I think about writing an essay the same way I think about cooking. If it's on the plate it should contribute to the meal, not just be there for decoration.
"It inspires me to write clear, concise, and meaningful sentences." As you understand this, and that such practices require economy whenever possible, you are already a good writer.
I agree with the overall thrust of this article, since I think that improving the teaching of rhetoric and composition in high schools is very necessary. However, I don't understand your attack on the broad-to-specific paragraph structure. Used well, this structure can build both credibility and interest. The writer begins with certain broad or even universal statements that the reader is likely to agree with or to care about. The writer then narrows her focus to her thesis in such a way that the thesis appears as a mere consequence of the universal statement to which the reader has already assented. Rather than relying on her own authority to convince the reader, the writer seems to point out, ever so gently, that the reader is already convinced.
You say that "no written statement should ever be broad." But do you not really mean to say that no written statement should ever be "vague"? This statement is broad, even universal, since it applies to all written statements. But it is not vague. It makes a clear assertion. It tells the reader what's what and respects his time. When broad statements are like this, they make for an excellent style.
I suspect that a lot of high school teachers do teach useful forms such as the funnel method. They go wrong by not explaining the use of these forms and by failing to direct their students to use them well. Teaching a student to use the funnel method without teaching the rhetorical effect of this method, is like teaching a student to form the past perfect tense when the student does not know the meaning of tense in English. Information that lacks any purpose seems useless and is quickly forgotten. So, I think that rather than telling teachers not to use the funnel method, it would be better to insist that they explain its purpose. Further, they could compare the funnel method with other rhetorical forms and invite the student to choose the best form for the circumstance.
As an aside, I don't know if you've ever encountered Giambattista Vico, but I think you might like him. He argues forcefully that students should be trained earliest in the art of rhetoric. Among all the arts, rhetoric comes closest to the kinds of techniques for controlling one's own emotions and for deliberating about best course of action that we really use in life. Vico, a teacher of rhetoric himself as well as a lawyer and philosopher, would have us teach children topics, that is, the common structures of argument that can be employed in characteristic situations. This is how I would approach a general essay writing class.
Thanks for your writing! I enjoy it, and I fully endorse your quest to depoliticize literature. I am on a similar quest. You might appreciate my newsletter, Questing in the Western Intellectual Tradition.
I am a high school English teacher, so I read this essay of yours with interest. I do teach the funnel method, but I spend a lot of time teaching students how to open essays with arresting claims, intriguing questions or other thoughtful hooks. I don’t do page number assignments. I agree that they encourage wordiness.
The best teacher I ever had was my high school English teacher, a School Sister of Notre Dame named Sister Ignatius. Any student whom she considered worthwhile she harassed relentlessly. She terrified me and I secretly adored her for incredible knowledge and passion for language.
The key to writing, she droned, is to read good writing. Literature. Emerson. Shakespeare. Joseph Conrad. John Steinbeck. Thomas Hardy. Faulkner. Eudora Welty. Katherine Anne Porter. Shakespearean and Spenserian sonnets. Keats and Tennyson and Byron. Flannery O’Connor. Jack London. Hilaire Belloc. Chaucer in the original Middle English. Beowulf.
She made us read them all. She made us write poems, stories, biographies, essays, which she edited ruthlessly and made us re-write until we met her standards. Her motto: Shakespeare had to re-write and edit his work. Why shouldn’t you?
She had no objection to our reading teen novels in our spare time. She abhorred The Readers Digest because it abridged books. She could spot anyone who used Cliff Notes and threatened them with a failing grade.
As for STEM, she pointed out that the ability to read and communicate directly in writing was as necessary for scientists and mathematicians and engineers as it was for journalists.
Today she’d probably be fired for being mean, snobbish, condescending, and culturally insensitive.
I didn’t become a novelist, an essayist, or a poet, although I do write. But every time I wrote a letter, a memo of law, a motion, a closing argument, a complaint, or a petition that passed muster with the attorneys in my office, it was because of Sister Ignatius.
Maybe a better way to teach students to write is to teach them to edit: start with a long, badly written passage and direct students to express the same meaning with half the words. You are correct that I ripped this off from a book/movie.
