An Open Letter to Student Writers (of All Ages)

Dear student writers,

You may already be rolling your eyes at yet another "older, wiser" adult trying to give you advice. I understand because that's what I would have done at your age. The reason I write to you now, however, really is important. It's about your voice and your writing style. First, let me tell you a story.

When I was a sophomore in high school, my English teacher handed back one of my essays with a D on it. As a strong writer from a young age, I was angry. I approached my teacher and asked her why she graded my work with a D? She explained that I wrote the essay wrong, in the wrong tone, in the wrong voice. But I write in my voice, I said, and I included everything you asked for. She shook her head and said, you wrote the wrong way. I advocated for my own voice and was told that I was wrong.

I took the essay to my parents and explained what had happened. To their credit, they have always encouraged my creative expression and individuality in all forms, especially writing, so they set up a meeting with my teacher. The principal attended. I was not present, but they advocated for my voice and because they were adults who knew the words to use, I ended up with a B and a raft of dirty looks from that teacher for the rest of the school year.

That was the moment I understood that there would always be people who disliked my writing voice. But I am stubborn enough to use it anyway. And decades later, when I decided to become a writing professor, that moment rushed back into my mind and I was angry all over again. Never would I make any of my students feel that their writing voices, styles, and choices were wrong.

So that's the takeaway for you. I'm sure you've been told by one or more teachers that you are writing something wrong. If we're talking grammar and spelling and punctuation - easily discovered and fixed errors - that's different. I'm willing to bet that you've heard a teacher tell you that you are writing something the wrong way simply because you chose a different path, a different subject, or a different tone or approach. Perhaps you were trying to infuse a boring litany of facts with some life with an anecdote of personal experience and ended up with a D because you strayed too far outside the rubric's boundaries.

Sometimes, the consequences of advocating for your own voice will be bad grades. In my Master's program, I took a hideous course on James Joyce. I can hear the reverberations of complaints as academics and writers read that phrase "hideous course on James Joyce" because for some reason people love him. Fine. I don't. I'm not a particular fan of Faulkner either. So there. Back to my story. I took this course because I needed a course and that was the only one available, so I struggled through and tried very hard to learn something. Sadly, I suffered then and suffer to this day from Eyerollitis, a low Bullshit tolerance, and Whisperedasideaxis, which means I wasn't the professor's favorite. My final research project was A-level work, but earned a B because he didn't like my attitude. Fair enough. So much for a perfect 4.0. Sometimes you gladly take the consequences just to be yourself.

When it comes to writing, no one has the right to dictate the terms of your creativity, or contain the exuberance of your voice. We get this so wrong in education. What we need in this world is more voices, different voices, unique perspectives, not more of the same, cookie-cutter writers writing the same way about the same subjects ad nauseam.

Please remember this. Remember that whether you are 13 or 16 or 18 or 22, your voice is your own, your style is your own, and your voice is valuable and right just the way it is, as it is. Make sure you hit all of the grammatical correctness issues - proofread carefully and construct confidently - but we need more writers to break down the barriers and push through the boundaries. And although I am loathe to admit it, James Joyce broke those barriers with aplomb, and so did Faulkner. I admire those writers for their willingness to take chances, leap into the unknown with vigor, and flout conventionality. I strive to do the same with my own work and try very hard to help my students see the value of their own words.

Write from your soul. Write what is true and real. Write fearlessly. And don't be afraid when someone, a teacher, a parent, a friend, doesn't like what you've written - it's too unsettling, it's too sad, it's too angry, it's too unfamiliar. Good. Make people uncomfortable. Make us think. Make us wonder. Make those people who say you aren't writing right sit back in wonder as you start to succeed.

Don't let anyone else dictate your voice and you will go far.

- Dr. M.

Self-sufficiency: A dead idea?

Somehow, self-sufficiency as a term, lifestyle, thought process, and concept has died. In my experience, self-sufficiency breeds confidence, which feeds and strengthens the self-sufficient mindset. When exactly did this idea die?

While it is easy to assign generational blame (The Boomers! It's all THEIR fault! The Xers! They're the ones! No, no! The Millennials! Yes, yes, THEY'RE the ones who dropped the ball...) to our faltering society, I prefer to consider overall attitudes and approaches to our collective problems. A fellow blogger in this vast digital space posted a rather incendiary rant about how us Gen Xers were able to cope with all sorts of social and economic difficulties and somehow survive - so what's wrong with these darned kids today?!

