Thoreau and Humor

In the Essay class last week, one of the students posted the following comment on Thoreau’s “Walking”:  “What strikes me about Walking is the humor. Okay, I’ll be honest, I haven’t read it all. I am still working my way through. But what I am noticing are these little wry comments where I’m not sure if he is joking or not, but I find them pretty funny. ”

Here’s a quick response on the subject of Thoreau and Humor:

Thoreau as humorist:  definitely.  The problem in detecting the humor in Thoreau involves hearing the tone of his voice:  ironic, sarcastic, wry, tongue-in-cheek, mixing hyperbole and litotes.  He seems to be testing the reader at times, checking to make sure the reader is paying attention.  As Thoreau writes in “Life Without Principle,” “The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked what I thought, and attended to my answer.” 

It’s worth keeping in mind that many of these texts we are reading–such as “Walking” and “The American Scholar”–were originally speeches.  These texts were intended to be heard.  And Thoreau’s humor would have been much more obvious to his audience because they could have heard the tone in his voice, the pauses, the inflections.  It’s also the case that most of his humor has a serious point, frequently critical of society or institutions or the failure of people to live up to their ideals. 

Here are a few snippets of Thoreau humor that are some of my favorites:
–”Any fool can make a rule, and every fool will mind it.” (from his Journal; not sure it was ever used in a published piece)
–”Beware of all enterprises that require new cloths.”  (All you seniors, preparing for life after college and applying for a job, might keep this advice in mind.)
–”City life is millions of people being lonesome together.”  (Witty, sad, poignant–all at the same time)
–”I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.”  (One sentence from Walden; evidence that Thoreau was the master of the Baconian style, as sharply etched as anything by Francis Bacon.)
–”Live your life, do your work, then take your hat.”  (This one reminds me of the humor of Abe Lincoln, a close contemporary of Thoreau; both have that earthy, practical dimension–though Lincoln really like to tell jokes, occasionally a bit raw)
–”What men call social virtues, good fellowship, is commonly but the virtue of pigs in a litter, which lie close together to keep each other warm.” 
–”What does education often do?  It makes a straight-cut ditch of a free, meandering brook.” 

It amazes me how much Thoreau can say in just one or two sentences. 

Bob

25 Reading Strategies

25 Reading Strategies

The purpose of practicing these strategies is to expand your repertoire of reading techniques and the ways you think about reading, the ways you can perceive yourself as a reader. The primary goal is to become an active, thinking reader determined to comprehend even the most demanding texts.

 

(1) Mumbling. While you are reading, actually voice the words, speaking clearly enough that you can just hear the words you are reading to yourself. Give some inflection to your voice so you are not reading everything in a monotone, but keep your voice relatively quiet. Do not read with a full, loud voice. It is probably best to try this strategy in some location where your mumbling will not bother others. [Keep in mind that silent reading of texts is a fairly recent development. Prior to the 15^th century, very few people read silently. If you visited a medieval monastery, for example, you would have found all of the monks mumbling the words while reading. The assumption was that to read, you needed to hear the words–and so nearly all reading was done aloud.]

(2) Underlining Key Words/Rereading. This strategy depends upon you planning to read a piece two times. The first time through the text, try to maintain a smooth, even reading tempo. But keep a pencil handy, and underline or put a check in the margins for identifying what you suspect are key words in the piece or new words that you don’t recognize. After you finish, go back through the text. Think about the significance of the key words or marked phrases. Look up unfamiliar words and write the appropriate definitions in the margins. Now reread the piece, focusing your attention on details and insights unnoticed during the first reading.

(3) Start with the Conclusion. Read the conclusion of the text first. You can decide how much of the conclusion you want to read, but select a long enough passage so you can gain some idea of what is happening. If you choose a ten-page essay, you might read the last 3-4 paragraphs; if a two-page poem, perhaps the last 20-25 lines. After you’ve read the conclusion, go to the beginning and read the piece all the way through. While reading, keep in mind what you know about the conclusion and consider how the pieces of text you are reading might somehow prepare the reader for that ending.

