Form versus content: classroom practices and essay requirements.

Abstract

I discuss the overemphasis of "structure" in college freshman composition courses. By structure I not only mean the specific form of the writing itself, but also the specific requirements of the class.

In graduate school I taught two sections of freshman composition. One afternoon as I sat in my office working my way through a stack of students' papers, in walked a fellow grad student and teacher.

She sighed. "I can't keep track of everything in the classes I teach. I called one of my students to see why she's missed so much class, and she told me ..."

I said, "You called one of your students to talk about her attendance?"

"Well, she's missed so many days now, I wanted to discuss what she could do to make it up. Absences are really hurting her grade."

"Unbelievable," I said. I took attendance the first few classes so the office would know how many students were showing up. After that, I was doing great just keeping track of my students' names and grades.

My colleague was offended. "Well," she said, "how much do you deduct for skipping class? What's your attendance policy?"

Attendance policy? I didn't have one. The students paid for the class; I did my best to teach them to write well; we wrote; we discussed; we learned; we read; but I didn't take attendance for a grade. I understood my colleague's compassionate intent, but I wasn't going to track down every student who missed class.

Is it wrong to see a writing teacher as a product provider? The majority of students are not English majors. They're there because they have to be. Is it wrong for students to expect something practical and useful? Students should be taught how to write well--that's a practical skill. Often, we teachers pretend that the policies and procedures we establish directly relate to the course objectives. But in reality, many requirements in writing classes do little to produce a student who can write well.

Granted, some institutions require teachers to report attendance. This is not really the issue. The problem is if the teachers assign significant grade value to attendance. Certainly, a poor writer isn't going to get any better if she skips class, but the penalty should be and will be seen in her writing. Adding an additional, arbitrary penalty for missing class, causes resentment in students who, despite our opinion, feel that it's their penny spent, so attending class is their option. Also, significant, distinct penalties for absences seem to ignore the purpose of a composition course. It's a writing course, after all, not an attendance course. Demanding that students attend class in order to earn a good grade will help keep students in the room, but it isn't much more likely to turn a student into a good, independent writer than requiring a person to graze in a pasture every day will turn him into a cow.

The trick, if I may call it that, in helping students become good writers is not attendance or late paper policies. The trick is teaching them and practicing with them principles of good writing. It is the girding beneath the structure they need, but that is often ignored in favor of formula. Consider the following example.

"Ok, students, for your in-class essay I want you to write about bathtubs (any topic will work here).

There's poor Jane at her desk wondering what she can possible say about bathtubs, but more importantly, wondering what the teacher wants her to say about bathtubs, and how the teacher wants her to say it. Jane is very concerned about her grade, and she has been taught by her peers, her parents, and, sadly, experiences with past teachers, that English classes are so subjective that success is largely a matter of figuring out what the teacher wants to hear and how the teacher wants you to say it.

Jane remembers something she was taught in high school: the five-paragraph essay. BINGO! We know how it goes: Introduction, three body paragraphs, conclusion. Done. Turn it in.

As she's grading, the teacher is impressed with the format of Jane's paper. Wonderful progression of thought. And look how easily Jane has introduced the three main points she is going to make about bathtubs; a perfect example of that all-important "map of the essay." And these transitions between the body paragraphs? Great. This paper really flows well. Solid, competent conclusion, restating the thesis. Yes, Jane is on her way to becoming a fine writer. In fact, she already is a fine writer. The teacher gives the paper an "A"--another success story of the five-paragraph essay.

The five-paragraph essay is based on commendable and correct writing principles. Good writing is logical; it does "flow" and transition smoothly from point to point; it is clear and understandable and effective. But when the form of the essay or the class (five-paragraphs, required outline style, specific, teacher-preferred note taking system, attendance policy, etc.) becomes an equal to or even more significant measure of the students' performance than the content, students misjudge or misinterpret the value of the assignment and the course itself.

Just now, I jumped onto the Internet and searched on Google for "five-paragraph essay." A mere .02 seconds later I was looking at the first ten of about 65,700 hits on the five-paragraph essay. Let me cut and paste a few highlights from a few sites I browsed.

* Because the five-paragraph essay is a chosen vehicle for measuring a student's writing proficiency, it is essential that each master this patterned format writing to score well.

