John Franklin Genung, in 1900, seems to suggest  that everything has a thesis, but he defines thesis in a more general way than most would today, making it a "theme" or "working idea" rather than a claim: "The theme, or thesis, which in some form underlies the structure of every literary work, may be briefly defined as the working-idea of the discourse. (The Working Principles of Rhetoric Examined in Their Literary Relations and Illustrated with Examples: Examined in Their Literary Relations and Illustrated with Examples, 1900, page 421).

________________________________________
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Peter Adams [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Monday, June 08, 2009 1:26 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: levels of formality/training wheels, NOW value of HS education

I'm really curious about where the emphasis on thesis-driven writing came from.  It's been around since I was a first-year student in college, but surely that doesn't mean it's been around forever.   I'm really curious to learn, if anyone knows, when English teachers, at least in America, began insisting that all good writing?, all good college writing? all good writing in English courses? had to be organized around a single clear thesis.

Peter Adams


On Jun 8, 2009, at 1:17 PM, Craig Hancock wrote:

Susan,
   I'm not sure where "ingrate" comes from. I hope I can express a perspective without offending people who see it differently. I don't remember being critical of other teachers. My views are not mainstream.
   As I said in my post to Bill, I require a reader when I teach expository writing. For this past semester, it was "the Best American Essays", 5th edition, edited by Robert Atwan. Most of the essays in that collection are not thesis centered. I have no problem with students getting experience in writing arguments, and having a clear articulation of a central position is certainly helpful to that. I hope, as I stated in earlier posts, that they can do so graciously and with sensitivity to opposing sides. It doesn't follow from that that all good writing requires a thesis or even that ideal writing requires a thesis. If I write about my father, am I expected to have a thesis? I have a good friend who has an article coming out in a major magazine which will be, as she describes it, a profile of a very successful woman in the music industry. No thesis. That doesn't mean that it is not highly organized, thoughtful, interesting, engaging, clear--just that it doesn't have the defense of a central argument as its core purpose.
   In Once More to the Lake, White gives a very thoughtful perspective about the experience of returning  with his son to a lake he once visited as a child with his father. Being male, old enough to have children, and having visited the Maine woods as a child probably all go into making me an ideal reader for the essay. But the essay never tries to be an argument. He tells us what he felt and observed and thought--does a good job, I think, of evoking the experience-- but never argues for it as the right way to understand the human situation he finds himself in.
   Any essay, argument or not, will read differently to different audiences. My son's conversations with his friends about mountain bikes go right over my head, as they ought to, but that has to do with background experience, not taste. If you want to expand "taste' to include the whole range of what we bring to an essay, then I agree. I thought Bill was using it to denote a kind of surface packaging, a distraction from substance.
   I certainly don't expect you to agree with me, but I hope to make my point clear. Architecture is a more functional image. A carpenter squares and plumbs, not just for aesthetic reasons, but because what he/she is constructing is then stable, strong, durable, done right. It is not a matter of taste, though I find great beauty in the harmony of meaning and form.
   Metaphor is a core part of our understanding of the world, a point made very well by Lakoff and Johnson. It's not just a literary element.

Craig

Susan van Druten wrote:
Craig, I don't get your point about staying away from taste.  I don't even get Hemingway's point.  Lots of architecture is not tasteful to me.  And the bland interior design from Martha Stewart is so devoid of personality and statement that while it does not lack taste, it is not (to me) very interesting to look at or comfortable to live in.

If you pride yourself in not valuing taste, are you human? Or are you Vulcan?

The literature you give is literature that requires taste as well as intellect to appreciate.  For example, White's cold swimming suit experience is not understood universally.  Many of my students (male and female) do not get the mortality of it.  As a woman, I didn't immediately get the mortality of it.  It's not strictly intellectually true; it's a metaphorical, requiring aesthetic understanding.

Why the separation of intellect and taste?

I also worry that so many students come to college believing writing is supposed to have a single, explicit thesis when so much (I would venture most) good writing doesn't fit that model.

This statement is false.  Most professional writers (other than poets and fiction writers) do have an explicit thesis.  Give many, many examples if this is true.

High school teachers work very hard to help students understand what a thesis is--nevermind whether one can be implicit.  If they come to college really knowing what a thesis is, how hard is it for you to say, "Go ahead, make your thesis implicit."  And if they can do it, you have high school teachers to thank.  If they can't do it, do you really think it would have helped had high school teachers not demanded an explicit thesis?  Why not turn this into a beautiful bonding moment with your students?  Tell them, "Your high school teacher didn't think you could handle the truth.  Well, I think you can.  Here's the truth..."

