(Warning: this is a very long post about teaching non-humanities majors how to fake like they know what they're talking about. It is likely not of general interest.)
When you teach composition, you quickly learn that although you only instruct students for 10 weeks, professors in other departments have the rest of those students' academic careers to complain to the academic senate about the terrible job you did.
"How is it possible," these hypothetical professors sputter, "that three years ago these students passed your research and methodology course?*
Because lower-division writing consists of equal parts remedial buck-passing-correction and advanced training in how establish and maintain an academic ethos, what triggered these professors' outrage can be almost anything: students whose grammar seems like evidence that they find pleasure in its repeated violation; students with fifth-grade vocabularies, for whom "nest" is a noun they recently left, not a verb to be performed on clauses; students who are actually able to weave money-words into complex sentences, but who still fail to meet an imagined or remembered standard of what constitutes college writing; etc.
When I hear complaints like this, I say nothing. What can I say?
"Three years ago, I spent two months doing my damnedest to teach students who don't read how to sound like an academics who do nothing but."
That's an honest, but wholly inappropriate, response; after all, when complainants are attempting to pass the buck retroactively, the last thing they want to hear is that their reliance on the Great Scantron in large undergraduate lectures means they might have helped create the situation they declaim.
Because no one who never practices the skills they barely acquired will be any good at them three years later, I spend a lot of time in the classroom teaching them to study the way their sources write. They may not remember every last thing I taught them, but if they remember how to model their prose, they can fake like they do.
Quick background: the core text for this section of the research and methodology course is the terrible, terrible self-help book Happier. It has the imprimatur of academic writing—the cover proclaims it to be "the backbone of the most popular course at Harvard" and there's a conspicuous "Ph.D." after Tal Ben-Shahar's name—so on the first day of class, I analyze the rhetoric of the cover in order to disabuse the students of the notion that everything written by a person with a doctorate is authoritative.
"We will be concentrating on the claims he makes and the evidence he cites to back them up," I tell them. "Not the little letters that follow his name."**
Because he provides little in the way of evidence and cites what little evidence he provides with all the rigor and clarity of a seventh-grader, Ben-Shahar functions as a perfect foil.*** The students are annoyed by his sloppiness the way I am with theirs, and I cultivate their frustration every class, because they may not remember how to cite something properly three years later, but they will remember the annoyance they felt during, for example, peer review sessions. They begin to appreciate and crave the exactitude of a well-sourced article, which is good, but they still need to learn how to write like the writers they now want to emulate. How do I teach them to do that in 10 weeks?
I devote one class to pretending.
First, I flash a paragraph from one of the few citations Ben-Shahar provides onto the wall. Then, I tell them to pick out all the words they know but wouldn't ordinarily think to use, paying particular attention to active verbs and specific adjectives. I choose these paragraphs because they directly pertain to theories with which they're familiar and contain a terminology they recognize from Happier. A paragraph might look like this one:
The theoretical model of the present work builds on response shift theory (Schwartz and Sendor 1999; Sprangers and Schwartz 1999; Rapkin and Schwartz 2004), and integrates these other models into a model that focuses on the internal changes that might impact perceived quality of life or health. Response shift refers to the idea that when individuals experience changes in health state, they may change their internal standards, their values or their conceptualization of a target construct, such as quality of life, health, pain, etc. (Sprangers and Schwartz 1999; Schwartz and Sprangers 1999). Response shift theory explains discrepancies between expected and observed levels of perceived quality of life (far right on figure) in physically ill patient populations after health state changes (catalysts of response shift; far left on figure). These changes would directly (i.e., health state changes impair or enhance perceived quality of life) and indirectly impact perceived quality of life (i.e., response shifts moderate or mediate perceived quality of life via stable characteristics or behavioral mechanisms). Stable characteristics of the individual (antecedents), such as personality characteristics, would interact with cognitive or behavioral mechanisms (e.g., altruistic practice, social support) to cope with these health changes, and result in response shifts (Sprangers and Schwartz 1999). Schwartz and Sendor extended response shift theory to describe how engaging in other-directed activities helps one to disengage from prior forms of self-reference and be more open to changes in internal standards, values, and conceptualizations of quality of life (Schwartz and Sendor 1999). Rapkin and Schwartz (2004) extended the Sprangers and Schwartz (1999) response shift model to consider response shift as an epiphenomenon that is inferred when changes in appraisal, which are directly measured, explain the discrepancy between expected and observed perceived quality of life.