Part of me deeply agrees with the sentiments expressed in that blog post. Far from being nihilistic, narcissistic, or self-aggrandizing, my generation tends to be filled with hard-working, entrepreneurial, and self-sufficient people who just want to do for themselves and their families and communities and be left alone. It's actually very Libertarian of us as a generation, but without the crazy stump speeches.

Here's where the generational blame can trickle in - people who are now in their late teens and early 20s (Post-Millennials) tend to despair of their potential futures and often retreat into that despair (and inaction) instead of thinking their way around this massive obstacle. Which obstacle would that be? I don't know, pick one. Massive social and financial inequality (class warfare, anyone?). Disparity in educational opportunity and access. A government that doesn't really seem to see its own people, much less care about its people's welfare (in the sense of happiness, well-being, and prosperity as opposed to the "hand-up"/"hand-out" government-run system of assistance for those at or below the brink of poverty). Less jobs in the areas we've come to expect to see lots of jobs. Inconclusive and unfinished wars that the U.S. is perpetually and infuriatingly involved with. The persistent destruction of natural habitats and species worldwide (for us tree-hugger types).

I could go on. But here's where I pause and hesitate to step across the line into accusation...

How are these circumstances fundamentally and materially different from the world in which I grew up as a Gen Xer? Aside from degrees of severity in each situation, I don't see how things are all that different. And this strengthens my resolve to push creativity and the intellectual flexibility that accompanies it as the solution to all of this hand-wringing despair and what some would call reactionary movements that have yet to achieve any real action or change (I did say YET).

How do creativity and self-sufficiency then connect? Easy. Those who have a self-sufficient mindset - who are not made to feel dependent on others for their thoughts and actions - who not only believe they are capable of figuring anything out, but who KNOW through practice, that all problems have multiple solutions - who want to materially provide for themselves come what may - those are the people who will naturally use their creative thinking abilities to, as Tim Gunn might say, "Make it work." How many Gen-Xers grew up with this mindset approved and encouraged by their parents, families, and schools? I would suggest most. How many kids today grow up with this mindset approved and encouraged at home and at school? I would venture very unscientifically into...well, not many (based on what I see my students thinking and struggling with).

To criticize people today, regardless of their generational label, for lacking self-sufficiency seems a horrible crime. How dare you suggest that people can make their own ways?! Do anything for themselves?! Have you SEEN how difficult things are?!

Yes, I have seen how difficult things are. I know the numbers of people out of work. I feel bad that a vast portion of our populace has neither the access nor the opportunities that I and many of my cohort had. However, to wallow in despair (as some of my students do) and lament that all is lost, no future is to be found because our economy is done for...is to miss an opportunity. What happened to thinking your way around a problem? The brilliant people who speak at TED do it all the time in the face of impossible odds. They figure it out. They make it work. They work hard to make their ideas come to fruition.

This is the message and the lesson we should be passing on to the younger generations. No one should be filling young heads with despair and doom. We should be encouraging them to think differently about their futures, to generate new ideas and businesses that will respond to and fulfill a need in this NEW reality.

We can't change the sins of the past. But we can change how the younger generation considers their present and future worlds by encouraging them to be more self-sufficient and think their way around these seemingly impenetrable problems. We CAN develop new programs and businesses and career paths that will work in this new economy. We SHOULD work together to vote people into office who will make better decisions. We MUST encourage a self-sufficient mindset so that the upcoming generations don't lose faith before they even have a chance to begin.

If self-sufficiency is a dead idea, then we may be dooming ourselves to a future without innovation, without creativity, and without any ability to see our way past difficult situations. What a terrible legacy to leave behind. We, as Gen Xers, should take up this challenge and find a young person to speak to about being self-sufficient. Individual actions can change the world, after all.

The Most Awesome In-Class Writing Exercise Ever

Tonight, I presented my Advanced Comp students with a writing exercise inspired by one of our readings, with an imaginative twist. I wrote it myself this semester. And I am blown away by their creativity. Following the assignment directions (feel free to use this with your own students and share the results!) is the list of diseases my students developed. Enjoy!


Writing Prompt: Self-Diagnosis

Diagnose yourself with a disease. Not just ANY disease - not one that already exists in reality. Use your imagination and consider your character flaws, quirks, habits, and behaviors that you know you could work on and turn one of those elements into a disease.

Make up a name for your disease and be consistent when you refer to it.

