complained that I'd decided to extend the essay's due date but had waited until class the day it was due to say so, I said, “And now you have a solid first draft. Congratulations!”

HIM: But I was up until 3am!

ME: And whose fault is that?

HIM: But...I could have been sleeping!

I stared at him for a second, then said, “If you were using the writing process I've been teaching, you'd have slept long and well last night.” He decided at that point to cut his losses and shut up, persuading me that he may have a seed of wisdom I can work with, after all.

The rest of the students were overjoyed that I'd extended the paper. They came in with a completed, printed paper, but only one or two had any confidence in what they'd written.

I had a handful of concepts to re-teach that day. Incidentally...”re-teaching” after students have sincerely struggled to do a major paper has to be the most productive time I spend at the whiteboard. When I first teach a concept, most students have not yet seen the connection between mastery of that concept and their self-interest.* Only after they've lost sleep over a paper that is a huge chunk of their grades do I get their sincere, undivided (if bleary) attention—even on the last day of class before Spring Break.

* No, it isn't just you. This baffles me, too.

First, we talked about the difference between a topic and an issue. They were to have found two texts assigned thus far for class and find some way in which they contributed to an academic conversation on a given issue. Instead, many had found two texts on the same topic and had written something of their choosing on that topic.

A topic, I explained, is merely a subject, like “higher education.” You cannot argue about a topic, and therefore you cannot write a persuasive paper on a topic. It is incredibly broad, and you know how I feel about broads. An issue, however, asks a specific, arguable question within your topic of interest. For example, “What are the drawbacks of prohibitively expensive colleges in the US?”

Second, I addressed another conceptual problem they have regarding their papers. When they come to me for EI, I ask them what their working thesis is. They say, “I mean, I talk about how....” I've begun stopping them there. First, “I mean” is a dumb way to begin a sentence unless someone has just asked you what you mean. Second, if you are “talking about” something in your paper, your paper lacks focus. Your paper should not “talk about” anything—it should argue.

Third, writing process. Yes, I'd taught this before, but it was time to try again, from a different direction, so they should write this down. I wrote, “I expect:” on the board, then drew a ten-foot line down the board. At the end, I wrote “final (paper)” and at the beginning, “brainstorming.” I looked at it a minute, then decided to provide a comparison. For this, I wrote, “What you do:” then drew an 8-inch line. I paused to think. They tittered behind me. I wrote “final” in quotes at the end, and for lack of writing space on this line, wrote “BSing” at the beginning. Another wave of chuckles rose behind me. Between them, I wrote, “write”-->“research”-->“plug and play”-->“edit.” Ambitious students might include a trip to the Writing Center after “edit.”

I turned and asked the class how accurate my assumptions were. They nodded and said, “Yeah...that's pretty much it.” One or two said it still looked like it had too many steps in it. 

Now for my timeline: Brainstorm/freewrite. Have any of you ever tried panning for gold? There are always a few. How does it work? Well, you get a few pounds of sand in a pan, sift it slowly in water so the sand washes out, and the gold sinks to the bottom. And how much gold do you get? About two or three tiny flakes. Yep! Freewriting is the act of scooping up that sand. That's all it is. You come back later and sift through it for gold. You might find two or three flakes—insights and ideas worth exploring, often less than a sentence long.

Next, you throw out the sand, take the gold flakes, and think about them--expand, freewrite--until you have an issue to explore. Only when you have an issue—not just a topic—do you research that issue. After the research, you write. At this point, you have what I call a “first draft” (which is what you, students, erroneously call a “final draft”).

What is left to do, though? Rewriting! Vladimir Nabokov wrote, “Curiously enough, one cannot read a book; one can only reread it. A good reader, a major reader, an active and creative reader is a rereader.” Justice Brandeis riffed on this: “There is no great writing, only great rewriting.” If anything, this rule is more true with writing than with reading.

Students rarely rewrite. The concept is lost on most of them (until someone sits down with them, one on one, reads their word vomit back to them, and forces them to find a way to say what they mean).

In well-written essays, the effort up to the 1^st draft is perhaps half of the work. Endless rewriting—crafting and refining sentences, transforming vague expressions into specific and concrete concepts, excising redundancies and deadwood, adding subtle but smooth transitions, rearranging entire sections of the paper, considering different pronouns to soften the writer's voice, etc—sucks up two- to three-quarters of the time spent producing quality work.

This is why most students discuss “What Toni Morrison was trying to say”: Because all they know, from experience, is trying to say something. They do not yet see that what they're reading is not the Pulitzer Prize winner trying to, but in fact saying precisely what she means. She has spent years with her own words and they are intimate friends. She does not publish anything that does not express exactly what she means, exactly how she wants it said.

If they want to write (and speak) well, they must not just think for themselves and have something worth saying, but they must embrace the art of rewriting. (One excellent way to help them hear the clunkiness, disconnects, and vaguenesses of their own work is to read it, at human conversational speed--aloud to themselves.*

* Their roommates will think they're crazy, but eventually they will anyway. That's how cohabitation works. Living in college dorms is like a practice marriage that way. 

I sent them away with an excellent list of “deadwood constructions” and redundancies. They are to read the list carefully until they understand why the constructions are unnecessary and can spot common redundancies. Then, they are to go back to their papers and start chopping.

And may they have a happy Spring Break.

d