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Teaching composition courses consists of helping students assemble writing tools that successfully pass information from one source to another and challenging students with enough writing problems that critical thinking skills expand. I became an instructor of such a course at Ricks nine years ago having just experienced two years of assisting migrant students in the production of their senior research paper, their last step to earning graduation. Back then I thought I understood writing instruction completely, but since then, I have witnessed some very major, thought provoking, changes both in the writing and the students. Instructing has become complicated and students have become very edgy. Changes have provoked an abridgement of thinking and methods for the instructor since writing excellence is now dictated by economics rather than time-honored aesthetics, and speed has replaced beauty in the value of the written word.
In my good-old-days, the writing world honored certain tools as time-tested truisms called models. Now professors choose to approach writing in a new way. With only so many ways to "skin a cat", current professors have redirected writing goals by throwing categorical names for tools and cats back and forth unmercifully to satisfy the changes in writing demands. What changes are inferred?
Today's writing demands connect with audience. When the written word was treated as gospel, and a fine author was treated as a demi-God, the focus was on the eloquence or brevity of the written word itself. The study offered by professors back then was represented as "learning the classics and models". Reading well the classics and writing well the models established clout since the mastery of the written word and a thorough acquaintance with a respected author were the rulers of the composition kingdom. This is not true today. The advances in technology give the audience the power in the kingdom since the audience is whoever pays the money to buy the written word. Today's professors have been forced to accommodate the new ruler, King Economics, by abridging time honored strategies and developing new terminology. i.e. Writing Purposes are now writing Aims, and writing Drafts have become stages of Invention or Revision. I fully expect our computer-day-mentality to soon clone "learning the models" as "learning the templates". Is this growth--a betterment of the profession, or is it confusion? What controls such changes?
The power of reading audiences has become "Mr. General Public" himself. With the technological explosion, bodies of data have moved throughout society faster and in much more sizable amounts than ever before. New items such as computers, satellite disks, and cyberoptic lines have bombarded the public with mountains of information. Writing is everywhere. Has it overwhelmed the public? No. The public is handling the increased exposure rather well. I almost used the word digesting, but decided against the term because the public does not "digest" larger volumes of information. It simply loves to devour its own choices; thus, writing consumers are developing into faddists or picky eaters. To please the new king, today's writing has shifted from the respected put-your-words-together-well mentality, which holds the author in esteem, to the what- do-I-want-to-feast-on-today mentality. The latter places the esteem on packaging first and ideas within second rather than the author's reputation first and the talent of appealing verbosity second. Composition success now belongs to the author who can choose the best tool to cleverly match intended aim with intended audience even if the "intended" prefers to dine on junk-food. Writing instructors are expected to prepare their students for this new writing kingdom.
No, the time-tested tools we called models have not been annihilated. They simply live with new names because of their extended integration. King Economics has acquired his own House of Parliament imposing control on end results. What was once called a model can now be called an Option or a Process because these new terms denote the added consideration to the blend of audience match and author purpose. New authors explain this as a move from the "modes" to an "aims" approach. The "message" now receives the emphasis in hopes someone will find it worthy of purchase.
As in the supermarket, messages have become desirable according to the way they are packaged and displayed. Functions such as font style, drop caps, double columns, watermarks, graphics, or other desk top appeal are appearing on composition papers (if on paper). Nine years ago when I started teaching composition, the students didn't know about such things as font choices. This year, I rewrote my syllabus to replace the word "papers" with "composition" since students submit disk or email copies in all manner of choices. I have had to accept text submitted in all shapes, sizes, colors, and languages, and am expected to read compositions in anything from 4.2 to 8.0 word processing, and any program from Ami-Pro through the Word Perfect and Microsoft Word series. All this new packaging is much like the Easter basket wonderfully wrapped in tinted transparent paper with a big bow at the top. Such a basket is exciting to receive, but most disappointing when the recipient finds a lack of desired treats inside much like the writing instructor who finds an attractive composition with little internal thought.
In continuation, society has endorsed the idea that unique is the official dress of the new kingdom; the second runner-up being speed (more than likely called efficiency). If students can find something unique to do in their compositions even if they present the idea abruptly, the better grade is expected. Fragments are running rampart with the blatant attitude, "Why finish writing the whole idea if half the idea will transfer the intended thought?" I alluded to skinning a cat earlier to connect with the "unique-is-in" group who say the quickest way to meaning is acceptable whatever the idiomatic word choices. Current students actually expect such shortcuts to be acceptable and get upset when corrected. New terms are being coined so rapidly in their world, even slang is "in"--well, not in my class, but the students expect me to bend to that suggestion. What are we gaining or losing with our short-cuts? Considering universal writing with cultural implication of this attitude from places such as the orient where it is rude to come forth with you own idea in the first place, I have identified the prices of "unique" and "efficient" as sources of woeful contention.
Embracing the unique and the efficient has provoked change in another way. I have heard newer professors refer to older ones as die-hards because they still teach grammar lessons. Emailers are dropping the use of capital letters (because it slows down the composition), and the editing of grammar rules has become a function of the Secretary (now called the Executive Assistant and demanding higher pay for expertise in grammar rules since the new author chose to ignore mastering these technical road signs in favor of "creative thought"). Since writing is 90% perspiration and 10% inspiration, the development of something unique and efficient--therefore valued--consumes the author's energy and focus. Tech errors are expected to be caught by someone of lesser importance called a Tech Editor--or not at all.
King Economics has also imposed a rearrangement of the text itself. New authors claim it a word- waste to force unique thinking into a generalized mold with a stated controlling idea in the introduction and well developed internal paragraphs when an inferred thesis and sporadic short unrelated paragraphs cover the point. After all, if the author makes the point, who cares about transitions? Teaching the five paragraph model has practically become profanity in the modern writing world, and anyone who tends to hang on to such an idea is considered one of those die- hards who probably still teach grammar. Paralleling the whole language approach to reading, the formula-out, unique-thought-in writing has become much more acceptable--no, much more desirable--because writing "as you think" permits freedom for creative thinkers to express unique ideas efficiently which is the cherished value of the new kingdom. Why be restricted with a thesis statement and a summary paragraph if free-flow composition plants the author's ideas firmly in the reader's mind? A controlling idea is equal to--or better than--a stated thesis since ideas have become more important than words. Well, there it is: from word clout to idea clout; from the author being the King to the consumer being the King.
What has all this done to the student? My students frustrate trying to judge what is writing-good or writing-bad. They often contest the knowledge of the text (or instructor) in view of past instruction or experience. Fall semester's incoming freshman are the most testy of all students. Perhaps some of them would be better off knowing nothing than knowing little. The hardest lesson to teach them is to unlearn something previously learned. King Economics has introduced this havoc. It leaves a challenge for current instructors to convey writing clarity to students coming through a system with such radically changing expectations. Indeed, the writing instructor has become a Duke of Wisdom--the classroom a dignified place to deal with today's students, the Princes of Wails.
(Dedicated to Kip and Renee who both mentioned to my agreement that the week before midterms was the hardest week of the year because incoming student expectations are so radical.)