Craig, you're a bit of an ingrate.  Be glad.  Be very, very glad that you have students who know what a thesis is.  'Cause you give me any more guff and I swear I will stop teaching explicit theses.  I will.  I'll do it.

Susan



On Jun 6, 2009, at 3:22 PM, Craig Hancock wrote:

Bill,
   Since I have a largely functional view of writing, I would stray away
from "taste" as a core analogy. (My taste is not to value taste?) I
would think more in terms of "architecture, not interior decoration" as
Hemingway phrased it. Same thing with language--what strikes me most,
what I admire most, is the author's facility with finding the exact,
appropriate word, the exact, appropriate phrasing for the meaning or
purpose at hand. Even the "entertaining" function of literature, very
much a part of it, can be understood as "engagement." So Orwell not
only discusses the folly of empire, but helps us somewhat experience
the death of the elephant. And E. B. White not only comments on the
passing of generations and the contemplation of mortality, but brings
us once more to the lake in the woods in Maine to experience it
somewhat for ourselves. Coleridge called word play "fancy" and thought
of it as superficial in comparison to the primary and secondary
imagination, which find solid relations and essential unity in all
things. Metaphor is not just a literary device, but an essential aspect
of cognition.
   We can also say, in teaching, that students tend to think of revision
as a matter of improving the wording (and sentences), whereas the more
successful writers see it as improving the meanings. In other words,
there is ample evidence that successful writers have that functional
(language in service of meaning) view. That's basically what Sommers
research has shown.
   I also worry that so many students come to college believing writing is
supposed to have a single, explicit thesis when so much (I would
venture most) good writing doesn't fit that model. Rather than being an
aid toward good writing, it can narrow the possibilities.
   What we admire Dylan for is the superb songwriting and occassionally
excellent phrasing. I admit to frustration with Chomsky. In comparison,
I think Halliday is a much easier read.

Craig




Craig,

"Good writing" is a bit like "good food"; it can't really be defined as
separate from the audience that consumes it (I happen to consider
mustard greens cooked with a decently-smoked ham hock as being solidly
in the good food category -- but I don't take it to vegetarian
potlucks). We can say it's good food if the audience appears to enjoy
it, but not if it's just sitting there in bowls. When we do, we're
implicitly saying '"*I* would like it," or "I think I *should* like it,"
or "My appraisal of my own tastes will present me as a better person if
I believe I like it."

Chomsky's _Aspects_ is a good case in point. I think linguists emulate
Chomsky's style only to the extent that they signal solidarity with his
position, and some of his more quirky (or very arguably, annoying)
strategies aren't included in more general definitions of good writing
(e.g., taking major, crucial points and burying them in endnotes,  or
[to insert a blatant opinion statement] using a kind of
faux-mathematical presentation whose benefit is pretty much only
cosmetic). Many linguists are willing to cut Chomsky a lot of slack in
terms of writing style because he's Chomsky, just as Bob Dylan fans
don't complain much if Dylan keeps missing notes. An audience focused on
one subset of elements may not find relevant problems with another
subset.

Another example (since I know by now I sound like I'm in full
Chomsky-bashing mode, and I want to give myself some plausible
deniability) would be Peirce's works on semiotics. They're of great
importance, but no one accuses them of being good writing. Or some of
Bakhtin's most famous works -- they were put together from his notes, so
they're in a kind of conceptual shorthand. They're influential, and
probably should be even more so, but I don't think anyone would argue
that what they are is better than what they probably would have been if
he had composed them with a general audience in mind. And I'd have to
include Halliday in some cases, since his tendency to create a
consistent terminology system that is, nevertheless, quite opaque to
those outside his framework creates some barriers (I work with SFL, but
I still can't bring myself to say that the grammar "construes"
something, since I think it sounds like I believe the grammar is
sentient). To go back to the food analogy, we sometimes eat things we
don't think are particularly good food because they fulfill some
pressing need at the time -- we're very hungry, or we're worried about
what the food we do want will do to our cholesterol level. I don't
really like fish, but I'll dutifully eat it for health reasons.