* Mastering this form is a first step to success.

* The thesis statement is in bold, the topic sentences are in italics, and each main point is underlined. When you write your own essay, of course, you will not need to mark these parts of the essay unless you teacher has asked you to do so.

* If you follow a few simple steps, you will find that the essay almost writes itself. [My favorite.]

* The last paragraph is the easiest. Simply restate your arguments by rewriting the introduction.

* Paragraphs need five sentences.

* Checklist for a five-paragraph theme. Put a check by each item after you verify that you have complied:

* I have an original title. It is capitalized, but it is NOT in quotation marks and it is NOT underlined.

* I have put my name and the name of the class and the date at the top of the first page.

* I have used the thesis statement twice. It is at the end of the introduction and it is at the beginning of the conclusion.

* If I used the title of a book or a play in the paper, I have underlined it.

* If I used the title of a short story or a poem in the paper, I have placed quotation marks around it.

* I have checked for run-on sentences, and for "fragments."

* I have avoided all contractions, including "it's" and "can't."

* I have avoided the words 'T' and "you."

* I have proofread my final version. Honestly.

These samples from various "research and educational" sites, illustrate the problem of using the five-paragraph structure as the standard, and the larger problem of placing so much value on standard forms of any kind within a classroom. Take a look at that checklist--if the biggest problems with students' writings can be solved using that checklist, we're in great shape. But the biggest problems of student writing can't be solved with an "I-have-honestly-proofread-my-paper" checklist. What about depth of thought? What about choice of topic? What about what are they trying to say? What about logical arguments? What about moving beyond trivia and really researching a topic? What about writing something besides a thinly disguised plagiarized encyclopedia article? Surely, there are bigger fish to fry before we start handing out checklists to make sure students avoid using "I" or "you" in their papers--you and I both know how disastrous that is.

Back to Jane and her essay on bathtubs. What happens if Jane only thinks of two points worthy of making about bathtubs? Or only one? Who's to say that there are three points worth making about tubs? Jane could only think of two, and so she's stuck. She knows that in order to write a good essay she needs to have three points. She thinks for awhile longer, but time is running short, so she simply makes up some ludicrous third point to make about bathtubs (assuming that there are any non-ludicrous points to be made about tubs). This is probably the reason one of the sites on five-paragraph essays suggests writers put their weakest point last--the third point always is their weakest point because there were really only two decent points to begin with, or only one.

This is mind control. The required form of the essay dictates how students think about the topic. They actually begin to think in terms of threes: "Must have three things to say.... must have three things to say ... must have three things to say ..." Again, and what if there are only two, or what if there are four? Sorry, no good, you must have three, no more, no less. Try it in your beginning writing class sometime. Give them a topic and see if most of them don't try to come up with three points to make about it. It's pathetic, and it's not the students' fault. We teachers congratulate them for it; we give them "A"s, knowing full well there might not even be one point worth talking about when it comes to bathtubs, let alone three. When will we expect them to say something worth saying rather than to only require that they say whatever they want as long they do it in some preset form? Of course, I use the five-paragraph form as representative of the many set-in-stone rules or templates that students are accustomed to following and as representative of how far many of us teachers have shifted focus in the classroom from content and creative to form and mechanical.

How is it that we have, to a large degree, taken independent thinking out of writing? The longer I teach, the more I am convinced that what many teachers consider the "process" of writing is simply a set pattern or template for the students to follow. Yes, yes, my little students, work through this writing process, find out what works best for you, or how you work best--but keep in mind that your so-called free writing needs to be turned in, your outlines had all better look like this one, your drafts better follow the pattern I have set, you better have the correct number of drafts done on the days I tell you, your note cards need to look like the example I have provided, and it all has to be collected and turned in, in the exact order and format I have prescribed or your grade will suffer. For so many, the writing "process" is not a process of discovery, designed to give the students the skills they need to independently produce quality writing; in the students' eyes (and many of us teachers'), it is simply an arbitrary list of items they need to check off to make the grade.

There are teachers who actually grade students on whether or not they have the evidence of their "process" such as free writing, outlines, and drafts in the proper format and order. Have we forgotten the end product? We are trying to produce students who can write well and independently. Writing well mainly requires "nonchecklistable" skills, such as creative thought, logic, dedication, patience. Too many of our students can make it through a freshman composition course with a grade that far exceeds a true reflection of their ability to compose.

