As a matter of fact my thesis today is going to be that in the last 10 or 20 years. There has been very considerable progress in the teaching of composition and that a number of major encouraging helpful long-range Trends have been at work that help us in the job of making composition a more modern a more productive a more professional and responsible Enterprise. So the teachers today do have a real choice between going backward to Basics and going forward to the teaching of actual writing skills going forward to the teaching of actual composition.No, I do not wish to harp on the problems of the past but it is at times educational to look back on our humble Origins and see where we came from when I started teaching at the University of Michigan the basic activity and the composition course was seen correction really it was basically the revision of something that was already a disaster. You're all familiar with the basic procedure. Perhaps you had a student in your class who had in his linguistic Repertory forms, like he don't live here anymore, or she sure know how to talk.And then you would say all right turn to rule 27A and Rule 27A would say what you should do is add the inflection S&D to the third person singular of the indicative mood of the present tense of the finite verb. And apparently the student was expected to say thank you very much. That's very helpful information. I'll go right ahead and do that. When I moved on to San Jose State, I had an office made to us a good friend and a dear man and a great teacher. But if you gave him something to read that you had written a little unit or a little article he would get his red pencil out and he would start writing things in the margin like colloquial. mixed metaphor Cliche it turned out. My specialty was the mixed cliche. Something like Rome wasn't burned in a day. I received a little hand book in the mail the other day that had a 1975 or 1976 copyright, but that inside was very old and reminded me of the old days because when you leave through the book all the major headings were things like avoid redundancy avoid upside-down subordination avoid euphemism avoid sling avoid jargon avoid the passive voice to avoid vague predication. There was a glossary in which 287 offenses against the spirit of pure English undefiled were listed there were things in there like if it's saying as unique, it is one of a kind and one thing cannot be more unique than another. The Hawaii in Hawaii polloi actually means the So when you say something like let's keep this on a higher plane than the hyper Royal 13. You are suffering from a redundant definite article. There were things in there like the difference between Gourmet and gourmand. Between inept and inapt between nauseous and nauseated between common and mutual. Between classic and classical and so on and so forth at nauseous. Now if you are an optimist, like myself, you'll probably keep leaving through that book saying to yourself. There must be something about composition in here somewhere. As a matter of fact, the real old-style so-called grammar and composition book typically did have one or be a skimpy composition champ and this was devoted in large part to such matter matters as for instance outlining. It said things like I'm quoting verbatim correct arrangement of numbers and letters. Main headings Roman numeral one Roman numeral two subheadings of same capital letters followed by a. Subheadings of same another word sub subheadings Arabic numerals followed by a. Subheadings of same in other words Sub sub subheadings lowercase letters followed by a. Subheadings of same. Arabic I'm not making any of this up Arabic numerals enclosed in parentheses subheadings of same lowercase letters enclosed in parentheses know by this time, you are saying to your neighbor, but my students don't even get to the Sub sub headaches. But the real problem obviously it's not in the delightful pedantry of these imaginary outlines. The real problem is in the weakness or in the absence of the teaching theory behind them because this whole thing obviously breaks down when the student says now, how do I do one of those how do I produce one of those beautifully structured things because you know, and I know that in the truly old style back to basic books there is nothing in the rest of the chapter on how to produce the kind of paper that actually have an outline The kind of paper that actually has a structure that kind of paper that actually has some sort of blueprint or some sort of organization that could be graphically represented in an outline. In fact to cut a long sad story short. There's likely to be little or nothing in the whole book on how to produce on how to generate structured writing or for that matter any kind of writing there is likely to be a great intellectual vaction. Great Sahara of the mind on what it takes to put the sing together on what it takes to make this thing take shape. The word composition itself is an ancient Latin word that literally translated means getting it together. Putting it together and what progress there has been in the teaching of composition in your lifetime and mine has been towards dealing with composition indeed as a productive activity toward taking the student through the actual steps in the process of composition. And as a profession we have learned at least something about how to elicit student driving how to get something out of them that is worth reading. How to help them find and organize material and work up the subject how to help them structure different kinds of writing assignments. So that finally they produce something that is indeed worth correcting