In all of these cases, readers in the audience that most use the text
are willing to put extra effort into dealing with it because of the
importance attached to the author. A "difficult" text can, of course,
*cause* the author to gain this position of importance, but that's
typically because for the particular point being made, there are no
"competitor" texts. Chomsky's adaptation of Zelig Harris's framework
added an explicit Platonic element that rendered it distinctive, and if
you liked that position, the marketplace of ideas could at first sell
you only Chomsky (just as those interested in a ternary, rather than
binary, semiotic system could purchase only Peirce). Following Chomsky,
there have been a very, very large number of books setting out the
Innatist position, but among these, most people only know Pinker --
because Pinker *does* do a good job of tailoring his prose to a more
general audience. Nonlinguists who read about this stuff usually read
Pinker, not Chomsky. Most of us can't get away with supposing that what
we're saying is of such obvious brilliance that our audiences will
tolerate lots of quirkiness.

By the way, the idea that literary language draws attention to itself as
language is, I *think*, a fairly standard view among modern critics,
esp. those who assign a higher value to "writerly" prose. There is, of
course, a distinction between "literary" and "good," since for most of
us "literary" writing is but one kind of good writing.

Sincerely,

Bill Spruiell
Dept. of English
Central Michigan University


-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Craig Hancock
Sent: Friday, June 05, 2009 2:06 PM
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: levels of formality/training wheels, NOW value of HS
education

Bill,
   I'm glad I provoked this clarification. I would agree with much of
it.
   I'm half way through an article (have been for too long, but that's
another story) that started by quoting an observation by Halliday of a
text by William Golding that it is super powerful in its overall
effect, but doesn't have language that calls attention to itself. To
me, that's an ideal aesthetic; if the language choices are all in
service to the text, the language itself will seem almost invisible. I
say that because even in literature, not everyone would agree that the
language itself becomes an end or ought to. Some writers are brilliant
in their accessibility and in their clarity. I could contrast that,
too, with the self-importance of some social science texts, which
sometimes cry out for translation into normal English before you
discover that they may have very little to say.
   I certainly like the idea that work in a discipline frames itself in
relation to current conversation about the topic, finding areas of
agreement and/or areas of disagreement. In that sense, it has a purpose
related to the overall work of the discipline. The abstract will give
an overview of the article that includes its reason for being and the
scope of what it covers. But I'm not sure "thesis" is identical to
that.
   A case in point. I am just now re-reading Chomsky's "Aspects of the
Theory of Syntax", which purports in its own preface to be "an
exploratory study of various problems that have arisen in the course of
work on transformational grammar..." He goes on to say that for some
questions "definite answers will be proposed; but more often the
discussion will merely raise issues and consider possible approaches to
them without reaching any definite concdlusion."  If I remember right,
"Syntactic Structures" was a mildly polished version of his lecture
notes for a course on syntax.
   I believe that good writing has a sense of purpose, which includes a
sense of audience, and it is organized in such a way that the purpose
is not only clear, but clearly realized. It will generally present a
very clear perspective on a topic or issue. I would use the term
"thesis" to refer to writing organized around a single "argument." I
think we value the writing within a discipline that moves the
conversation forward in some substantial way. I'm not sure that's
different from engaging a public issue in a thoughtful way.

Craig


 Craig,

I was presenting social science research format as a point of
contrast,
rather than as an eidolon; I picked that particular sub-genre
primarily
because I'm familiar with it. I suspect many of the same points could
be
supported by business writing, or hard-science writing, or engineering
reports. To the degree that writing is judged "literary," it demands
of
readers a deep kind of active engagement not just in the topic, but in
the
way the topic is discussed, and this kind of engagement isn't
necessarily
"optimal" in texts whose consumers primarily want to get particular
kinds
of information as quickly as possible. I happen to like language play
in
writing a great deal (as my penchant for making up words in list
postings
probably reveals), but if I'm trying to figure out whether a
particular
result in a research study is "real" or (instead) a kind of mechanical
artifact of the assumptions underlying the research design, my task is
a
lot easier if I don't have to tease out information that the author
could
have provided in a straightforward manner. Ambiguity in a literary
text
can often be the engine driving a fuller understanding of a major
point;
ambiguity in a research article is more apt to produce dissension that
doesn't go anywhere.

