by Eugene Marlow, MBA, Ph.D.
Hands-On
There was a sign on the back of my high school science room door which read (and I paraphrase): “What I hear, I may forget; what I read, I may learn; but what I do, I will know forever.” In my Freshman English First Year Writing classes, I therefore put an emphasis on “visceral” activity (translate this into a high level of student participation) as opposed to passive listening to a lecture. I find as many ways as possible for students to interact with me in the classroom and to interact with each other in the process of learning how to copy edit their non-fiction draft essays.
In Freshman English undergraduate classes most of the time is devoted to reviewing student drafts. I ask for student volunteers for each class. At first, only a few brave students volunteer. However, after the rest of the class sees there’s no blood on the floor, metaphorically speaking, after an essay is reviewed by myself and the students, more hands go up. The goal is to teach the students to have some facility in editing themselves by the second half of the semester and once the course is over.
For this approach students are limited to one or two pages (double-spaced). There are two reasons for this. First, for practical purposes, the one-two page limit gives more students an opportunity to present their work in class. Second, it has been my experience that whatever mistakes a student makes on page one (even paragraph or line one), they will probably be making on page six, and so on. So why have students draft multi-page essays?
A second reason is “less is more.” On this subject I quote Mark Twain who said in a postscript to a long letter: “Sorry for the long letter, I didn’t have time to write a short one.”
Just like those folks in advertising, marketing, and public relations, it takes skill, sweat, and experience to convey an idea or a concept in a few words. Tasking students to crunch their ideas and commentaries into a few words teaches them to throw away the chaff of their writing and get to the point as soon as possible. I always challenge students to craft sentences and phrases in as few words as possible by experimenting with the word order construction.
Another reason for taking this approach is students get used to the idea of re-writing. Acting, for example, is about reacting. Similarly, writing is about re-writing. Unfortunately, most students usually submit their first draft, oftentimes written in a hurry or late at night after completing a part-time job or other familial obligations. Bringing the draft into class offers students an opportunity to get feedback (without the threat of a formal grade), not only from me, but also from their peers. This process parallels the real work world where documents are reviewed and commented on by peers and supervisors before they are sent on to higher ups. Further, when a writing problem presents itself, I ask students for alternate solutions. I tell students there is never only one way to say something or one word to describe something. There are always options. I also ask questions, particularly of those students who do not volunteer answers.
Before I and the students comment on the draft of an essay, I put the students into small groups for about three-four minutes. This way the students have an opportunity to interact with each other and hear what other students have to say in the intimacy of the small group. This methodology adds palpable energy to the in-class essay review process.
There is only one rule for the student whose draft essay is on the floor, so to speak, for review. That student has to listen to the feedback without the inclination to defend the draft.
A final point. In addition to correct punctuation, spelling, subject-verb agreement, paragraphing, content structure, and plain ole common sense logic in non-fiction writing, I also attempt to persuade the students to eliminate the word “that” from their writing. The “that” word is one of the over-used words in the English language in my opinion. And since time is money in our current time-crunch world, eliminating unnecessary words in non-fiction writing is paramount.
It’s a Process
The undergraduate college experience is less about learning content and more about process. Processing information is a skill students should have learned at the high school level. For the most part, though, that doesn’t seem to happen on a consistent basis. By process I mean learning how to find information, abstract it, analyze it, agglomerate it, synthesize it, and communicate it (in writing or orally, or both) with footnotes and bibliography. Certainly, in the process of learning about process, students come away retaining some facts and figures, concepts, philosophies, and values. But the most valuable intellectual asset is the information processing skill itself.
Freshman English is about process. I require students to deal with personal matters, such as “What Is Your Passion?” and “What Is Your Definition of Failure and Success?” In another assignment students play manager by defining a work-related problem and solution. Students learn footnotes (or endnotes) and bibliography in the middle of the semester. They apply this knowledge to investigating newspaper or magazine articles 25 years apart. Another second half of the semester assignment deals with interviewing a relative or very close friend who has immigrated from one part of the world to another. This requires students to learn how to interview and use quotes. For a follow-on assignment students research a history book that coincides with the relative’s immigration story. A final assignment has the students research their perceived career objectives from various sources, including interviewing two subject experts.
Teaching is about people. It is about finding ways to help individuals get past their oftentimes self-imposed limitations and help them move in the direction of realizing their full potential. I bristle at those teachers more concerned with giving an “F” for poor punctuation or spelling, or abusing their authority over students, or verbalizing their precious dissertation thesis to a captive student audience. Teaching is about working at teasing out the best in students, one-by-one. Sometimes this means being blunt, sometimes subtle. Sometimes it means relating a personal or professional experience. Sometimes it means using humor, sometimes getting into very serious, real issues. It always means attempting to see into the student’s character and getting them to transcend the work presented. Teaching is about character more than content, even when it comes to non-fiction writing.
Eugene Marlow, MBA, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Journalism and the Writing Professions
My pedagogical philosophy regarding non-fiction writing has evolved over 40+ years of teaching at junior and senior colleges at the undergraduate and graduate levels, publishing 13 books in four languages, over 400 articles in 60 domestic and international publications, and preparing countless proposals.