From which they might generate a list resembling this one:
- theoretical
- integrates
- focuses
- impact
- conceptualization
- target
- explains
- observed
- perceived
- directly
- indirectly
- moderate
- mediate
- stable
- interact
- mechanisms
- extend
- cope
- disengage
- infer
I'll tab to another paragraph from another of Ben-Shahar's sources; they'll rinse and I'll repeat this four or five more times. Once they start to grumble that they're seeing the same words over and over again, I have them take out their historical time-line, which is a chronologically ordered bibliography of approximately 50 sources they've compiled during their research. In later classes, I'll use this time-line to teach them how to trace the development of an idea through time; right now, I only want it as a resource that they can mine for technical terminology. I give them about 10 minutes to go through the titles of the books and articles in their time-line and locate the key terms ("longitudinal well-being," "differential benefits," "positive affectivity," etc.), then I tell them that it's time to bullshit.
They stare at me, as you might expect, with disbelief, but I assure them that what I want them to do is spend 15 minutes combining their impressive-sounding verbs and adjectives with the key terms from their time-lines into something that sounds like an academic text.
"What should it be about?" they ask.
"Anything at all," I tell them. "So long as it sounds like you know what you're talking about."
I put one of the sources back on the wall and tell them to look at the sentence structures the author employs, then gently suggest that they should consider using similarly complex ones. As they write, I cycle through the sources so as to provide a constant source of inspiration. After about 15 minutes, I put them into groups of three or four and have them read their paragraphs aloud to each other. Each group then chooses the paragraph that sounds the most academic, and they spend the next 15 minutes collectively working on making that one sound even better. They begin giggling, but it's productive giggling: they're laughing at how formal their bullshit sounds; at how, even though it means nothing, the arrangement of these words in this manner makes them seem to signify something really, really important. They then share their "improved" paragraph with the class.
The giggling turns to laughter as the first two or three groups reads their paragraph, but then their eyes start to glaze over. The amusement of impersonation has lost its novelty because their bullshit sounds too much like actual academic prose, and once the novelty values wears off, they respond to it as they would any other academic prose, i.e. by visibly straining to avoid a sudden-onset narcoleptic fit. After the final group presents its paragraph, I inform them of their accomplishment. They
- took words whose meaning they already knew,
- combined them with technical terminology from the articles they're using in their essays,
- wrote sentences that demonstrate they have a clear understanding of what academic prose sounds like, which
- means they know what they need to do to establish a more credible academic ethos; moreover,
- if they can use these words and terms they know to write bullshit, they can certainly do the same with the subject of their research, a topic in which they're acquiring actual academic expertise.
When they ask—and they will ask—how this is different from plagiarism, I remind them that plagiarism is the theft of people's ideas (which is why an uncited paraphrase can be plagiarism), but that what they're doing is using the same active verbs and precise adjectives found in a set of relevant academic articles. Using the word "assess" to describe the act of determining the validity of a statistical set simply demonstrates that you speak the same language as your sources.
When they ask—and they will ask—how this is different from using a thesaurus, I remind them that they're not sifting through a general reference book for synonyms stripped of nuance, but that they're using the specific words written by the scholars they're studying and citing; which, again, demonstrates that they speak the same language as their sources.
Then I tell them to go home, perform this same exercise with one of the sources they discussed in their research proposal, and rewrite the body paragraph they devoted to that source using the list of words they generated from it. The result? Pedestrian paragraphs that sounded like they were written by students with no confidence are transformed into, if not actual academic prose, at least a passable imitation of it. Most of these students know what they're talking about, after all, they simply lack the vocabulary (and facility with it) required to convince anyone of that. When you inform them that what they need is right there in front of their face, they realize there's no reason to be at a loss for words anymore because they're all right there.