In short, I was trying to highlight the different attitudes that
audiences
for different genres of texts bring with them. Composition classes are
always in danger of presenting as a model those texts which are most
highly valued by composition faculty, rather than those which are most
highly valued by whatever audience a particular student might be
writing
for in his/her later life. The "everything is about literature"
approach
to composition is on the far end of that problem scale. I worry about
overemphasizing social science writing when I teach composition, for
exactly the same reason (I formerly had an excuse: the course was
called
"Composition for Social Science"; our "themed" sections were done away
with a couple of years ago, though). I probably overemphasize
argumentation more generally, since it's what I see students as having
the
*least* practice with -- they've been telling each other narratives
for
most of their lives, albeit not always developed or highly coherent
ones.
Also, though, I confess that I probably let a bit of a current
knee-jerk
reaction I'm having leak in -- I'm reading some stuff by Baudrillard,
and
I don't think I can blame all his preciousness on his translator.

A side note: Seminal texts in social science (at least, ones within
the
past eighty years or so, since the genre "jelled") usually DO have a
clear
thesis statement. It's just a more general one, like "Position X is
wrong,
and the author will advance four pieces of evidence for this claim,"
or
"The field has been working under assumption Y, but if we maintain
that
assumption, we're creating internal consistencies in our models."
After
all, everyone expects an abstract on these things, and it's required
to be
a very concrete abstract.

Sincerely,

Bill Spruiell


-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on behalf of Craig
Hancock
Sent: Fri 6/5/2009 8:31 AM
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: levels of formality/training wheels, NOW value of HS
education

Bill,
   I'm surprised at how completely you present the academic article in
the
social sciences as an ideal text. Maybe I'm misreading.
   When I teach expository writing (as I did this past spring), we
usually
look at a number of acclaimed texts and explore the notion of
excellence in non-fiction writing. The best of them don't simply dress
up their ideas or show the author as self-important or even use
language for the pleasure of using language.
   There are many different ways to organize a text, and focusing on a
thesis is only one. Narratives have their own kind of structure,
highly
related to plot and perspective. These have been described well in a
number of places: abstract, orientation, and so on. Feature articles
on
a person or place may have a number of equally important perspectives
to present, and a good writer will select details that fit these
points. Even when they write about their own lives, good writers will
avoid self-importance.
   Good writing is clear, thoughtful, interesting, engaging. It may
move
us while it challenges our thinking. It certainly does not tell us
what
to think, but often offers or provokes alternatives to our thinking. A
good writer pays huge attention to organization and certainly isn't
limited to thesis-argument structure, especially for topics that don't
naturally fit that form.
   I'm not an expert on this one, but I wonder if the most seminal
texts
in the social sciences are thesis oriented.

Craig

 Paul,



I realized when I read your response that my label was ambiguous. By
"literary essays," I wasn't referring to essays about literature;
rather, I was referring to essays which were chosen as exemplars
because
they had been judged as "literary." Some of them, in fact, were about
social or political issues, but would arrive at an equivalent of a
thesis statement only at the end (in some of these, the author was
using
a more European-style thesis/antithesis/synthesis pattern, with the
synthesis constituting what American style would call the thesis, but
in
others the reader was, in a sense, carried along through a set of
vignettes or observations, with the thesis only emerging gradually).
They were oriented to an audience that would be at least as
interested
in the experience of reading the essay as in finding specific claims
or
information in it. Allusion and artful indirection were valued, as
was
some kinds of language play.



There's a huge difference between that kind of essay and one that
serves
as, for example, a research article in social science. Can you tell
what
the article is about by reading the title? No? It's rejected. Is
there a
clear major claim set forth in the first page or two? No? It's
rejected.
Are you taking up extra space with language whose primary function is
to
highlight how fun language is, or how artistic you are? Yes? Take it
out
or it's rejected. Even a political argument essay not intended for an
academic environment at all will be ineffective (or worse) if the
audience has to work too hard at it to pull a point out, or gets the
impression that it's all there so that the author can feel very, very
special. Most work-related writing - and that's what the majority of
academic writing *is* -- is there to be used, and used as quickly and
efficiently as possible. Enjoyment of its literary dimensions is
optional.



Sincerely,



Bill Spruiell

Dept. of English

Central Michigan University





From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Paul E. Doniger
Sent: Wednesday, June 03, 2009 7:27 PM
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: levels of formality/training wheels, NOW value of HS
education



Bill,



Could you explain what you meant when you wrote, "the essays I was
supposed to use as models for argumentative writing were literary
essays
(which in this case, meant that the authors were distinctively, and
productively, violating some of the major rules of essay-writing,
such
as 'have a clear thesis statement')?"



