Don’t tell me!

I have noticed a strange trend lately in my students’ papers. I’ not sure if I’m just more sensitive to it, or if it’s a change in the writing that’s coming in, but here it is: students like to use “you.” Now this doesn’t sound like a serious issue, and it certainly sounds silly when just sated that way. But here’s my issue: composition teachers have long asked (demanded?) that we be shown, not told, the evidence and conclusions. Focus on the ideas and details that support them. We’ve also tried to kill “I” in essays. When I ask them to use “I,”especially to indicate their experiences, my students often look at me askance, and say “Oh, I just can’t say ‘I’ in a formal paper! It’s just not right!” I always reassure them that yes, in the most formal academic discourse, “I” is usually shunned (as is the five-paragraph essay, but that’s another rant), but we’re writing more low-key, personal pieces at the beginning of the term, and their experiences are important — and can be “owned” with the pronoun.

So what does all this mean for “you”? I think it’s a common substitute. That is, students think “I have to show my logic, so I’ll tell my readers what to see.” And this quickly becomes “I’ll force audience agreement by proscribing reactions — what to feel, how to think.” It’s really difficult sometimes, especially when my students’ arguments are limited — or they don’t take into any account multiple opinions, different experiences, or simply different conclusions based on the same information. Too often, my students will say something like “You will remember from Romeo and Juliet...” Um, hate to rain on your parade, but I’ve never read that play. (Nor have I seen a whole production, be it on stage or screen.... about the closest I’ve come is West Side Story — unless sitting through Twilight counts, too.) Or better yet, “In 15 years, when you get married [I am already married], you will receive a box from your mother with your diaries in it, with a note that says ‘Remember these when you’re expecting.’” [I already have a child — and my students know both facts from casual conversation.] I pointed out to the student who set up this hypothetical situation that it’s at odds with my experience, and as such, it indicates that I’m not the target audience. I asked her to revise, removing “you,” as to allow other people to read and follow the point she’s making, rather than excluding readers because she expects her audience to be exactly like her.*

So I ask my fellow instructors — have you noticed an encroachment of “you” in papers? What do you do about it? I’ve given over some time in my writing course to explain why this is bad, as it disrupts the relationship between the author, who is supposed to show, not dictate, the ideas, and this reader, who wants to be led, not commanded, who wants to discover ideas, not have to manufacture knowledge to meet the demands of the author. It's only a couple of minutes, but I wonder if I should be more proactive, and introduce it before the first paper, rather than after the first draft, in response to my students. What do you think?

*Incidentally, she did not revise this page between drafts, and the demanding scenario remained.

Knowing Enough

At the beginning of this semester, I covered a humanities class for a colleague who was out on medical leave. One of the icebreakers she assigned was a list of questions, and the purpose was to find people who know the answers. Since the class was fairly small, and the icebreaker is supposed to get students to meet many people, I told the students that I’d be happy to sign for one answer.

The students started circulating, and I answered a few different questions. One student walked up, with my colleague’s list in hand, and asked if I could answer any questions she hadn’t filled yet. Looking at her list, I saw that I could answer any of the questions, but I wanted to be a little cagier, perhaps to make a point about assumptions, as I had in my writing course. So I said “Yes, I can answer some. What question do you think I can answer?"

“I think you know the name of Alexander the Great’s tutor” was her reply.

Noting some conviction in her voice, I said “Yes, I do — why did you think so?”

Her reply? “Because you’re the teacher. You just know these things.”

I was rather humbled by her faith in teachers — and at the same time, I was glad I didn’t let her down. It got me wondering, though, just how much we’re expected to know, especially in the humanities. I chose my discipline, and my period, in part because they are hard — there’s nothing that can’t help illuminate readings, so everything is fair for academic consideration. But I also wonder when we’re (theoretically) ready to teach. When do we know enough to step in front of a classroom? I don’t think there’s a good answer, or a right answer, in terms of quantity of knowledge. I think the best answer is individual — you know enough when you feel comfortable, when you feel competent, to teach that subject, be it composition, introduction to literature, or something more specific. I look forward to hearing your thoughts!

Studying Literature: Piling Pebbles to Reach the Heights

As I was talking to some students and pondering my choice to study literature, a powerful metaphor struck me. Studying literature is hard because we pile pebbles to reach the heights of greatness. Think of it this way: science is very goal-oriented, and it has an end. It is like a ladder. (So I’m mixing metaphors and similes — at least I recognize the difference!) You start with basic information and move up the chain of difficulty to a specific goal — the point at which you have to create your own next step by doing research (experiments) that expand the realm of science. And there’s a pretty defined hierarchy of knowledge: biology starts with basic cell structure, chemistry with atoms, etc. Then you move on to more complex systems (organs, molecules), then groups of those systems (circulatory system, molecular interactions), and so forth.

Literature’s not like that. Sure, we have easy literature and hard literature, but there’s no set order, no specific books everyone has to master (or simply read) before moving on. There is no hierarchy of knowledge — instead, in literature, we reach the heights of mastery by building a mountain of piled pebbles. Each work adds something else to our mass of knowledge, but none is more important or unimportant. Reading the complete works of Shakespeare is impressive, but reading the complete works of Stephen King is no less impressive — it’s just less influential on Literature. Reading the complete works of Chaucer, or Hemingway is, perhaps, more impressive, but none of these milestones will result in some profound wisdom in themselves, they won’t identify the reader as a master.

This is not to equate all reading; as I said earlier, there’s a spectrum of difficulty. Some difficulty is in the language (Middle English in general), some in the style (Henry James); some authors are simple in style, but profound in ideas (Hemingway). These are the authors and works that get trotted out as classics, whose inclusion in the canon are often taken as obvious. Some works are hugely popular, but have little literary merit (Brown’s The DaVinci Code; Meyer’s Twilight series). But they lack can be instructive in lacking those qualities — that is, these poor books can help define quality and genius.

I think the final idea I want to toss out is one of skill. We learn how to read very early on; some take to it quickly, others struggle to make sense of texts throughout their lives. And I wonder if this is one of the problems literary studies has. Dr. Seuss’s books are some of our earliest reading experiences, and they’re seen as simple. But they are often poetry, and although they’re short works, and presented in fairly simple ways, I think they’re pretty complex books to read, in that the reader needs to construct a narrative from very short, often declarative sentences.. Even Shel Silverstein’s poetry is fairly advanced wordplay. Is it E. E. Cummings? No, but what is (other than the poet himself)? Silverstein can certainly be more advanced than Shakespeare or Poe in terms of wordplay and sounds.

In any case, I start to wander. Do think about the idea that literature students have no hierarchy to climb, but only a collection of disparate stories from which to build their experiences, and that process of reading (and if we’re lucky enough, re-reading) only enriches our experiences and ability to form a coherent argument about literature. Unlike science, the cutting edge is unique to each of us, as we read new materials and add those works to our pile of stones in the quest for the heavens.

Let me know what you think!

First Impressions

Welcome to my blog. A (very little) bit about me: I'm an adjunct professor at a local community college, while I finish writing my dissertation at the big university. My field of expertise is the Middle Ages, but I have a lot of other interests and ideas beyond that huge area.

I quite often have complaints, and that intention has created the name of my blog — a reference to humoric medical theory. Perhaps I'll post more on that later, but until then, that's all you get.

For the next post, I'll have a few words on how studying literature is like a pile of pebbles, unless there's some other, more pressing issue in my life!

Thanks for your interest, and happy reading!

-KR