Three years down the line, all they need to remember is that if they study and try to replicate the diction and grammar of their sources. It's not a perfect solution, but it's better than repeatedly tossing a quarter's worth of writing instruction down the memory-hole.
*The answer, of course, is complex: in the hard sciences, for example, students take writing courses their freshmen year; spend their sophomore and junior in large lecture halls solving equations and filling in bubbles; and are only asked to write analytic essays again in upper-division courses their senior year, by which time they will have forgotten much of what they learned their freshmen. I'm generalizing based on experience here: students whose names I've long forgotten will email out of the blue and request remedial writing help because my class was the last one that required they write a sustained work of original research or analysis and now they have to write one for a class they have to ace because this is their major and they'll never get into graduate school if they don't.
**One or two of them notices the irony and says something like, "So, we shouldn't consider someone an authority simply because they have a Ph.D. after their name, and we should trust you because you have a Ph.D. after name?" I tell them I have all quarter to demonstrate my credibility, but that at the very least, you should give people with doctorates the benefit of the doubt until they prove they'll never earn it.
***The other reason I like teaching this book is that the majority of my students are in the hard or soft sciences, and the study of happiness lends itself to research on psychological and sociological phenomena as well as neurobiological processes, meaning most everyone in the class can familiarize themselves with the databases they'll be using later in their academic careers.
at the very
leastbest, you should give people with doctorates the benefit of the doubt until they prove they'll never earn it.Fixed.
Posted by: Ahistoricality | Friday, 05 February 2010 at 04:55 PM
Imitation is one of the core elements of language learning, and commonly used in second-language instruction. I have some qualms about this, though: you've taught them how to absorb an idiom by teaching them how to abuse it; mastery through parody, you might call it. This is an incomplete lesson, though, as the never-far-from-our-thoughts Alan Sokal taught us: jargon in the pursuit of knowledge is valid language, but jargon in the defense of ignorance is, while all-too-common, ultimately unacceptable.
That said, though, you're clearly working the evidence side of the equation pretty hard. I don't think there's anything wrong with students writing like students, myself: attempts to imitate academic language that they don't really understand in order to cover their weaknesses often ends up hurting them more than dealing with the issues directly would.
Posted by: Ahistoricality | Friday, 05 February 2010 at 05:05 PM
Damn, I wish someone had taught me style imitation as a freshman. I figured it out eventually, in fact I'd say I'm pretty good at it, but, like, opportunity costs 'n' stuff.
Good for you, these kids are going to graduate and find themselves behind the curtain, and so much of their learning experience is going to be about teaching them to sit calmly in front of the wizard.
Posted by: Endy | Friday, 05 February 2010 at 05:16 PM
Can I steal this lesson for my class?
Posted by: Tom Elrod | Friday, 05 February 2010 at 06:49 PM
I have some qualms about this, though: you've taught them how to absorb an idiom by teaching them how to abuse it; mastery through parody, you might call it. This is an incomplete lesson, though, as the never-far-from-our-thoughts Alan Sokal taught us: jargon in the pursuit of knowledge is valid language, but jargon in the defense of ignorance is, while all-too-common, ultimately unacceptable.
It's parody in the classroom, but that's just to 1) build their confidence, by 2) allowing them to demonstrate to themselves that they know what academic prose sounds like. Once they start revising their own paragraphs, though, they're borrowing vocabulary and terminology from essays they actually understand. The lesson may be incomplete, but I've only got 10 weeks, so I'm trying to inculcate good instincts as much as anything else.
I don't think there's anything wrong with students writing like students, myself: attempts to imitate academic language that they don't really understand in order to cover their weaknesses often ends up hurting them more than dealing with the issues directly would.
That's why I focus on essays 1) they've already read carefully, and 2) use the essays that they'll have to read carefully as templates. I don't want them to imitate blindly: I want them to replicate the successful prose stylings of authors who make what they take to be cogent points. Even if they misuse the words, they're still struggling with the material, as opposed to using a thesaurus to create the dread word-jambalaya.
I wish someone had taught me style imitation as a freshman.