Do you mean that writing about literature is antithetical to the
writing
of clear thesis statements, or am I misreading your point? Which
other
"major rules of essay writing" are violated by writing about
literature?
This is an odd concept to my thinking, so I'd like some
clarification.



Thanks,



Paul




"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an
improbable fiction" (_Twelfth Night_ 3.4.127-128).





________________________________

From: "Spruiell, William C" <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, June 3, 2009 5:47:10 PM
Subject: Re: levels of formality/training wheels, NOW value of HS
education

As someone from a social-science background who teaches composition
in
an English department, I've noted some similar issues. Years ago, at
another institution, I was teaching composition in a program that
mandated a particular textbook. It was all about literature, and the
essays I was supposed to use as models for argumentative writing were
literary essays (which in this case, meant that the authors were
distinctively, and productively, violating some of the major rules of
essay-writing, such as "have a clear thesis statement"). They *were*
good essays from a number of perspectives, but they weren't good in a
way that the students could emulate at that point in their writing
development, and would not have been publishable as anything other
than
literary essays, in a venue devoted expressly to that genre.

Similarly (well, it's off-topic, but it IS similar....) course
objectives such as "Students will demonstrate that they value <insert
genre name here>" strike me as at best coercive and at worst deeply
creepy. I have no way of reading their minds, and what they think
isn't
necessarily within my area of influence, although what they *do* can
be.
I like Twain, but I'd rather have a student who said interesting
things
about Twain and carefully analyzed his writing but didn't like it at
all
than have a student who obligingly parroted the required opinion of
Twain. I told my science fiction class last semester that despite the
course objective that stated they had to value SF, I was more
interested
in whether they could discuss and analyze the arguments for valuing
SF
than with whether they agreed with those arguments or not.

In composition teaching, the problem with interpreting "writing" as
if
it were equivalent to "writing about literature" isn't really one of
extending the academic into the realm of the practical, though. An
APA-style analysis of survey results is academic, but not literary.
It's
more a side-effect of the somewhat haphazard conflation of literature
with composition in English departments, and the tendency for any
group
to lose sight of the fact that what they value isn't automatically
the
same as what other people do. If we replaced "academic" with "careful
and explicit exposition and argumentation that is suited to its
purpose
and audience," we might have fewer problems.

Bill Spruiell
Dept. of English
Central Michigan University


-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of O'Sullivan, Brian P
Sent: Wednesday, June 03, 2009 3:55 PM
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: levels of formality/training wheels, NOW value of HS
education

A New York Times article,"New Push Seeks to End Need for Pre-College
Remedial Classes" (
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/28/education/28remedial.html?_r=1),
was
interesting in light of Susan's recent critique of the focus on
"academic" knowledge in high school education. For me, one of Susan's
most persuasive points was this: "Students should have to know how to
write argumentatively to promote themselves or their causes, but not
to
lie about why a piece of literature is meaningful because a teacher
decides they should believe that." The Times article touches on a
similar problem; it opens with an anecdote about a high school
graduate
taking pre-college remedial courses because, among other problems,
her
"senior English class...focused on literature, but little on
writing."

To me, this illustrates that some of the so-called "academic" content
that Susan criticizes is just as ill-suited to the needs of future
college students as it is to the the needs of future plumbers. Many
freshman at my college don't take a literature course, but they all
write argumentatively in courses across the curriculum.

I think Susan might be right that the "permanent training wheels"
some
of us have been worried about are the result of high schools'
overemphasis  version of "academic writing." It seems to be a
different
version, though, than what I recognize as academic writing in
colleges
and universities. For example, Susan is probably right that the
prohibition on "I" is intended to "prevent beginning writers from
being
redundant and from weakening the power of their arguments." But,
although I've occasionally heard college professors complain about
the
overabundance of "I think" and "I feel" and though I have even
occasionally complained about it myself), I have more often heard and
made the complaint that students don't use" I" when appropriate and
don't put themselves into their writing in effective ways. If my
experience is representative (which, OK, is a big if), and if some
high
school teachers are banning "I" because they're trying to teach
academic
writing to "non-academic" students, then those high school teachers
must
either mean something different from "college writing" or
misunderstand
what college writing teachers value. (Let me acknowledge that Susan
is
not one of "those high school teachers"; she's made it clear that she
teaches students to use "I" when relating personal experiences.)