Write a diagnosis for yourself in third person (you are the doctor AND the patient). Include a brief history of the disease in your patient's life (when was the first onset? What are the triggers that bring on flare-ups? Etc.), list out some symptoms and behaviors or medications taken or tried in order to correct the problem (that have, thus far, proven unequal to the task), and recommend a course of action and treatment to help your patient (you) overcome and beat this terrible affliction. (Bonus points for the wildest, funniest disease.) Have fun!

As an added incentive, I also offered small packets of "Crazy Cores" Skittles (TM) to the five most creative diseases - suggested by the class after I wrote them all on the board. Definitely one of the most fun and satisfying (and hysterical) writing prompts I've created. The students also seemed to enjoy it, which is the ultimate point - getting students to think of writing as FUN. ;)

Here are their diseases:

Shitfurbrain (Alternate Spelling: Shytfurbrain)

Gingervirus

Bratabiphita

Hypofoodisplatiatransformatia

Textitis

Patriowlism

Blurtitis

Hearteevious

Cerphileriosis

Miseraphobia

Apologetic Disorder

Tallskinnyasskidneosis

Nagatosis

Alien Ghost Poop Disorder (AGPD)

The value of creativity in the era of "accountability"

In a recent issue of the College Composition and Communication journal (Vol. 62: 3, Feb. 2011), English professor Chris Gallagher (Northeastern University) writes about “how neoliberalism undermines faculty assessment expertise and underwrites testing industry expertise in the current assessment scene” (450). Wow, Amanda, what an incredibly dull and ivory-tower-intellectual concern, you may say, can’t you write about something more interesting and incendiary? 

Je proteste. And here’s why.

I read this article very differently because not only am I on my department’s assessment team this semester, charged with initiating and conducting the very first comprehensive assessment of our composition curriculum for Middle States accreditation requirements, but also because I am incredibly invested in the inherent value of creativity, a skill and concept that cannot be assessed with a standardized test that targets students and faculty, promotes mechanical skill over creative exploration, and instills fear and wrath instead of the joy and comfort that should accompany intellectual growth. And creativity is seemingly at odds with the neoliberal assessment agenda running rampant on college campuses today. 

In the most simplistic terms, creativity and assessment are on opposite ends of the value spectrum.

Creativity-----------------------------------Writing Assessment
(internal, implicit value;                                   (external, explicit
unassessable)                                                  value; assessable)

One key problem with this spectrum is that writing is not a scientific, quantifiable equation with a limited (and hence, assessable) number of “right” or “correct” approaches. Rather, writing for me (and anyone who has made a living as a writer) falls firmly on the left side of this spectrum into the realm of the creative and unassessable. When I wrote investigative reports for American Indian Report or feature spreads for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review or travel articles for Blue Mountain or web site content for Lifetime.com, I employed a wide range of different writing skills and strategies and styles to express the content. Was it consistently grammatically correct? Yes. Was the grammatical-correctness a legitimate assessment of the VALUE of the content and creatively expressive range of that content and my skill as a writer? Most assuredly, no. 

My own personal intellectual challenge, one that gives me fits and anxiety, is figuring out how we (as faculty and students) can extricate ourselves from this current assessment scene attitude of “accountability” by numbers and results-based outcomes (an outgrowth of the free market economic theory of Adam Smith and those who followed, hence the “neo” in the liberal economic policy now dominating our Republican overlords in public office), but still provide those all-important numbers valued by administrators and state government bean counters. 

That camp wants to see quantifiable results in the form of numbers and percentages; my camp wants to see students learn to express themselves in a wide variety of contexts with a wide variety of writing skills and strategies. Can these two sides ever agree? Is compromise even possible, given the diametrically opposed agendas?

If I wanted to be truly depressing, I would say no, we can never get along or compromise; therefore, all is lost. Either we diminish the creative impulse that is writing to a system of check marks where students write perfect, grammatically, and content-free sentences void of depth and thought (but that can easily be assessed by the numbers) or we fight for a new system that acknowledges the creative ebb and flow of students’ thoughts and professors’ unique pedagogical approaches.

Sigh. Just thinking about the enormity of this task makes me want to take a nap and wake up when someone else has figured it out. 

But I’m no quitter. I’ve never been one to stick my head in the sand and hope that the other chickens have solved the problem when I deign to once again raise my head. I hate it when people do that – look the other way and hope that someone else raises their hand. To me, that is the coward’s move. I see it happen in my classes every day – the go-getters consistently participate and don’t shy away from my questions, while the others look down, look out the window, and pretend not to hear me. But they are not necessarily cowards; rather, they are young and inexperienced in the ways of the world, and therefore, unsure about what they think they know. Whereas I am older, experienced, more salty and fearless, and quite frankly, peeved at the hijacking of education by people who don’t consider creativity to have inherent value. 

