The answer is that she can't think. I have just given a writing assignment in my college class. My charges are to compose a response essay to something we have read. Inevitably, one of them -- I'll call her Tiffany -- asks a dumb question. I know we teachers are supposed to say that there is no such thing as a dumb question, but let's be realistic. "Mr. Smigelski, does my essay have to be five paragraphs long?" The tragedy illustrated by her query is that it actually is not dumb at all, considering the education Tiffany has received in our public schools. Her question, along with her complete lack of self-consciousness or embarrassment in asking it, goes a long way toward helping us understand why she can't write.
Students throughout grade school, middle school, and high school are taught to write the "five-paragraph essay." It is the cornerstone of most developmental writing textbooks I have seen. This is the drill, the formula, the mind-numbing process: In your first paragraph, Tiffany, you must state a thesis, the main idea that you will develop throughout the rest of your essay, and this thesis should be the last sentence in the paragraph. In your second, third, and fourth paragraphs, you must support your thesis with three components of evidence, examples, or illustrations -- one component per paragraph. And in your final paragraph, the fifth, you must present your conclusion, which is a restatement of your thesis in different words along with a little extra tag to give your reader something to ponder further.
Can any bit of instruction be more stilted, unimaginative, and soul-crushing? Don't actually counsel Tiffany on how to think out and articulate a problem or a story; just give her a freakin' formula that can be chalked up on a blackboard in five minutes. When she copies it down in her little notebook, consider the job done. No. The "five-paragraph essay" is an abomination that should be eradicated from every curriculum in the country. Real writers don't count their paragraphs! The next question Tiffany asks is "How many sentences should I put in a paragraph?" As if there is a correct answer to that question as well. Hasn't she ever opened a book, any book? How do you get to be 20 years old and not know that there can be any number of sentences in a paragraph?
Of course, this is indicative of a larger problem, one that permeates our whole society. One of my favorite writers, Harlan Ellison, tells a story about a young woman who was asked this question on a TV game show: "What actor, whose name begins with the letter S and who appeared in the movie Lawrence of Arabia, writes a bridge column in a newspaper?" The woman answered, "Naomi Campbell." Ellison rightly remarked that this answer is wrong in so many ways. There is no S in "Naomi Campbell." Ms. Campbell was not even born when Lawrence of Arabia was filmed. Tiffany, you are not alone. We have a real problem with education in this nation of ours, and it goes far beyond the prohibition to write more or less than five paragraphs in your essay.
As Professor of Anthropology James Lett pointed out twenty years ago in an excellent article titled "A Field Guide to Critical Thinking," people are taught in our schools what to think, not how to think. Why? Probably because it's easier. Robert Frost once wrote that he took the road less traveled, and that made all the difference. For us teachers to make a difference, we must stop taking the easy way out.
Uh-oh, Tiffany, I think this is my sixth paragraph. I am shunted back to the third grade. Sister Jean Matthew is approaching my desk rather quickly, and she is slapping a ruler against her palm. Do I have time to ... Ouch! The ruler hit my knuckles before I could press the Delete key. Mea culpa. Oh, that's right, Tiffany; you don't know what that means. It's Latin for "My bad." But who learns Latin anymore? It's a dead language, right? Just as dead in our public schools as is the art of teaching kids how to write.
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For one thing, my concerns about my future employment prospects as an older graduate were greatly alleviated. If my classmates were at all representative, then I should have no problem standing out. These kids could not read, much less write. "Letter from Birmingham Jail," or "On Civil Disobedience" were completely beyond their ability to even complete in a few days, much less comprehend. Several thought Swift's "A Modest Proposal," to be serious! The group readings were painful in the extreme, of 25 students, perhaps five would have coherent papers.
The instructor was very honest in my talks with him. He said that he simply didn't have time to teach these kids anything but the basic, crank it out formula. They need to at least be able to understand and use that formula before they can move on to more advanced writing. Math is a real slog for most of the time, but most calculus and above students will tell you that it becomes much more interesting once the basics are mastered. I believe the same to be true of writing.
My parents enrolled me in a private middle school after 5th grade. In the first tweek the teacher assigned an essay to the class, to which I asked (aloud to the class), "what's an essay?"