So, as I think Herb suggested earlier, the problem of training wheel
permanence, so to speak,  may have a lot to do with lack of
communication between high school teachers and college teachers. If
both
groups could agree on what they mean by "academic writing," or even
"good writing," we might be able to lay down clearer paths for
students.
And I do think that conversations like this can help.

Brian
_
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>] On Behalf Of Susan van Druten
[[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>]
Sent: Tuesday, June 02, 2009 8:52 PM
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: levels of formality/training wheels, NOW value of HS
education

Peter, I think we should be concerned about teachers who present
"training wheels" as real life.  However, I think it might be wise to
consider why those teachers do this.

My guess is that they are inundated with students who don't ever want
to "ride a bike" in their entire lives, but are forced to act like
they want to "ride a bike" because society values bike-riding over
carpentry, plumbing, or whatever hands-on skill or craft they excel
at.  In other words, we all have to stop believing that people who
can't write an academic essay shouldn't get a high school diploma.

Clearly, the "training wheel" analogy really messes with my point.
If anyone is confused, let me be more clear: If we force all 18-year-
old human beings to write academically in order to pass high school
(or any bar that equates to sentience), then we will produce teachers
who will create stupid short-cuts to get non-academically-inclined
teens to produce something that is tolerable.  If playing hockey,
instead of academic writing, were the goal for a high school diploma,
you can imagine all the coaches telling the non-athletically-inclined
teens that they are good hockey players if they just do their best to
pass the puck to Lutska.

We should rethink what high schools should require and how long a
student should be required to attend (I think 8th grade is a better
minimum).  We need to teach math so that students can balance a check
book and know why carrying a balance on a credit card is stupid.
Students should have to know how to write argumentatively to promote
themselves or their causes, but not to lie about why a piece of
literature is meaningful because a teacher decides they should
believe that.

We should value education.  But we have to stop only equating
academics with education.  There are plenty of non-academic fields
that we need.  After all, most academic jobs could be shipped
overseas, but we need to have "in-house" plumbers.

Susan


On Jun 2, 2009, at 6:49 PM, Peter Adams wrote:

The argument Susan makes for banning the use of first person strikes
me as a perfect example of training wheels.  There is a possible
construction involving first person that we might prefer students
avoid.  Rather than teach students to avoid that construction, we
simply ban all uses of first person.

That bothers me.

Peter Adams

On Jun 2, 2009, at 6:59 PM, Susan van Druten wrote:

One of the reasons for the ban on first person in essays is to
prevent beginning writers from being redundant and from weakening
the power of their arguments.  "I believe," "I feel," and "I think"
shouldn't preface every idea expressed.  I tell my students to use
first person only when relating personal experiences in their
essays.

Susan


On Jun 2, 2009, at 10:23 AM, Craig Hancock wrote:

Peter,
 Contractions are a routine part of all the formal writing I do. I
have
yet to have an editor object. I edited a literary magazine through
four
issues and never took issue with it.
 I would also take issue with the idea that all our ideas should
be
impersonal and/or expressed in impersonal ways. That may be a
reasonable goal in many of the sciences--it doesn't matter, I
suppose,
who keeps a specimen at 80 degrees for three hours--but I can't
for
the
life of me separate my understanding of teaching writing from my
own
schooling or the wealth of my experiences in the classroom. I
don't
have "logical" views about it separate from my values and
experiences.
It seems silly for me to say "When one teaches educational
opportunity
program students for twenty-three years" when I'm trying to
characterize my own background. Other people may have opinions
about
it, but I have a perspective. It seems to me that asking students
to
avoid "I" in subjects like this means we are asking them to avoid
being
honest about where their views are coming from. This also
shortchanges
the dialectical nature of most writing. If a student has grown up
with
a hunting rifle in his hands and another has seen someone shot by
a
fellow teenager on a playground, they will be unable to talk
unless
those differing experiences can be acknowledged as legitimate.
 We are not logical machines, and most subjects don't benefit from
pretending to leave our values and experiences at the door. Quite
often, the "reasons" we give for our beliefs are after the fact.

Craig


I've never understood some teachers' constraints on first person,
so I
look forward to reading the replies to Paul's post.

I also wonder about contractions.  I tell my students that they
shouldn't use them in very formal writing or when writing to an
audience that thinks they shouldn't be used.  I also tell them
I've
never written anything in my life that was so formal that I
avoided
contractions.  Where do others stand on this?