that is indeed worth editing that is indeed worth polishing so that we are not always pruning a tree that is already dead. What I'd like to do today, in fact until my microphone cord is yanked. It's to outline to you the three or four major changes are the three or four major developments that have changed really our whole perspective and our basic procedures in the teaching of composition over the last 10 or 20 years and that in my opinion have combined to give some minimum credibility too many of our writing programs and to make them less futile and less self-defeating then at one time. They were now the first major section here in my notes is of a somewhat preliminary nature. It has something to do with the general tone. We set the general slash and we give to what we do. But nevertheless it is to me extremely important. I have it here in my notes Under The Heading of writing as a habit because like any other skill writing is ultimately develop by much practice by much trial-and-error in any kind of productive activity. It is essential that we be familiar and at ease with our tools. It's very hard to cook good spaghetti. If you're still scared stiff of the stool. It's very hard to write a decent paragraph. If you're still holding the pencil with both hands. It's very hard to type a 500-word theme at 3 a.m. On a Monday morning when it's due at 8:30 when you are paralyzed by the sight of a blank sheet of paper. In your typewriter and in many of the programs both in high school and college that we look at today. We do see the kind of practice runs the kinds of limbering up activities that convinced student that composition after all is a natural activity that can be pleasurable of one kind of limbering up saying that my students always right like a sleeve the modern proverb kind of thing where you take the sayings of poor Richard and and to do an updated modern Proverbs things like a dollar earned is a dollar spent. It's a Long Street that has no parking meter He who laughs last will never be part of a studio audience. Strike while the iron is hot and you'll get a third degree burn. Life is a bowl of pits. Someone else got all the cherries. If you want to do something a little more ambitious and if you have a little more time, you might do the kind of thing that many people have tried the depersonalized alphabet. I have one here from a black student who wrote A is for apple speak apples. Yellow apples red ones all together like me and you B is for brothers C is for child. These four Dudes is for easy make it easy on yourself if it's for food and freedom GS4 God I am the beginning and the H is for human. I asked for ignorance. Don't let your ignorance predominate where your intelligence should exist on toward the end the alphabet. He says T is for togetherness Us free for me. And unity V is for victory W is for Wisdom. X is for xenophobia Y is for youth young gifted and black Z is for zealous every man is zealous. No man likes to be cut down by another man. During the late lamented creativity cycle during the short-lived burgeoning of creativity in our schools. One thing that work for us is composition teachers a great deal was the encouragement of students poetry which not only stimulates the imagination but also gives them a chance to build up their fluency to broaden their range of stylistic choices to give them gives them a chance to experience the pleasure and the satisfaction that comes from working with words. So that in the 7th or 8th grade, they'd be writing things. Like I am rain I drop down one by one from the clouds. I drop on fields to help farmers grow crops. I drop on hills and roll down waterfalls. I help people by killing their thirst. I am rain. And someone else writes. I am speed. I pass you in a blur. I pass you with crackling flames and burning rubber, but then after the speed I am slowed by a fluttering drag chute. One alternative to the formidable 500-word theme that paralyzes many beginning writers is sentence writing sentence practice 1 current development that's helping all of us a great deal is the general interest in sentence building activities and sentence writing activities of all kinds of one thing that is found in many little composition books and in many programs now, it's the kind of thing where we work with descendants Mal and and then we have the student use that sentence model as a frame that they fill in with similar content of their own. I have some examples here, where are teachers working with students to develop their sense of various dependent clauses that get into a sentence in that help that sentence to carry Freight and and and Convey information of the model sentence might go something like this. The committee is a group that keeps minutes and loses hours. And the student writes a clique is a group that has an unwelcome mat. the model sentences gifts brighten the lives of those we love and the students ride cigarettes shorten the days of those who smoke The model says Fools Rush In Where Angels Fear To Tread and the student rights rock music drowns out what parents have to say? I used some of these and I work shopping Oklahoma. I did a year or two ago and we were moving from actual sentence riding into larger units and into basic rhetorical structures and I gave them one kind of model that illustrates a very basic rhetorical Rhythm namely the short and the long of it where you start with a very short sentence that sums up that gives the idea and then the next sentence of a long elaborate Faulkner type sentence that fills in the details and the model was for Mark Twain Mark. Twain says noise proves nothing often the hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she had laid an asteroid. And the teachers in that Workshop Road things like laughter proves nothing often the hyena who is merely looking for a meal laughs as if he had eaten the whole thing or a Pious manner is not indicative of an inhibited person often the seductive Saturday night siren sedately enters church on Sunday morning glad and pale Angelic Blue from neck to ankle not this kind of activity helps to get the rhythm of the well-made sentence of the well formed sentence into the students bones and it gets them to use the resources of the English sentence with greater confidence and East. Not assuming that we have succeeded to in making writing a less threatening a less paralyzing a less formidable kind of Enterprise sooner or later. I suppose we will have to start thinking about what we do to set up some kind of serious or structured program that will actually get somewhere and that will develop some of the basic competencies that a writer at any level needs. If he is going to do any good now the first major category under this heading of an actual writing program that I have here is purpose one of the most basic questions about writing that was never asked in the old books was what brings it on. What pushes the button what rings the bell what lights the fire what makes me get up on a foggy morning and go to my typewriter and put a sheet of paper in and say dear Max Rafferty. What brings not on one little example of real writing that was really motivated that was really activated that I've carried around for your tooth was written with a communication a little memo written by my youngest daughter to my oldest daughter. And so the youngest daughter was going away on a vacation and she wrote as follows Ingrid check the water for the most and feed the rabbit the food by the mouse give him cabbage and lettuce to and let him out sometimes. Now that's not Faulkner, but it has a note of urgent concern it effectively communicates Vital Information and above all it is something that the author wanted to say. It is something that served a purpose. On a more adult level one motive that has recently been extremely effective in activating actual writing actual Bonafide writing that has a purpose is the need to register a grievance people take pain and ham to tell us what is wrong. They feel they have been mistreated and they complain women friends in recent years have produced a great amount of vigorous riding protesting traditional male Behavior. We have witnessed an outpouring of poems letters articles Stories books in which they register their dissatisfaction with inadequate lovers schnook husband's mail employers with only one thing in mind. And we know this is real writing because when we read at we don't write in the margin dangling modifier or mixed metaphor. We write in the margin Grimm book true. Tell me it isn't so. No classes in college competition. Do you stays find that some of the most vigorous writing is done by young women who tell us as one of them? Did I have a right as a living creature to make it in this world? Don't put us down. I was reading a book on me about Amelia Earhart the other day and at the end reprinted in that book is the letter she wrote the last letter she wrote to her husband before she embarked on the flight around the world from which she did not return. And there's so little example of real writing there. She says in her letter. Please know I am quite aware of the hazards. I want to do it because I want to do it women must try to do things as men have tried when they fail their failure must be but a challenge to others. One of the most basic motives in writing is indeed this need to to get your side of the story told to set the record straight to listen to all the garbage and finally say no just a minute my turn. I have something to say that I want to say, in fact one of the most productive motives for riding in our own classes as the students only need to talk back because they do listen a lot and they are a captive audience for long stretches of the day one effect of assignment that I've used and used again and overused. It's a little assignment devoted to talking back to The Stereotype. This is something that we can all do in the classroom. We come in one rainy Monday morning and we say, all right. What do we know about various ethnic and National groups and we say what are some of the things that everyone knows about Germans friends some anecdotes on how Stalin and humorless Germans are I tell the anecdote when I went to Germany. I just talked to my nephew there and he said Uncle Hans. What is the title of the world's shortest book? I didn't know what the title of the world shirts but when he says the title of the world's shortest book is for centuries of German Hitler. And by this time a few Teutonic looking people in the audience are getting a little Restless. Then we go on to what everyone knows about Italians and you know, I'm writing on the Blackboard hot temper big noise little action waving their arms when they talk big women over a hot stove trying to stuff ravioli down your throat. And by this time they are few people called Moscone and run. Scene from Kushi who are getting a lab set. And finally if this thing goes according to plan one of them will say now just a minute. There is something I want to say and we say alright say it already write me a paper and on Monday on Monday when he brings in that paper that's going to be the best paper. He's going to write all semester because that's going to come from the heart and he's going to say things like to the Italian the family is the strongest unit on