(4) Kinesthetic Reading. Most of the time when we are reading, we are sitting down or lying on a bed or scrunched up on a sofa. For this reading strategy, you need to be up and about. This exercise would probably work best with a fairly short passage, no more than 3-4 pages. While reading, read with your entire body. Feel the words in your body. Allow yourself to move around, to walk, to pace, even to dance. Think of the words as instructions for dancing. Use your body movements as a way to interpret the text or to give emphasis to key moments.

(5) Reading on a Walk. Take your book and go for a walk (this is a strategy that works better in June than in January). During the walk, stop a few times and read from your text. Then continue walking. Or you can go for a walk, find a nice cozy bench or swing, and read the entire text in one sitting. But periodically refresh yourself. Stop looking at the words and enjoy the spring flowers or fall leaves, the squirrels planting acorns, the clouds above the trees. Relax and read some more.

(6) Stopping at Predetermined Reflection Points. Before starting the text, mark one or more points in the text where you will stop and reflect on what you have read so far. When you reach a reflection point, stop and think about what you have encountered. Do some quick review, skimming through the portions you have read to remind yourself of details or key points you may have forgotten. In the margins write some brief notes to summarize what you have so far. Then continue to the next reflection point.

(7) Visualizing Yourself as a Reader. We often allow negative thoughts and mental baggage to interfere with our comprehension of a text. It’s difficult to enjoy playing basketball if you are constantly telling yourself how you hate basketball and how lousy you are as a player. Maybe by the standards of Michael Jordan you are not a great basketball player, but we don’t have to be the best in order to gain value from what we are doing. When a task is at hand, just do the task. That doing can be helped if you visualize yourself succeeding at this task. Reading can be helped by an ability to see yourself as a reader. Before you begin reading a text, create a mental picture of yourself reading the piece. See yourself as a confident reader, someone who knows how to handle difficult challenges. No need to be cocky, just a sense that you can handle this text. And then start reading. And when your concentration drops or various kinds of interference interrupt your thoughts, stop reading, focus on the interference for a moment, tell it to go away, wipe it from the mind, and return to the text, again seeing yourself as the reader.

(8) Reading Inductively/Deductively. To read inductively is to move from specifics to generalizations, to use details and examples for creating conclusions, to discover the thesis of the text, the controlling ideas. To read deductively is to begin with generalizations, the thesis, the main point(s) and then to read for purposes of acquiring evidence to test the thesis, determining its accuracy or appropriateness. As a simple rule of thumb, we begin new texts by reading inductively, using the text to give us clues on grasping the text’s messages. At some point we construct a hypothesis for telling ourselves what this essay or story or poem or book chapter is about. That hypothesis may come as soon as we read the title; it may come when we finish reading the first paragraph or the first page or when we finish the text–or perhaps such an insight never arrives. But usually at some moment in the text there will be a shift in our reading: we grasp the author’s message and then our reading process shifts, taking in new data from the text and plugging that new information into the schema or plan that the mind has created for this text (a creation based on discoveries while reading). With this inductive/deductive model in mind, try reading a unfamiliar text. As you are reading, occasionally think about which kind of reading you are doing: inductive or deductive?

(9) The Special Reading Place. Find somewhere new to read, somewhere you have never previously spent any time, some place that is quiet and secluded, free of any likely interruptions. There are several rarely used areas in the library, many classrooms at night that have no one in them. Or perhaps you want to find a noisy place that is so filled with noise that you can block out the distractions. You might also consider a few places off campus; Wendy’s could be a great place to go for a drink, a few fries or a caesar salad (for the health conscious types), and virtually no one to bother you. Once, you are settled, pull out the book and start reading. And then return to this same place on at least two more occasions; and be precise about where you sit–not just in the PUB but the same chair at the same table. Wherever you choose, do nothing here but read. No other studying allowed. No stereo music. No distractions. Nothing but reading. See if the place begins to invite reading, that once you enter this space, you assume the reader’s frame of mind. Can we become better readers by changing our environment?