Peter Adams

On Jun 1, 2009, at 9:01 AM, Paul E. Doniger wrote:

In requiring students to write some papers in "formal English,"
I
often come across some gray areas.  My tendancy is to be
somewhat
conservative about formal language.  I wonder where others draw
lines regarding levels of formality.  For example, some of my
students use words that seem too informal to me, like
"morph" (verb
form).  Also, I know we have discussed the use of the first
person
before, but I think it is sometimes valuable to challenge
students
to write persuasive pieces that avoid using the first person
altogether. Where do the rest of you stand on such issues?

Thanks,

Paul E. Doniger

"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an
improbable fiction" (_Twelfth Night_ 3.4.127-128).


From: Scott Woods <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, May 31, 2009 6:45:07 PM
Subject: Re: Class size ATEG Digest - 28 May 2009 to 29 May 2009
-
Special issue (#2009-127)

Herb,

I wasn't clear.  Currently, for seventh grade English, I teach
four
groups of students for a total of 112 students.  I meet with
each
group five times each week.  I think that I could get better
results
by meeting with all the groups together on some days and with
each
group separately on others. This would reduce total student
contact
hours for me, but not for them.  With 28 total contact hours per
week next year (I teach other classes as well), I would benefit
from
reducing my contact load and spending that time planning,
developing
lessons, and responding to writing.

Scott

--- On Sun, 5/31/09, STAHLKE, HERBERT F <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
wrote:

From: STAHLKE, HERBERT F <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
Subject: Re: Class size ATEG Digest - 28 May 2009 to 29 May 2009
-
Special issue (#2009-127)
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Date: Sunday, May 31, 2009, 1:21 PM

Scott,


I'm not join this debate because I don't know the research on
either
side, but meeting one group of 112 students twice a week rather
than
four groups of 28 students twice a week for each group strikes
me
as
simply a different way of handling the same student-teacher
ratio.
Meeting four groups of 112 students twice a week for each group
seems a more apt contrast.  Or you could lower that to four
groups
of 42 or 56 students.  The result would be much less writing and
much less response to writing.


Herb


From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]
] On Behalf Of Scott Woods
Sent: 2009-05-31 11:11
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Class size ATEG Digest - 28 May 2009 to 29 May 2009
-
Special issue (#2009-127)


Paul,



I would be interested in seeing research that shows a strong
link
between reducing class size and increasing performance. The
research
I have seen strongly suggests that the most important factor in
improving student performance is changing what teachers do.
Reducing class size can reduce the amount of disruption in a
class,
but there is little research base (that I have seen) to suggest
that
if we reduced the size of every class in the country to 15
students
that much would change in what students know and can do.



As an English teacher, I would prefer having fewer total
students,
but I could probably teach as well if, at least twice a week, I
had
all 112 of my students in a lecture hall together.  That would
give
me eight hours of extra time to respond thoughtfully to their
writing.



Scott Woods

BASIS Scottsdale




--- On Fri, 5/29/09, Paul E. Doniger <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:


From: Paul E. Doniger [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>


Yes! And all research in education that I've ever seen agrees
that
class size is a vital component in successful learning.  This is
especially important to the writing classroom.



Paul E. Doniger


"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an
improbable fiction" (_Twelfth Night_ 3.4.127-128).





From: Scott <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, May 29, 2009 8:30:56 PM
Subject: Re: Class size ATEG Digest - 28 May 2009 to 29 May 2009
-
Special issue (#2009-127)

I too am normally reluctant to classify a remark as stupid;
however,
the list member who indicated that class size was irrelevant in
teaching
writing must have been brought up by a school board member.  My
alma
mater,
MSC, whose regular Freshman English program I have praised
highly, had
a secondary program in basic writing skills for those who had
failed
the
English placement exam.  I had scored a 100 in the exam but my
advisor had
accidentally put my test in the "Dummy English" pile; therefore,
I
had to
take a non-credit English class on the same semester as my first
Freshman
English class.  My advisor apologized to me later but I replied
that
I had
learned more in Dummy English than in regular English because
the
class size
was quite small--around ten students--and we wrote a theme each
day
instead
of one a week.  The professor in the Dummy Class was also an
excellent
teacher.

Having taught across the academic curriculum, I can aver that,
in
my
experience, class size is more important in English composition
than
in any
other academic class, including mathematics and foreign
languages.

N. Scott Catledge, PhD/STD
Professor Emeritus


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