Earth. The family is like one everyone is closed and knows what the others are doing. So well that they can get offended easily. Or the women are usually very loyal to their husbands and children since religion is a big part of their lives morals are strict. And the rearing of the children is strict yet. The people have big hearts and find ways of spoiling the children nevertheless Italians love to talk and they love people they love the big social occasion. It's a great amount of money to spend on big weddings and big funerals competition often arises when brothers or sisters go in for the Big Show, etc, etc. Etc. And this is one paper where you hasn't counted the words and it said 187 313 more to go. Now this kind of thing illustrates the vital role of purpose in in motivating at an activating the whole thing so that we don't have to say the way the Australian poet. Did you have the bridal and the bit? All right, but where's the bloody horse? The purpose is very strong in this kind of writing at the same time it already illustrates the second major element in a productive writing program the need for authentic substance. What bothered me most when I started to teach composition was the lack of substance it it it it was typed like writing it looked like writing but it didn't say anything. It was like super market bread where you could take the whole loaf and squeeze together and you've got this much nutrition and they'd write and write and they say things like The future lies ahead. The automobile is here to stay. The invention of glass is testimony to man's unquenchable desire to improve himself culturally. And you read that kind of thing on a Saturday Saturday morning and after 7 themes you would get up and scream and you'd say let me out of here. I can't do it anymore. I won't read it anymore. In fact 10 years ago. There was a kind of peasants Revolt among the English teachers and teachers a composition. Where were they said exactly that that led by Ken macrorie from Kalamazoo who who said in this class one thing you will do you will produce some real right and you won't get out of here until you produce one piece of real writing. We have occasional sessions at San Jose State where we get together and everyone is asked what's your favorite writing assignment and when my turn came the other day I was trying to think of one that's concerned with us. You know, what do I do where I get away from the ink fish and wear something comes in where where I say, this is real and and this is real writing. The the writing assignment I was talking about is called the camera eye. Because one basic assumption I have is that before you can dish it out before you can hold forth. You must learn to take in there has to be some input there has to be some gathering in other words developing the students power of observation and and of looking at things and noticing and and becoming more observant and becoming more where is is a tremendously important so that the first basic rule of writing is not start your paragraph with a topic sentence or used transitional Expressions. The first basic rule of riding is use your own eyes and ears and they become the camera. I they they they just take in what they see in their job down and and they don't analyze and interpret and structural they try to become receptive and these are little vignettes and these are little notes that they bring back. And they bring back things like lots of empty buildings and stores with soaped up Windows wrinkled old man looks slightly in litter basket. He looks lonely V young boys about 1514 Walker breast rapping about nothing important far out man. Radio Levi's worn by all. Mr. Big Stuff a woman with a baby is being hassled by a drunk when the light turns green. She shoots across the street in order to lose him. Half empty parking lot in the back of building shows the ugly side of town. This side is not dressed up to appeal to people but left ugly to conserve money. Bank of America has 12 floors a bell tower at the top. It has Greek type columns in front various designs are carved in the Rock. The bank has a cop so old he can hardly lock the doors. He carries a dust rag, but he does pack a gun. And we write in the margin nice touch good detail. Well observed. I like that bit about the cop with a dust rag and do more kind of thing. Now the progress that we have seen in composition programs in recent years has been very much in this direction of helping students to mobilize their own resources helping them to draw on their own observation and experience so that big words begin to be anchored to some personal point of reference. So that arguments can be conducted on a level where the Alternatives mean something in the lives of of actual people. So that fashionable slogans can be tested by some first-hand research and observation on the part of the student. Now the turning point in this kind of program where at the beginning we are really pushing toward authenticity and and substance and getting something real in their the turning point point in this program arrives when we say after the student has learned something about Gathering material working up a subject immersing ourselves as a writer in the in a topic. How do we make the crucial jump toward bringing it into Focus bring it under control? How do they learn if at all how does a writer learn how to structure something and and make it take shape? In other words The crucial step is from substance to structure The crucial step is from the experiential subjective impressionistic mode toward the expository objective mode again in one of our sessions at San Jose State summer or the question. Was