(10) Reading Aloud to Someone. This is another strategy that will probably work best with a short piece or an excerpt from a longer piece; it also depends on going through a text two times. You need a reading partner, someone willing to listen to you read and talk with you about the piece. Partners can be room mates, friends, other students in the same class, Writing Center consultants (who are paid to do this stuff).

(11) Someone Reading Aloud to You. Same process as above, except this time your partner reads the text aloud to you. All the other aspects of the strategy remain the same, including the conversation after the reading is done.

(12) Skimming/Reading. Take a few minutes to skim through the text. While skimming, look for repeated names of people, names of organizations, recurrent words or phrases that might be important. When you are done with your skimming, spend a few moments guessing what is covered in this piece. What have you learned so far and what are you expecting to find when you read the complete text? Once you have thought about the text, read it straight through, tracking how your reading corrects or modifies or completes your initial impression. Focus on the new information you are acquiring and how this fits with what you learned from skimming.

(13) Marginal Notes: Talking with the Text. While reading, periodically jot down notes about the text in the white space around the text. The nature of the marginal notes are up to you. Notes can be summaries of important ideas, comments on ideas, brief quotes of interesting or puzzling passages, insights or responses or ideas you have while reading, etc.

(14) Annotating a Text. This is a technique for marking a text so the structure and main points or illustrations are highlighted. A reader can develop a personalized annotation system unique to the persona’s individual reading habits. Here are a few annotation techniques that might prove beneficial:

• Circle the thesis or key themes

• Insert brackets around key supporting points

• Underline key details and examples

• Use marginal symbols to indicate personal feelings or insights about passage. For example:

–N.B. for the Latin phrase nota bene, ‘mark well"; used to identify important, notable passages.

–Question marks for passages are confusing or vague.

–Cf for "confer" points: noting instances when the marked passages connect with some other passage in this text or another text.

Whatever annotation system you devise, it’s a good idea to keep it simple and flexible.

(15) A Reward. Before reading your selected piece, determine a reward you will give yourself for the successful completion of the assignment. You determine the appropriate reward, whether food or 15 minutes watching TV or shooting pool with a professor. But be honest with yourself: don’t give yourself the reward until you have read and understood the text you chose for yourself. No prize until you’ve earned the prize.

(16) Hearing the Text Inside Your Head. While reading the text, listen to the voice inside your head reading the text. Be sure you can actually hear that voice and that the voice has a natural inflection, a sense of phrasing and rhythm. If the voice has trouble with a passage, don’t hesitate to stop and reread. Listen to how your internal speaker handles the language. Don’t forget to think about the meaning of the words, but also remain aware of how meaning is delivered through the sound of a voice and the way sentences are phrased and given life by the voice.

(17) Visualizing the Text. While reading, visualize what is happening, see the landscape, the people, their actions. If the text is primarily abstractions and ideas, try to visualize the ideas in some way–or perhaps visualize the person delivering these ideas to you. You might imagine that you are creating a movie of the piece in your head, treating the text as a script. As reading or after you finish the text, make some simple drawings of events or people or places in the margins, some visual cues to help you remember what you’ve been reading.

(18) Talking Through a Text. This strategy may be useful when encountering a complex or ambiguous text. Find a partner and the two of you work through a text together, perhaps line by line or sentence by sentence. As you proceed through the poem or essay or chapter, talk about any word or phrase or image that is puzzling or intriguing. Work together in constructing the text’s meaning. Feel free to jot down notes if that helps.

(19) Reading and Rereading. Read an essay, story, article, or poem using any strategies that feel most appropriate. Let the text sit unread for a few days and then reread the piece again. What did you remember? How was the second reading different from the first? Were you surprised by any discoveries in the second reading, seeing things that you don’t believe you saw the first time?