Fortunately, that teacher and several other really inspired English/writing teachers plus a philosophy degree has made me (and not to blow smoke up my ass) a really good writer.
I don't know how other students learn how to write to be honest. In undergraduate I did peer reviews in some classes and there are really smart students, especially in the hard sciences, who can't write to save their souls.
But I guess that's what you get when they stop teaching grammar and mechanics in 7th grade, amongst other crimes against students perpetrated by today's educational policies.
It's been ten years since I graduated college but, in my experience, the most egregious examples of "Tiffany-ism" came from students of the teacher's college and many of my Lit professors commented on this fact to me.
Do you see how this is a very different type of exercise than writing for a real purpose- to communicate with a friend, business associate, client, etc.? It's writing for the sake of a grade.
So, the motivation goes down because everyone knows it's all about the grade, not real communication. And the students ask you questions to figure out what you are looking for, so they can get a good grade. They are actually doing research about their audience so they can write more effectively.
I suggest you give your students real writing opportunities instead of artificial writing-grading opportunities. And help them perfect their writing, instead of just grading them. Then, you will see them come to life and learn to love writing, because writing is real communication.
I think you've missed the point. There is nothing artificial about writing a response to something 'we' have read.
I think the point is that 'Tiffany' very likely can't frame a responsive post to this article, because 'she' can't think critically about the content, her relationship to it, and why it matters. That means she can't figure out whether she should spend time on it, how much time she should spend on it, or what else she should do about it.
That is DEFINITELY a business skill requirement, to say nothing of a citizenship requirement. How is 'Tiffany' going to critically understand business proposals, political ideas, or the readings of her own faith if she can't evaluate the validity of the claims?
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After spending too much time figuring out this problem, I finally started teaching critical thinking skills. The writing skills followed. Thank you for an excellent article.
To the comment about what and how to think, when my oldest was in preschool I always answered her questions with a question of my own. This drove her nuts and she finally asked me why I did it. I told her, "When you get to school, they are going to try to teach you what to think. It's my job to teach you how." I still drove her nuts, but at least she knew why.
Personally, if I were in your shoes, and this was a regular occurrence, I would have gotten up on my desk (or the next tallest object), thrown my hands up and said:
"Write whatever the f— you want to prove your point. Make it strong. Make it effective. Make it powerful. Prove to me you thought about this and can/will justify what's on paper. And if you didn't, fool me otherwise."
My opinion, and maybe I'm wrong: when the locks have been so tightly secured, the only solution is to blow them off completely.
If you're so discouraged by the quality of writing in universities, maybe you should try teaching a course that you actually need a prerequisite for.
I have had students who handed in papers with dozens of grammatical errors who claimed to have passed AP English in high school. Others who have gone through the assessment process AND the lower level developmental course still come into freshman comp and make dozens of grammatical errors. The problem is really pervasive.
Another problem is grade inflation. I am as guilty of that, I admit, as every other teacher I know of. If I graded the students according to my standards of what good writing should look like, many of them would not pass. But then I hear that some other teachers give out A's as if they were candy. I don't give out candy A's, but I must admit I do give out too many mercy C's. I admit that I am in quite a quandary.
I eventually realized the five-paragraph essay has value. To students who cannot see structure in what they read, the five-paragraph model places structure within their grasp. I see my job as, in part, guiding students to write in other structures, including the structure of research articles in approachable areas (like effectiveness of herbal supplements). I show them how the structure follows what the scientists say is their thought process.
I appreciate Krista's observation, because it holds true for students learning another language: they can find themselves comparing that grammar to their own and discovering more about both. But I would caution teachers and readers of student writing: the relationship between "good" grammar and "good" writing is more complicated than whether or not a student can identify an adverb. Metaphorically speaking, this is where the issue of critical thinking becomes molecular. Separated from the content-thinking that produces sentences, teaching students to diagram a sentence is like teaching them how to work a Sudoku puzzle. The skill they learn is amusing, but it doesn't teach them any more about writing than Sudoku teaches about higher mathematics.
Though I wish they wouldn’t, I understand why many teachers drill the 5 paragraph essay into their students. It’s much easier than trying to explain that most good (student) essays should contain three main points in the body, but not necessarily adhere to a strict formula. Especially when these teachers are struggling to simply get their students to write grammatically correct sentences.