RE: Against Formulaic Writing

["Lerner, Neal" <NLerner@mcp.edu>]

Formulae and such for writing (whether the 5P essay or the 1P essay)
seem to me to carry powerful assumptions for how one learns to write.
Sure, some students need to have a sense of "how" they might say
something before they can get those words down, and sometimes it's a
5-paragraph deductive structure that we offer.  But I think it's easy to
assume a building-block approach to writing development w/ such
strategies, the kind of thinking that has given us textbooks on sentence
and paragraph mastery.  After all, the thinking goes, those students
aren't "ready" for essay writing! (And, yes, I've taught the lowest
level basic writing and ESL writing where students certainly had little
mastery over syntax and such). An anecdotal aside:  In the first writing
center I worked in, basic writing students were assigned a "paragraph"
to write and then work on with a tutor.  We (tutors) spent a great deal
of time trying to assure students that if their topics lent themselves
to more than one paragraph, it was okay--despite the assignment.

I mean, why do we assign the darn tasks anyway?  Is it for students to
learn some sort of technical prowess?  It's like knowing fifteen
different languages but having absolutely nothing to say in any of them.
I drone on and on in my classes about how form and content are
intertwined, inseparable.  Sure, some topics lend themselves to certain
set forms (e.g., compare/contrast, cause-effect), but I think it's real
important for students to discover both what they have to say and how to
say it.  In class, we read a great deal to examine how others have dealt
with issues of structure/content, but for me to dictate structure is as
stultifying as for me to dictate content.  I've done it in the past, but
now I'm trying to learn from those mistakes.  Too many deathly boring
student essays to read (and for them to write).  I'm drawing a line in
the paper pile.

	Neal

Neal Lerner
Mass. College of Pharmacy & Allied Health Sciences
nlerner@mcp.edu; 617-732-2824