(20) Rumination. Reading involves not only the time when you are looking at a text but also the process of thinking and reworking the text and its ideas long after you have closed the book. The process is perhaps analogous to cattle that eat their grass or hay (reading the words on the page) and then lie down to regurgitate their food and rechew what they had swallowed (what the writer Sven Birkerts calls "shadow reading"–thinking about the text after it has been translated from words on page to images and ideas in the mind). For this experiment, set aside time to do both kinds of reading. Begin by reading the words on the page, using whatever strategy seems most helpful. When you are finished, close the book and do something else. But on 2-3 occasions later in the day or the next day, set aside a few minutes to think about what you have read. See how much of the text you can reconstruct without looking at it. And spend some time really thinking about the meaning of the text, its implications and applications, the possible connections between this text and other things you’ve read or thought about. After being away from the text for a couple days, reread it, this time comparing what you now see with what you were thinking about in the "shadow reading" phase.

(21) Spotting Key Words. For an initial encounter with a text, skim through a text, underlining suspected key words. Be on the lookout for new or unfamiliar words, phrases, or terms and underline them. Do this for several pages of the composition, and then go back and look up any unfamiliar words or phrases. Write marginal notes explaining/defining what you learn from your dictionary or another source. Now read through the piece. Does the initial preparation help you read those pages and the remaining text more effectively? Did you notice a significant difference in comprehension or interest when you moved into the previously unexplored text?

(22) Twenty Details. If you are reading a text you find remarkably dry and boring, play a game of twenty details. While reading, place a check mark next to any passage that expresses an idea or insight that you suspect the author thought was important. A simple rule of thumb: minimum of one check mark per page. When you have twenty check marks, quickly review what you discovered. Try to construct some connections among these twenty passages you have marked. You might write a simple commentary or summary of what you discovered. Then repeat twenty details game or try reading the text with normal rhythms.

(23) End of Text Summary. When you are finished reading the story, poem, or essay, write a paragraph in the margin or at the end of the composition, summarizing what strikes you as most interesting or appealing or puzzling about this composition.

(24) Mapping a Text. Particularly if you are a visual learner, it may help to draw a reading map, a visual representation of the structure or main ideas in a text. A map can be as simple as a list of key ideas or it can be a complex schematic representation of a text’s internal relationships and patterns. A useful technique for many readers is to draw a web. Place a key term from the text in a circle in the middle of a page. Then start drawing interconnected circles and boxes of ideas and details drawn from the text. This can also be an excellent technique to use when you are preparing to write a paper about a text.

(25) Commonplace Book. Keep a notebook handy for writing down new words, their definitions, and reflections on the words’ meanings and how you might use them. It is also a good idea to copy the passage where you encountered the word. You can also use the Commonplace Book for recording interesting quotes, ideas, and insights you want to remember from your reading. By keeping these quotes and ideas in a "common place," you increase the likelihood of remembering and being able to retrieve what you have read.

Defending Class Authors (e.g., Melville)

In class last week, I offered an inept, off-the-cuff defense of reasons why we should continue reading classic works of literature, such as Melville’s Billy Budd, works that most college students will not find very appealing.  I feel compelled to comment a bit further on some of these issues, using Melville as my primary example.  In my initial defense of Melville, I instinctively turned to his biography, and several students noted with justification that the arc of the artist’s life does not prove that the texts produced by that author are worth our serious attention.  I really didn’t mean to suggest that just because Melville managed to keep writing–despite severe emotional depression and family stress (much of which he brought on himself and his family)–we should consider him a great writer, or Billy Budd a great work of fiction. In the long run what counts is the work of art. If enough readers come to Billy Budd, generation after generation, and find the work insightful and inspiring, then it will become a classic–regardless of what the “professionals” say or don’t say. There’s no question my admiration for Billy Budd is heightened by my awareness of Melville’s biography, my admiration for a writer who suffered decades of personal heartache and disappointment and yet he kept working–and at the end of his life produces this unexpected masterpiece. I find that dimension of his personal story uplifting and empowering, and it certainly shadows how I read Billy Budd. Just as when reading The Metamorphoses, I’m aware that Ovid is writing this work while cast in political exile, never able to return home again. That biographical information doesn’t change the literary quality of the work, but it does color my appreciation of Ovid and my admiration for his dedication to his art. But with both Billy Budd and the Metamorphoses, it finally comes down to the texts, and how these texts stimulate thought and new understandings of life. Billy Budd is certainly not a perfect work of literature. Melville’s style is on occasion overwrought, straining too hard to grasp (and perhaps inflate) the ideas he is struggling to convey, but ultimately I have a deep and abiding love for Melville’s story and the language that conveys and enriches that story. The execution scene of Billy Budd, when he shouts out and blesses Captain Vere, the man who has condemned him to be executed (even though Vere knows that Budd is innocent), will always remain for me one of the great moments in American literature. I reread the scene last night, just before going to bed, and it still takes my breath away.