that one session. How do you do that? How do you where is that particular made? And how did you try to get students to move from observation to structure and one instructor talked about something that I suppose many other people would also suggest he talked about the Story with a point B the autobiographical experience with a point which served for him as the bridge where we have them tell the story of some autobiography incident or episode. But we're at the end. We asked them to sum up. What is the point? What is the message and the last sentence the very last statement in that paper must give the message. Here's an example of that that might be appropriate to the 9th grade and the title of this little student paper is like Master like dog and I'll read the whole thing to you as a very short student paper Maynard was a German shepherd and the friendliest dog on Hayes Street every child that walk by Maynard's residents left astonish not only by his friendliness, but also by his size. He was about 4 ft tall on all fours and weight. 150 + 200 lb she was a beautiful shade of gray and white matter was friendly with others, but not to his master a man. We called Scrooge Maynard felt the same as we did towards screwed. All Maynard received was orders go get the paper get my slippers right now sit shake hands. He began leaving home when he was let loose to roam the yard. He first began to stay away for two days and from 2 days to two weeks when he did return home Scrooge would take him by the collar Dragon awkwardly toward the realest house and lash him with a whip Maynard was no longer friendly to anyone He barked at the children and tried continuously to jump the fence people talk to themselves to Scrooge's like Master like dog. And Ashley point of the story and there's the moral of the story. In fact, the desperate need for when I came into the teaching of composition was for this kind of activity this kind of of exercise that gives students some sense of how the channeling or how the focusing or how the organizing works as a graduate student. I'm sure you've all gone through the kind of experience where you did some sore research paper. And the second week into that you are at the peak of frustration walking up and down the library corridors the book you want has been checked out stolen on a professor is that allowed for 3 years and hasn't returned it the magazines haven't been bound. Then as you start collecting materials you have this and you have that and it does that up and it doesn't gel and you say I wish I'd never chosen this topic, but then if the paper is going to be successful somewhere you begin to sort it out somewhere you begin to throw out one whole shoe box shoe box full of stuff that you're not going to use and and the rest is shaped up into some sort of structure and then at the very end you have an outline emerge and you even have something called a thesis so that at the end you triumphantly conclude therefore. We must admit that I want to review the research paper manual that said on page one chapter one the first thing you do you write your thesis and I closed it and I sent it back and it was obvious the man knew absolutely nothing about writing a research paper. Let alone a research paper manual. So we've all been looking in recent years for for the kind of thing that that gives some simplified sense of this shaping organizing activity. I'm sure many of you nowadays when we teach the paragraph that used to be paragraph exercises were A topic sentence was provided since a well-structured paragraph often has a key sentence and then the students were asked to to fill in three or four relevant examples that would support that particular topic sentence. And again this thing causes difficulty when we try to make the jump and we say all right. Now you write your own descendants your paragraph with a topic sentence because then the student would turn to his neighbor and say where do topic sentences come from so we try to provide exercises now that produce topic sentences. We give the kind of thing where we give three or four sets of data or examples and and then we Channel these are we funnel he's into some kind of generalization that then can serve as the topic sentence things like in a recent crash test car doors flew open motor mount broke loose door handle. Instruments inflicted possible injuries seat belts Charles Louisiana, Sara Nader type of data and then you know, we put that in the funnel and we come to the conclusion cars or not as safe as they could be or something of that nature. Most of today's passenger passenger trains, the vending machine has replaced the dining car the trains run half an hour late during the cold weather. There's often either no heat or heat enough to roast the passengers, etc. Etc. And then we funnel that into a conclusion that says railroad travel is not what it used to be and that is the key idea. That is the possible topic sentence. In fact much of what we used to do in the old days was deducted wear today. We often try to operate more inductively friends since working with definition. Invariably a champion definition in the old days would start by saying in a well-structured definition you first put the term then you put the class to be defined play the class that defines the term and then you put the differentiating features that differentiate that particular thing from other members of the same class, which is a good model wears nowadays. If we assign a definition paper, we're likely to say what what I'd like you to do your writing about sportsmanship or fear play or something like that. What I'd like you to do is get three or