Creativity (and hence, writing) should be left alone to incubate and grow over time like the fragile thing that it is. 

Gallagher refers to the Spellings Commission Report of 2006 on the Future of Higher Education, which could read like Governor Tom Corbett’s playbook for his current attack on education. While starting off with positive statements such as “higher education in the United States has become one of our greatest success stories,” the report fairly quickly devolves into a criticism of this “successful” system as an inefficient, inflexible system that churns out inferior “products,” that Gallagher calls “low-skilled graduates” (CCC 454). In fact, a close examination of the terminology in this Department of Education report (created by a commission loaded with corporate executives, interestingly enough – and creativity is essential to successful businesses) provides step by step instructions for any politician interested in dismantling public education and increasing the divide between the wealthy and the middle class and working poor.

To wit, the commission states in the preface, “We acknowledge that not everyone needs to go to college” (xii). One of the bullet points under this statement expands on this idea:

“Among high school graduates who do make it on to postsecondary education, a troubling number waste time—and taxpayer dollars—mastering English and math skills that they should have learned in high school. And some never complete their degrees at all, at least in part because most colleges and universities don’t accept responsibility for making sure that those they admit actually succeed”

A damning statement, if there ever was one. And it contains within it the foundation upon which Governors’ Corbett, Walker, Kasich and others are building a case against higher education by removing its funding, arguing that we aren’t doing our jobs and students don’t need to be there, anyway. Those who can afford college (now that public education will be priced out of reach for our middle class and working poor families), will achieve that success the Commission touted in their first paragraph by attending smaller, liberal arts, PRIVATE colleges capable of weeding out the undesirables who received inadequate attention and training in basic skills at the secondary level – these kids won’t even walk through a college’s door of future opportunity if Corbett, et al get their way. But those kids can just become auto mechanics, beauticians, and plumbers, after all.

A quick search of this 76-page report for the term “creativity” resulted in no matches. “Creative” appears just once in the following statement on page 21:

“For their part, state and federal policymakers have also failed to make supporting innovation a priority. Accreditation, along with federal and state regulation, can impede creative new approaches as well. We recommend that America’s colleges and universities embrace a culture of continuous innovation and quality improvement. We urge these institutions to develop new pedagogies, curricula and technologies to improve learning, particularly in the areas of science and mathematics. At the same time, we recommend the development of a national strategy for lifelong learning designed to keep our citizens and our nation at the forefront of the knowledge revolution.”

 On its face, this seems like a very positive and encouraging statement. Supporting innovation and encouraging the development of “new pedagogies” is terrific – but will truly innovative pedagogical approaches (such as ones that rely on creativity and unconventional problem-solving, an approach that I employ) be valued and considered legitimate by the numbers-happy assessment camp? I’m not so jaded yet as to assume that all is lost, as I said before. But I am skeptical.

My faith actually rests with my university and, more specifically, my department and its open-minded, intellectually-flexible faculty, who see and understand value in much more than numbers. We ARE English professors, after all. ;)  The problem remains, however, that when state accrediting bodies demand assessment, what they mean is numbers, while those of us who teach and write understand that the creative endeavor of writing anything (whether nonfiction or fiction, whether business proposal or opinion editorial) is ill-suited to the type of standardized test assessment that is regularly foisted upon us.

I wish I had the answer. Perhaps if I continue mulling it over and grappling with it and experimenting with approaches and ideas, I will strike upon something that will be worth trying on large-scale and may even have the potential to convince the unconvincible administrators and lawmakers who take great solace in numbers that creativity has inherent value and should be embraced, not tested out of existence. We, as faculty, administrators, and lawmakers need to stop running AWAY from creativity and creative approaches and start re-examining the inherent value and skills that open up in our students when we employ creative strategies and encourage creative thinking in the college classroom.

Until I puzzle out a tangible solution to this persistent assessment/creativity divide, I encourage you (if you teach), to resist the standardized approach valued by neoliberal thinkers and stay firmly on the creative side.

We need creative thinkers now more than ever to enhance, improve, and re-think old paradigms and failing systems.

If we truly believe what we say when we publicly state that our students come first, then our pedagogical approaches should value creativity in the classroom over and above “accountability” with numbers. Only then will our students have a necessary skill that will transcend the classroom and university and will serve them well as they seek and discover whatever career path they choose to traverse.