I agree with just about everything Liza writes, but this post merited an upgrade to paid, which I've just done. My only substantive comment is that, bad as the funnel technique is, many teachers don't teach writing at all. They just assign it, so the parents, if they can, have to teach their kids how to complete the assignment. Teachers also assign research papers, without teaching a process for keeping track of source materials.
I also agree that AI is an imminent threat to human writing, which would be an awful thing to lose.
Thank you Liza! You've hit this one out of the park. I'm glad to restack it.
In my experience as a writing instructor who reteaches essay structure and source use to my 2 middle school students at night, I find their teachers are asked to do something they’re NOT trained to do: teach writing skills that transfer to any rhetorical situation. They’re trained in interpreting literature via the latest theory or in creative writing but not the act of effective written communication. Liza is one of very few lit-oriented writers who grasps this and can cogently and critically articulate the detrimental impact of current ideological and political trends in teaching literature on student ability to write and therefore think.
In the early 2000s, the running joke then about the largest US English teacher group, NCTE, was that their annual conferences discuss anything BUT writing. Man is that a million times more true today.
A lot of it is that teachers really don't give a shit, no matter what they say. I went to 12 different schools growing up, and have put 4 children through schools all over the country. And I can count on one hand how many teachers I've met in my 41 years that actually care about teaching. It's a paycheck. An easy one at that, and getting easier all the time. There a reason 65% of American children can't read.
I agree with you aesthetically and in terms of what your students should focus on to maximize their chances. However, in my professional experience a lot of communication isn't necessarily about communicating but obfuscating or evading or being noncommittal and just needing to say something to fill the space. That sort of vague circular rhetoric just very nearly made someone President, after all. The 3-5 page paper might not be the worst way to build those unfortunate muscles.
Dammit. This cut deep. I feel like all of my cover letters sound like the examples you gave. It’s as if in trying not to come across too much like myself I end up becoming somebody else, somebody boring.
I think about writing an essay the same way I think about cooking. If it's on the plate it should contribute to the meal, not just be there for decoration.
Nice!
I should learn writing from you. Thank you for this excellent observation. It inspires me to write clear, concise, and meaningful sentences.
"It inspires me to write clear, concise, and meaningful sentences." As you understand this, and that such practices require economy whenever possible, you are already a good writer.
Thanks , Kevin, for your wise and kind words.
I agree with the overall thrust of this article, since I think that improving the teaching of rhetoric and composition in high schools is very necessary. However, I don't understand your attack on the broad-to-specific paragraph structure. Used well, this structure can build both credibility and interest. The writer begins with certain broad or even universal statements that the reader is likely to agree with or to care about. The writer then narrows her focus to her thesis in such a way that the thesis appears as a mere consequence of the universal statement to which the reader has already assented. Rather than relying on her own authority to convince the reader, the writer seems to point out, ever so gently, that the reader is already convinced.
You say that "no written statement should ever be broad." But do you not really mean to say that no written statement should ever be "vague"? This statement is broad, even universal, since it applies to all written statements. But it is not vague. It makes a clear assertion. It tells the reader what's what and respects his time. When broad statements are like this, they make for an excellent style.
I suspect that a lot of high school teachers do teach useful forms such as the funnel method. They go wrong by not explaining the use of these forms and by failing to direct their students to use them well. Teaching a student to use the funnel method without teaching the rhetorical effect of this method, is like teaching a student to form the past perfect tense when the student does not know the meaning of tense in English. Information that lacks any purpose seems useless and is quickly forgotten. So, I think that rather than telling teachers not to use the funnel method, it would be better to insist that they explain its purpose. Further, they could compare the funnel method with other rhetorical forms and invite the student to choose the best form for the circumstance.
As an aside, I don't know if you've ever encountered Giambattista Vico, but I think you might like him. He argues forcefully that students should be trained earliest in the art of rhetoric. Among all the arts, rhetoric comes closest to the kinds of techniques for controlling one's own emotions and for deliberating about best course of action that we really use in life. Vico, a teacher of rhetoric himself as well as a lawyer and philosopher, would have us teach children topics, that is, the common structures of argument that can be employed in characteristic situations. This is how I would approach a general essay writing class.
Thanks for your writing! I enjoy it, and I fully endorse your quest to depoliticize literature. I am on a similar quest. You might appreciate my newsletter, Questing in the Western Intellectual Tradition.