four case histories, you'll get three or four little stories where the word fairness or care play all this was unfair where that played a role and discussed and then at the end try to extract from that the common denominator try to see what it is really some common ground for the term fair play. No obviously doesn't act of model is just one over simplified kind of attempt to to suggest to the student what kind of thinking produces paper another kind of structuring that I'm particularly fond off as the kind of paper that has a yes, but kind of structure where we start out by saying yes, there's a lot to be said for this familiar point of view and recite some of the evidence and then on page two or three we say but there's a side to this that has been overlooked and something that has not been properly stress and we do a kind of pro and con. In fact, we can finally do a a paper that has a regular dialectic on The Graduate level that has a thesis and antithesis and that at the end works out of beautiful synthesis that makes the instructor right at the bottom. Well. This kind of saying that I've been describing here the emphasis on purpose the concern with authentic substance the emphasis on Samsung functional organization and shaping work together in the long run to really change our whole attitude and our expectations toward student writing with mini composition teachers today writing is no longer primarily something to be corrected or something to be analyzed or something to be criticized for many of us today. It is something to be rid teachers of composition have learned a great deal about how to be readers. I always quote Virginia Woolf her definition of the ideal reader. She said the ideal reader is the author's fellow worker and the Pompous as though we were on the right or side trying to get into the spirit trying to get out of there whatever the writer and his or her own fumbling and perhaps an attic or do I try to put in how this has produced a tremendous change in our general attitude toward student writing. It has also affected the other part of our teaching of English. It has alter change our attitude toward literature because we no longer deal with literature as something created by a race apart by very special people with very special gift. We teach literature these days very much in the spirit of saying we'll hear someone work with language and enjoy the certain pattern or work something up nose. You do one like that and you'll experience that pleasure in that satisfaction so afraid since we teach Edgar Lee Masters and and and have those epitaphs from the two Stones and The Spoon River Anthology Lucinda Matlock and Rutledge sleep beneath these Suites. We turn to the student and say you're right. You're at the time that you would like to see on your Tombstone and the student writes things like my Epitaph out of me unworthy and unknown the vibrations of the cedar grill with malice toward none and charity for all out of me came hit after hit shining with youth and talent. I am John Fitzpatrick who sleeps beneath. These weeds be loved in life by theatregoers wedded to the stage. Not through Paul but through years of hard work The Show Must Go On Wendell Masterpiece that a friend of mine got about 10 years ago was when she had read with them coming sis Buffalo Bill poem you remember the one that goes Buffalo Bills this defunct who used to ride a water smooth Silver Stallion and break one, two, three, four, five pigeons just like that Jesus. He was a handsome man. And what I want to know is how do you like your blue-eyed boy? Mr. Death? And she asked the students in the class to write an obituary like that for someone more recently defunct and one of them Road. Ee someone buried by busy ones used to wishes April's with the UN. Ami Android 1 2 3 4 5 poems just like that. Bi dung and thing he was a perceptive man. And what I want to know is where is he now when we need him, what's up with that? This little poem is obviously written by a very gifted student about I think many of us are trying to to do the same kind of thing really with a great mass of of students whose language potential in the past has often been untappd and undeveloped and I'll conclude today with another example of an assignment that I thought that this kind of thing particularly well to produce something and to get something worthwhile out of a group. We're before I'm pretty sure that I hadn't been that much going on. That was a very simple assignment a teacher in the inner city and Baltimore apparently turned to the class and said today we write about a part of the human body. The I don't knows the hand the foot keep it clean right about a part of the human body. And as you might imagine some of the things that come in a very slight slight one first that was about the eye and said the eye man threshold to Beauty knowledge sadness. It's used and abused hit padded and even covered Whiplash. It's a miracle it works that was the phone. But but the one I particularly liked and with which I conclude today is about the hand. And I'm sure this one made the teachers day or week when it came in as it made mine when I receive it in the mail. The student wrote. The hand is the downfall of man this measly piece of Flesh that gives the signal for life or death this pointing extremity that thrust War poverty and pollution the instrument of hate lust Envy in war. Stop lower your filthy fist lower the pointer of Destruction. Stop. Go back resume your natural form hand be what you are the human toll of love and peace the extremity that shows friendship and affection the instrument of Fortune Beauty and Resurrection. Thank you.