–Dr. Bob

Abandoning Your Writing

Yikes, I can’t believe it has been a month since I posted on my blog. Obviously, I’m not a very good student (or at least not very good at completing my own writing assignments). I will try to get back on track by commenting on another blog posting that recently caught my attention.

In response to someone’s posting about the revision process (and how surprising it was that you could like a first draft but then you revise it and discover you like the new draft better), is this posting from Benvolio: “It truly is a satisfying feeling to watch your paper improve and improve. My only question is: when is it done? IF the writer can improve it continuously, when does the person realize that enough is enough. That further work is outweighed by the benefits of public viewing. I know for me, I never want to share, I just want to keep revising until perfection.”

We all need to settle this “now it’s done” issue on our own terms. For me, one breakthrough point came when I encountered a simple sentence by the French author Paul Valery: “A poem is never finished, only abandoned.” I suppose “abandoned” sounds rather cold and callous, but it is the case that sooner or later, our compositions must be left to survive on their own.  This act of abandonment can be unsettling because no matter how long we revise a text, it will never be finished, never be perfect. We can always do more. Here are a few possible reasons why poems and essays and other imaginative, creative texts resist closure:

–Such texts are always incomplete, full of gaps; we always leave out more than we manage to capture. Thus we’re inevitably struggling to get one more idea into the text, or to get an insight or image expressed with more clarity and precision.

–We are always changing. What satisfied me yesterday will no longer satisfy me today. I have a new perspective today, I see the world in a different way. The word “mother” meant one thing to me yesterday, and then my mother died, and I acquire a richer understanding of the word “mother” and what my mother meant to me.

–I composed the text as a writer, and in the acts–the processes–of writing, everything felt good, enjoying an emotional high, a sense of getting work accomplished.  But the next day, I encounter my own text as a reader.  The glow is gone; nothing there but a bunch of words, a mere shadow of what we intended to say, of what we thought we were saying.  And so we start again.

–We gain a new awareness of our readers–or our readers change–or the context for the composition changes. One day you thought you were writing an essay for your Honors Composition instructor; the next day you realize that the piece is really for yourself, to fulfill your own needs; tomorrow you realize that you want your father to read this piece, someone far more important to you than any college composition teacher.

There are, of course, many other reasons why texts remain unfinished. The point is, however, that sooner or later with most texts we must “publish” them–must make them “public” (and note the similarity of those two words–no accident). Publication is inevitably an abandonment; the text is left to fare for itself since we can no longer serve as its escort, explaining and defending its message and style of messaging.

You might also keep in mind that even after publication, you can still revise the text. For example, our friend Henry James, nearing the end of his life, produced a New York Edition of his novels and stories–a comprehensive edition assembling most of his major writings. And guess what our good buddy did: he went through and revised and edited all these previously published works. Although he had abandoned them, he remained the doting father, yearning to bring them back under his wing and preparing them anew for encounters with new readers and critics and students in Honors Composition.

–Dr. Bob

Coincidence and Inner Resources

Reading a student’s blog earlier today stimulated the following response:

Just a quick comment on your paraphrase of something you heard:  “You are given everything you need, you just have to break through the disguise to see it, and let coincidence be your guide.”  I’m not sure I’m willing to accept that we are given “everything” we need, but I do believe we are usually given enough:  often the task is “simply” to believe in ourselves and trust that we can do it.  Even if done imperfectly, it was still worth doing. 

As for the power of “coincidence,” I could not agree more.  Somehow, someway, everything connects.  Often our task is to see what’s already there, patiently waiting for us.  That’s why I’ve always been attracted to appositional writing:  the excitement that comes with bringing miscellaneous items (texts) together and discovering how they all work together.