Me too ... but only if I wasn't in the humanities. I mean, given what actual Honors Thesis ended up sounding like ...
Can I steal this lesson for my class?
Of course you can, Tom. I wouldn't post have posted it if I wanted to keep it a secret.
Posted by: SEK | Friday, 05 February 2010 at 09:53 PM
I have a Bachelor's degree in English from a four-year university, graduated with honors, and I never saw anything like this during my undergraduate work. It's amazing. In fact, No one asked me to write an actual research paper from the eighth grade until I took a graduate level course my senior year.
I actually had to go to the professor of that graduate course and ask how to do basic research. And she was not surprised that I was asking.
All of my english teachers would say things like "everyone else wants you to write research papers, I want to know what you think." The idea that my thinking should be shaped by research wasn't really even broached until fairly late in the game.
Posted by: Thud | Saturday, 06 February 2010 at 11:20 AM
Back when I was a beginning journalist, I had a friend who used to pick favored paragraphs by Orwell and Didion and then substitute for each word a new one of the same part of speech, having to do with with whatever she was writing about at the time. She said it worked.
Posted by: Tom from the Bx | Sunday, 07 February 2010 at 12:49 PM
This is a really awesome exercise, by the way. I'd totally steal it if I wasn't pretty sure I'd need to steal the entire framework you've worked up here to make it work.
Sounds like you have really thought through how to do a good comp class!
Posted by: Sisyphus | Sunday, 07 February 2010 at 07:54 PM
Yeah, I echo the 'wish someone had taught me' sentiments above. I started doing an MA course online, and my ability to write an academic paper really sucks. Some of the techniques you teach I managed to pick up on my own, but never realized it til reading this just now. Others are just dawning on me.
During a study abroad stint, I had to write an essay for the history final. I wound up turning in a glorified bullet point list. I wish someone somewhere had instructed me on how to write a proper essay, I don't think I learned anything new since about 7th grade.
Posted by: Jhoosier | Sunday, 07 February 2010 at 11:06 PM
Fantastic post. I'm currently writing a paper about treating the FYC classroom its own discourse community as one element of instruction. The goal is to show students how a writer gains authority by recognizing and utilizing the voice a community expects from its members. This lesson goes a long way to make that idea clear.
Posted by: Hogs | Monday, 08 February 2010 at 05:54 AM
This is great. The trouble with learning to be an academic is that there's this great bundle of stuff that teachers don't pull apart in any systematic way to aid comprehension. I'm very much in favor of abstracting the formal aspects of writing from the ideas, as one stage in learning how to write.
Posted by: Rick's TwypePad | Monday, 08 February 2010 at 07:31 PM
Wow -- perhaps you might realize a few of us who teach big classes don't use scantrons. Thursday is my first test in my 350 person soc class. It is all essay. And while I have two GAs to help me proctor the test, I and I alone will be grading it. And I will get them done by Saturday evening. In EVERY class I teach, there are both only essay tests and major papers. And I teach, on average, 500 students a term. Plus they all have to write 2+ posts to discussion boards every week. So maybe some of us not in English depts do care about writing and would prefer to work with you, rather than being slapped around like the start of this post did. My students in intro soc write more and get graded on their writing more than in their English classes (plus then their soc content).
So hey -- ease up on oh, that big academic writing technique called overgeneralization, will you? Thanks.
Someone who does try to teach writing and therefore just maybe, gets to ask some of these questions about my colleagues in English.
Posted by: Kate | Tuesday, 09 February 2010 at 06:00 AM
can i just remark that yellow text on a black background is hard for me to read:)
Posted by: sparkle | Wednesday, 10 February 2010 at 09:08 PM
ugh. sorry to have a negative comment but this sounds horrible to me. i spend most of my time trying to persuade my students (psychology major) to write in short, straightforward sentences using everyday words, not things they have looked up in a thesarus. I want them to cultivate clarity of thought and clarity of writing, not complexity for the sake of complexity or for the sake of sounding 'academic'. A student who wrote in long, convoluted sentences full of academic buzzwords would get a low grade from me.
Posted by: ah | Wednesday, 14 April 2010 at 03:26 AM