I am a high school English teacher, so I read this essay of yours with interest. I do teach the funnel method, but I spend a lot of time teaching students how to open essays with arresting claims, intriguing questions or other thoughtful hooks. I don’t do page number assignments. I agree that they encourage wordiness.
also having word count limits and maximums cause students to blabber on!
👏👏👏
The best teacher I ever had was my high school English teacher, a School Sister of Notre Dame named Sister Ignatius. Any student whom she considered worthwhile she harassed relentlessly. She terrified me and I secretly adored her for incredible knowledge and passion for language.
The key to writing, she droned, is to read good writing. Literature. Emerson. Shakespeare. Joseph Conrad. John Steinbeck. Thomas Hardy. Faulkner. Eudora Welty. Katherine Anne Porter. Shakespearean and Spenserian sonnets. Keats and Tennyson and Byron. Flannery O’Connor. Jack London. Hilaire Belloc. Chaucer in the original Middle English. Beowulf.
She made us read them all. She made us write poems, stories, biographies, essays, which she edited ruthlessly and made us re-write until we met her standards. Her motto: Shakespeare had to re-write and edit his work. Why shouldn’t you?
She had no objection to our reading teen novels in our spare time. She abhorred The Readers Digest because it abridged books. She could spot anyone who used Cliff Notes and threatened them with a failing grade.
As for STEM, she pointed out that the ability to read and communicate directly in writing was as necessary for scientists and mathematicians and engineers as it was for journalists.
Today she’d probably be fired for being mean, snobbish, condescending, and culturally insensitive.
I didn’t become a novelist, an essayist, or a poet, although I do write. But every time I wrote a letter, a memo of law, a motion, a closing argument, a complaint, or a petition that passed muster with the attorneys in my office, it was because of Sister Ignatius.
Maybe a better way to teach students to write is to teach them to edit: start with a long, badly written passage and direct students to express the same meaning with half the words. You are correct that I ripped this off from a book/movie.
You have -OBVIOUSLY- never worked fro any government agency where we don't talk, we use abbreviations!
CDREO
Continuing Disability Review Enforcement Operation
I agree with just about everything Liza writes, but this post merited an upgrade to paid, which I've just done. My only substantive comment is that, bad as the funnel technique is, many teachers don't teach writing at all. They just assign it, so the parents, if they can, have to teach their kids how to complete the assignment. Teachers also assign research papers, without teaching a process for keeping track of source materials.
I also agree that AI is an imminent threat to human writing, which would be an awful thing to lose.
Thank you Liza! You've hit this one out of the park. I'm glad to restack it.
In my experience as a writing instructor who reteaches essay structure and source use to my 2 middle school students at night, I find their teachers are asked to do something they’re NOT trained to do: teach writing skills that transfer to any rhetorical situation. They’re trained in interpreting literature via the latest theory or in creative writing but not the act of effective written communication. Liza is one of very few lit-oriented writers who grasps this and can cogently and critically articulate the detrimental impact of current ideological and political trends in teaching literature on student ability to write and therefore think.
In the early 2000s, the running joke then about the largest US English teacher group, NCTE, was that their annual conferences discuss anything BUT writing. Man is that a million times more true today.
A lot of it is that teachers really don't give a shit, no matter what they say. I went to 12 different schools growing up, and have put 4 children through schools all over the country. And I can count on one hand how many teachers I've met in my 41 years that actually care about teaching. It's a paycheck. An easy one at that, and getting easier all the time. There a reason 65% of American children can't read.
I care about teaching my students. Deeply.
I agree with you aesthetically and in terms of what your students should focus on to maximize their chances. However, in my professional experience a lot of communication isn't necessarily about communicating but obfuscating or evading or being noncommittal and just needing to say something to fill the space. That sort of vague circular rhetoric just very nearly made someone President, after all. The 3-5 page paper might not be the worst way to build those unfortunate muscles.
Literacy rates have been declining for decades. Can't be surprised that we’ve been getting worse at writing when we're also getting worse at reading.
High school teacher here! “Be Specific” and “Give a specific example” are my most commonly used comments when grading
Excellent article
Dammit. This cut deep. I feel like all of my cover letters sound like the examples you gave. It’s as if in trying not to come across too much like myself I end up becoming somebody else, somebody boring.
If you are trying to get a job and your cover letters sound like this, now you know what to do to land that dream job! Be yourself :)
Not really. They’re usually for short story submissions but still.