What's that?
Many years ago, in my English undergrad days, I sat one afternoon struggling to write a paper for...some class (antiquity swallowed the details). In frustration, I called Amanda. "I've got so many great ideas," I said, "but I can't seem to bring them together or find my point. The paper keeps going off in different directions. I don't know what to do."
Amanda, one of those rare individuals with effortless tact and poise, paused for a moment after I wound down, then said gently, "Did you write an outline?"
Another moment of silence followed, this one tactless and poiseless because (1) the silence was mine and I claim neither,* and (2) I felt like an idiot.
* I associate Amanda with manners and class. For this reason, I suspect she spent so much time around me--even in public--because my social retardation was an endless source of amusement.
I felt as though she had just said, "Are you trying to calculate a derivative and having trouble? Do you remember those multiplication tables you learned in the third grade? Have you thought to use them?" I meekly replied, "No."
I could hear her smile over the phone. She said, "Why don't you try that?"
Within ten minutes, I had an outline. Within an hour, I'd written the paper, start to finish. It was so...simple. Who'd-a thunk it?
Perhaps we should begin with why I didn't think to use an outline. I can think of several reasons, right off-hand. I learned to write a proper, formal outline in the fifth grade, but I don't recall any teacher ever requiring me to use the tool. If any did, they were few and far between, and the requirement didn't make an impression on me. Also, many of my teachers--also in college--mentioned outlines only to dismiss them as useless or to pointedly sneer at them.
If I had a dime for every time I've heard someone say, "My teachers used to require an outline with my paper. I'd write the paper, then write the outline."--I'd have a lotta dimes, I can tell you. (If you can write an outline for your paper after you've written the paper, you already understand organization well enough to organize your paper without one. However, the outline still serves as a checksum of sorts.)
I've also heard teachers dismiss outlines with: "Not everyone writes the same way." They imply, of course, that outlines work for some people but not for others. I agree people generate ideas in different ways, and we all approach creative writing differently, but outlines have nothing to do with either. Outlines apply to expository writing, and you use them after you've generated your ideas. Outlines organize, and we still need them.
Outlines, at least the formal type, have fallen out of vogue. Very few people, I think, even teach them anymore. If my students remember their pre-college educations, precious few of them have been taught how to do the I-A-1-a-(1)-(a) outline. Most of them claim to have never seen one, and I have no reason to dispute their claims.
I began thinking about outlines lately because I've been grading student papers. I was baffled for the longest time concerning the complete lack of organization most of these papers show. The writing meanders, repeats itself, makes vague and general (pointless) statements, and ultimately goes nowhere.
A couple of days ago, I realized the Freshman Comp syllabus does not include outlines, formal or informal. As a matter of fact, the writing instruction books (Writer's Reference, Writer's Handbook, or similar titles) do not even provide a chapter on outlining. I've seen the occasional shapeless blurb on organization in such books--usually teaching the "idea web," freewriting or listing, but these are ways to generate ideas, not ways to teach how to organize them.
Effective expository writing follows a formula. This is because the formula, while unexciting and undramatic, works. (And expository writing isn't supposed to be exciting and dramatic, so no worries.)
I began experimenting with outline tasks this semester. I am slow to notice and implement (slower than I think I should be, anyhow), but my freshmen wrote an outline at the start of the semester. I repeat the lesson from time to time in order to drive it home (new teaching methods notwithstanding, there's a REASON we still fall back on repetition: it works).
Why I didn't think at the same time to teach my sophomores this basic organizational skill, I don't know. I noticed the problem only after they turned in their first major paper.
So to give them an opportunity to improve their paper grades, I told them to create an outline for their papers with the organization they SHOULD have used. After several EI (extra instruction) sessions today, I realized I'll have to spend far more time on outlines before they have the hang of it. They really don't have any notion of how to do it. Right now, I'm seeing huge clumps of text (I'd call them "paragraphs" if they had more organization) under each heading.
Argh. Nonononono.
It occurred to me to teach outlines to my classes because I've taught outlines to several students on an individual basis, and the lights came on. I've seen the before and after papers.
I'm a believer.
I'm waging my own outline crusade.
d