Final comment on peer discussion groups:  I still don’t understand how they work, but it’s remarkable how often it is more beneficial to work in a horizontal environment (working with peers) rather than in a vertical, top-down hierarchy (the typical pattern with faculty).  The interactive process with peers makes it possible to learn at so many different levels:  you not only can learn from conferences on your own papers but you also can gain invaluable insights from working with other students on their writing.  Although it’s often a messy process, full of many false starts, somehow connections get made.  It comes back to the point you made in the quote:  everyone already has the necessary resources in them; we just need to find ways to get people to tap into their resources and use them.

–Dr. Bob

Reflections on the Writing Process

A recent posting on an Honors Comp blog included the following comment: “And that is what I interpret the class to be-an investigation of the writing process.” Yep, I gotta agree. I would simply add that consumed in this “writing process” is also the “reading process.” As I commented yesterday on another blog, what has intrigued me for many years is how intimately intertwined are our reading and writing processes. For example, we might consider that when we are reading a text, we are also rewriting it in our head.  I assume that while reading this message, you are not memorizing it verbatim. What you are probably doing is translating the text into your own words. In this process of reworking and summarizing the text, you reduce the text (so my long, rambling response becomes a neat sentence or two in your version–plus your own interpretations and additions and evaluations mixed into the stew).  You realign and reconnect the pieces so it makes some kind of sense and fits in with whatever you already know–or think you know–on the subject.

Thus, when we are reading Nabokov, we are practicing a bunch of writing tasks: it’s likely we are expanding our vocabulary, gaining some new insights about English syntax and sentence structure, acquiring a more astute ear for images and allusions, and taking in another 1,001 other things. And then, when we sit down to write, perhaps on a subject totally unrelated to Nabokov, something of his writing–of the voice or the tone or the vocabulary or the sense of irony or a bit of phrasing–will sneak into our writing. Rarely are we consciously aware of these little evolutions and transformations in our literacy. There are times when we’ll attempt to step back and reflect on how these evolutions in our thinking may be occurring (and, for purposes of this class, reading and writing are ultimately processes for making various kinds of thinking possible).

Most of these changes we will miss–in part because the processes are so incredibly complex and based on language processing over which we have surprisingly little conscious awareness or control. Consider how you learned English–learned to listen and speak, sending and receiving incredibly complex messages–and you learned it with virtually no teaching and little conscious awareness. All of us–as natives speakers of English–master virtually all of English grammatical constructions by the age of 3, well before we have started school. Perhaps one thing we’re trying to figure out in writing courses is whether reading and writing work by comparable processes with speech: I personally think we will discover the answer is “yes” and the answer is also “no.”

But then, I don’t think it’s my job to teach you the answers. It’s not that we are taught how to read and write and think but rather that we learn how to read and write and think. Yes, the issue here is you learning, not me teaching.  Perhaps my job is to try and put students into situations where the likelihood for learning is increased.  I once read encountered an intriguing definition of a teacher:  the person who is present when learning occurs.  And so I do try to be present, to observe, and to avoid interfering too much with my students’ education.

‘Til later.

Rape Scenes in Ovid’s Metamorphoses

Here is an excerpt from a recent response to a blog reflecting on the frequence occurrence of rape scenes in Ovid.  A few questions that have occurred to me while dealing with these stories:

A couple of points that immediately come to mind:

–How are the women typically portrayed in these stories? Are they always virgins? Do they usually/always resist? Does the rape typically occur after a vigorous pursuit? Any conclusions we might draw after considering some of these details?

–What do the stories say about the results of these rapes? Are the stories celebrating the benefits of this unwanted sex? Do the stories celebrate these rape episodes?

–When reading these stories, how much are we encountering tensions in Ovid’s own culture. The stories he is retelling are very old, probably created in a more “primitive” culture–perhaps one where marriage was not an issue of romantic love but marriage was the result of men successfully pursuing and capturing women. Perhaps many of these pursuits involve chasing after women from a different tribe–a cross fertilization that was perhaps necessary to ensure that the man’s tribe did not become a bunch of inbred idiots. Do we know what Ovid’s opinion may be of these stories?

