School

[Brian Kempf]

Having just graduated high school I may have a different perspective on this, but here's my two bits...

When having writing assignments, we were given a rubric. We were expected to include all aspects of the rubric in our paper to get the most points. From my memory, around 90% of possible points on most papers were about substance. How well did your paragraphs support your thesis statement? How many sources did you use? Many of my peers would hit high marks in these categories. Style (syntax, grammar, spelling), however, made up only about 5-10% of the possible amount of points. Occasionally my friends and I would proofread each other's papers. They would hit all of major items they need to cover and much more, but sentences would be run-on's, "then" and "than" were used interchangeably, and how the message was being communicated - as opposed to *what* the message was that was being communicated - was neglected.

In my high school experience (and I would be interested in hearing other perspectives on this), we are not taught how to write. We are taught about having supporting paragraphs, vocabulary, similes and metaphors, etc. but not how to combine these elements into making good writing. That being said, I thought that my HS's English department was outstanding and inspired me to take English as a major in college. But for those who don't care about the subject, they only learn how to follow directions to get from point A to point B. But that is only half of the battle. As the cliche goes, "it's the journey, not the destination". This applies to writing, where what you say is equally, if not more important than how you say it.

As an anecdote, when my mom went back to college to take classes in early childhood education, she was shocked that her professor had to specifically tell students that "texting language in papers" was not allowed. 

B.K.

On Aug 9, 2012, at 11:08 PM, Keith Davis <kbob42 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Tomorrow is the final day of summer session at Furman, where I teach Jazz Piano.
> This summer I've been teaching Intro to Jazz, my first time teaching a class other than a workshop
> or Taiji class. It has been very gratifying, until time to read the research papers. These kids 
> obviously did the research, but the writing, for the most part, is horrible. I found myself correcting
> grammar and syntax, until deciding that was not my job in this course. 
> 
> I'm obviously no Mr. P, but these kids, for the most part, don't even know how to write proper sentences
> or separate thoughts into paragraphs. It is a real eye-opener, and not in a good way.
> 
> Anyway, I'll be finishing M & D tonight, and then treating myself to some Borges, so, onward...
> 
> 
> -- 
> www.innergroovemusic.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20120810/38068fe0/attachment.html>