The majority of discussion time in a department meeting I once attended dealt with this subject. A faculty member raised the concern that many students coming into sophomore and upper level English classes could not produce acceptable papers, and he wondered how they made it out of freshman composition classes. Grade inflation is a fairly hot topic right now. There are, perhaps, many reasons for what seems to be a nation-wide problem, but one type of grade inflation, in freshman writing classes anyway, is the practice of basing a significant portion of a student's grade on requirements other than good writing. Actually, this is not a case of grade inflation--the student actually "earns" the high grade--but it is a case of teachers failing to stay focused on the ultimate purpose of freshman writing classes and rewarding students for "items" other than good writing.

In conducting my own, albeit informal, survey of course requirements for a number of first and second semester freshman writing classes, I was surprised to learn how much of a student's grade depends on things other than the final, turned-in paper. In the average class only about 60% of a student's grade actually came from the writing he or she produced in final form. The other 40% came from items such as attendance, outlines, drafts, pop quizzes, multiple choice tests, bibliography cards, etc. In one class I surveyed only 30% of a student's overall grade came from the writing he or she produced. A student in this class could, in theory, finish the semester writing at a "D" level and still make a "C" or even possibly a "B" for the course! This is absurd. Such a student is certainly unprepared not only for other English classes, but classes in most other disciplines as well. For such a student, the writing "process" is nothing more than a checklist of do's and don'ts, and when called upon to write and produce a well-written finished paper with little or no handholding, she will fail miserably, and her sophomore or junior or senior level teacher will wonder what is happening over there in the English Department that such a student could make it through Freshman Composition. Or conversely, in a class where only 30% of a student's overall course grade comes from the finished writing he produces, a student could complete the semester able to write an "A" paper but only get a "C" or even a "D" for the course. What are the objectives for freshman composition class?

Most universities divide freshman composition into two semester length courses. While it may be true that they are distinct from each other in their approaches or in some of their secondary goals (research skills, analysis, critical thinking, logic, rhetorical modes, etc.), in the end, both courses are designed to teach students to write well, and so both are susceptible to this over emphasis on standardizing the "process" of writing.

I must mention an interesting side note here. While surveying course requirements from many different writing courses, I also surveyed a number of common college writing textbooks. Interestingly enough, most of the textbooks and handbooks used in first and second semester freshman composition courses, specifically stress the idea that the writing process should be a unique experience for every student--that each student has to figure out what works best for him or her. In contrast to this theory is the practice of many teachers who restrict the process according to their own personal preferences.

What we need to focus on is not so much the carpet and wallpaper, but the foundation and studs: principles of good writing that may be applied to any form of writing. This is even more important for teachers of "Across the Curriculum" or "service" courses, who are supposed to be teaching students how to write well in any field. It is not my contention that English composition teachers shouldn't be at least familiar with the forms of writing expected in other disciplines. But the great opportunity compositions teachers have is to teach students writing skills that can be universally applied across the curriculum. We shouldn't necessarily expect English composition teachers to be experts on the forms of writing other disciplines require, but we should expect them to be experts on the principles of good writing, regardless of the form.

It is our job to teach a variety of writing techniques and principles that students may adapt to their own style and ways of thinking in order to not only produce well-written, thoughtful papers, but may, we hope, even enjoy doing it. We are to introduce the students to as many valid writing methods or techniques and skills as we can, and then help them find the ones that they work with best. Fill up their boxes with tools they have been trained to use, teach them to recognize quality workmanship, show them gloriously varied styles of architecture, and then help them build their own place. They are ready to move beyond handholding. They are capable of understanding concepts and principles. We don't need to waste their time or ours micromanaging their writing "process." Each process should be as unique as the individuals in our classes. Also, we don't need to waste their time or ours overly rewarding them for something other than the finished product and skill. We need to step back and remember what is at stake here: do we want a student who earns a "B" in the course because he can turn in outlines on time and in the correct form, or do we want him to earn a "B" in the course because he can actually produce writing at the "B" level?

Glenn Dayley, United States Air Force Academy, CO

Glenn Dayley is an English Instructor. Prior to the Academy, he taught at Southwest Texas State and Angelo State University, both in Texas.