–One other issue that intrigues me is the role of the punishers. For example, in the Callisto story, it’s the virgin Diana who is disgusted by Callisto when she disrobes and reveals that she is pregnant. What do we make of Diana’s reaction? And what about Jove’s placement of Callisto permanently into the heavens? Always overhead, every time we look into the sky, a reminder of a terrible rape that ruined a beautiful young woman?

Writing is Like Swimming

Here is one of my favorite passages from my commonplace book.  The passage is from a book entitled Writing the Australian Crawl by William Stafford, a marvelous American poet originally from Kansas.  I think Stafford does a wonderful job of describing how our preconceptions about the difficulties of writing can prove disabling.  So much of good writing is simply letting oneself enter into the process, trusting that the writing will be okay.  Certainly in writing the first draft, you don’t want the voice in your head reminding you of how impossible it is to get everything right, making sure all the commas are in the right place.  We don’t worry about such errors when we are speaking with friends; it would help in our writing to invite a similar freedom–to simply jump into the water and start swimming.  And if you keep swimming, it will get easier.  But enough of my paraphrasing.  Here’s William Stafford:

It is strange to me that we can come to accept the idea that language is primarily learned as speech, is soaked up by osmosis from society by children–but that we then assume the writing down of this flexible language requires a study of linguistics, a systematic checking with lists of standard practices, and so on. Now I realize that we possess many canned arguments about prescription versus description, and we share many nuances on this subject, from having written and talked about this topic; but I want to take a definite position, and my main plea is for the value of an unafraid, face-down, flailing, and speedy process in using the language.Just as any reasonable person who looks at water, and passes a hand through it, can see that it would not hold a person up; so it is the judgment of common sense people that reliance on the weak material of students’ experiences cannot possibly sustain a work of literature. But swimmers know that if they relax on the water it will prove to be miraculously buoyant; and writers know that a succession of little strokes on the material nearest them–without any prejudgments about the specific gravity of the topic or the reasonableness of their expectations–will result in creative progress. Writers are persons who write; swimmers are (and from teaching a child I know how hard it is to persuade a reasonable person of this)–swimmers are persons who relax in the water, let their heads go down, and reach out with ease and confidence.

My aim is to show that the writing is simple, if it is done by the swimming-in-itself technique; but that in analyzing the writing we can make it appear almost impossibly difficult.. . . .

When you write, simply tell me something.

Dr. Bob’s Ruminations on the Essay

First, the ambiguity of the term. Many kinds of writing referred to as “essays.” Particularly notable in the academy are all the thesis-support writing assignments that will be defined as essay assignments.

When I use the term “essay,” I am not usually thinking about a thesis-driven form with argumentative structure, thesis statement, topic sentences, etc. The classic example is the five-paragraph theme. Such propositional texts have a long history in rhetoric but that’s not my primary concern for most of the classes that I teach–nor for my own writing.

The thesis-support form functions on different principles from the personal essay form that absorbs so much of my time and attention. For example, the thesis-support form tends to believe in an epistemology in which the truth is knowable. You can derive a clearly stated thesis that will express the fundamental point in your argument. That thesis is knowable, and it can be communicated in clear, distinct, unambiguous language that a reader should be able to interpret accurately after one reading. The thesis-support form is used by disciplines which assume that writers should be using pre-establish arrangements for facilitating the presentation of arguments and evidence. Everyone can use these common forms.

This system is very powerful and effective. But does not include the kind of writing we will be discussing. Consider the example of Montaigne. It’s clear that he tends to see truth and reality as multiple, provisional, tentative. He speaks not for all men but for one man. And what may be true for him today may not be true tomorrow.

With the example of Montaigne at hand, here are my 22 statements on the essay:

(1) The essay is a verb and a noun: a process and a product.

(2) The essay is an invisible “genre.” Essay writing often sneaks in to other genres such as novels, memoirs, biographies, histories, personal letters (which often resemble essays). Because it’s often invisible–not observed in the thicket of other genres–it has not received much scholarly, academic, critical attention or respect.

