teacher rants (was "Nostalgia/ancestors"

Vaska vaska at geocities.com
Fri Jul 11 18:29:28 CDT 1997


I have to agree with Mascaro that the way 99% of our undergrads are taught
writing is a CRIME.  And an exercise in sadism.  And a truly unconscionable
endeavour to confuse the daylights out of them.  

That said: in all conscience, I can't let my students breeze through their
intro literary courses only on the strength of the ideas they can produce
[and I've seen engineering students, for example, read literature and write
about it better than most English lit. postgrads do -- not a common
occurrence, but it happens.]  But why not let them go on writing "he could
of seen," you ask.  Because as much as I may appreciate the unmistakable
intelligence behind their struggles with the English sentence, I know
perfectly well that most other people will write them off as mere
semi-literate brutes.  And go on to assign them Ds, as a result.  And even
laugh at their expense behind their backs.

So, unlike Mascaro, I do point out those mistakes and then have little
office-hours chats with the student to persuade him/her to bone up on
grammar *on their own* [with the help of some relatively unintimidating
text-book].  Their first assignment gets two separate grades: one for the
ideas, and one for the writing.  After that, I want to see fewer and fewer
of those mistakes.  Usually, they go along with this system and many even
make a point of saying "thank you" at the end of the course.  

Most of the time, invited to see me, the kids come in literally *pale* with
the shock of having discovered that their English was not up to standard --
no one had bothered to point it out to them in high-school.  And leave the
office visibly relieved to know they CAN do something sensible and not very
time-consuming to get rid of the problem.  Mascaro, my friend, it works.  I
guess I just don't talk down to them.

Vaska

At 12:08 PM 7/11/97 PST, you wrote:
>A long and deeply probing post from sojourner.  A lot to chew over, but I
just wanna 
>shoehorn in a comment here in response to this passage:
>
>>My aunt is a teacher (working on HER PhD) at a prominent Northeastern
>>university.  I asked her, out of curiosity, to tell me about the writing
>>skills of her students.  Almost across the board, she told me they were
>>horrendous.  Not just "a few errors" or "strange development of themes" but
>>awful, horrible mistakes.  I know that you (all) know this is not the
>>exception, but the rule. 
>
>I have been teaching writing for more years than I wanna recount,
>( 'specially given this nostalgia thread.  Suffice it to say at 45 as of 1 July
> I feel like the old man and the koan).  It think that
> the *problem* with our atrocious student writers is made more
> atrocious itself precisely by this way of conceiving it--always in terms
> of *mistakes* if not * horrible* mistakes.  Our entire quantitatively-
>obsessed educational sysytem constantly shoots down students
> as writers, at every  level, with this *mistakes* bugbear.
>
>  It is dead wrong to evaluate writing in terms of *mistakes*.  
>The assumption behind that is so prescriptiuve as to not need detailing, 
>as though there were some Platonically pure mistake-free writing
>that would therefore, and on those terms qualify as *good* writing.
>
>There is no such thing as *writing*--there are only occasions of writing.
>
>Handbooks of writing rules NEVER match the way real people use language.
>
>Please tell your aunt that in my experience Grad Students are the 
>worst tyrants at intimidating undergrads as writers,
> prob'ly cuz grad stoodints are themselves being put
> through a winnowing experience of great 
>cruelty (I survived it--though maybe not with all of my
> F-A-C-U-L-T-I-E-S intact--so I can say it).
>
>Students are rarely validated for the IDEAS they try, however painfully
>and *incorrectly* to express, instead it's out with the old red
>pen and circlin' ALL those d-----d subject-verb agreement errors and,
>uh oh, look here child, you, young Thomas--you used *messhuginah* as
> an adjective in your *How I Spent My 17-Year Hiatus* essay.
>Hmmph, it's clear no one will ever respect YOUR writing, and no Ivy
>League university or Genius Foundation will ever be interested 
>in what YOU have to say, no, there will be no internet
>lists devoted to YOUR work in the future, saucy Mr. P. 
> I suggest you hone up real quick on your
>
>JOB skills.
>
>
>john m
>
>
>
>
>
>




More information about the Pynchon-l mailing list