(3) The essay is usually non-fiction prose. There are exceptions–for example, Alexander Pope’s marvelous 18^th century poem “An Essay on Man”–but the essay usually has a spontaneous, improvised quality that does not quite fit with formal verse.

(4) The essay is an informal, conversational genre. Usually a sense of the vernacular, of everyday speech slightly heightened.

(5) The essay is hesitant about becoming argumentative or overtly persuasive. The voice of the speaker typically suggests a “disinterested curiosity” on a subject. Essay writers have typically been middle-class, often middle-aged, a person of some leisure or freedom from economic pressures. A classic example would be Thoreau who had little money but lived so that he did not need much money. The essay writer is a friend writing to a friend. Montaigne claimed that one reason why he started writing essays was to compensate for the lost conversations following the death of his closest friend.

(6) The essay has a strong tradition of skepticism. We live in a world with many illusions, falsehoods, lies. The essayist is committed to cutting through these layers and finding the truth, but the techniques tend to be spontaneous, unsystematic, occasional, accidental.

(7) The essay is a means of knowledge, a way of knowing the world, and it’s no accident that the form emerged at the same time as the arrival of empirical science in western culture. Francis Bacon, the first English writer to write essays, was also Great Britain’s premier public relations person for empirical science.

(8) The essay uses empirical science but distrusts knowledge as a cumulative, progressive enterprise. Biologists’ and chemists’ discoveries build and accumulate, resulting in demonstrable advances in knowledge. The essay, however, is not cumulative. Every essay starts over. Every essay must build its own case, create a self-contained world, a unique way of knowing, and when the essay is over, all of it disappears.

(9) The essay presupposes a communication triangle with the following values:

An independent, disinterested but curious observer.

A subject: usually a specific object or moment in time

An educated, sympathetic reader

(10) The essay exists outside any organization of knowledge: it is a record of the open mind confronting an immense, open reality. The results are always, at best, provisional, incomplete. The task is inevitably too big. The essayist always fails. The essay may make a claim to truth, but it’s not permanent truth.

(11) The essay abhors dogma, doctrines, disciplines (the organizing principles of academic knowledge).

(12) The essay usually deals with personal experience, not disciplinary experience. Disciplinary enterprises are collaborative, cumulative, progressive. Essay-writing is a product of the lone individual; there is no cumulative progress. It is personal and non-disciplinary. No evolution. No one will ever write essays better than Montaigne.

(13) The essay presents special, unique situations or moments to the general reader; academic and disciplinary writing communicates discoveries by specialists to specialists.

(14) The essay allows the shape of the experience to shape the form of the text. Academic disciplines usually seek to impose their own order on the subject. Authority for the essayist comes from experience. Authority for academic writing comes from learning and communal knowledge.

(15) The essay moves back and forth between narration and exposition, external and internal, the specific instance and the general reflection on that instance.

(16) The essay tends to present events as if they are being experienced at this moment. Disciplinary writing tends to look backward: to consider the event as over and now it can be analyzed. Academic writing privileges the past tense; essays privilege the present.

(17) The essay shares many commonalities with the novel, both developing in Europe in the 16^th and 17^th centuries. There are many essay-like passages in novels–true from Cervantes to the present. Common qualities would include:

• Philosophical realism

• Focus on the particulars of experience

• Flexible structures, a feeling that one thing happens after another, living in an open world where almost anything can be encountered.

One important difference is that the essayist tends to be sedate, doing such simple activities as reading, watching, walking. Characters in novels are more likely to be tilting windmills.

(18) The essay is contemplative, but the essayist is neither monk nor scholar. Frequently the essayist celebrates opportunities for a retreat to a rural area: pastoral mood; the civilized, urbane mind residing in the country, a mix of the urban and rural. Consider the example of Montaigne, who begins writing essays after choosing retirement from public life (though the retirement had its interruptions).

(19) The essayist is an existentialist. Both the self and world are in flux; both are shaping each other.

(20) The essay values both the exploration and communication of experiences and ruminations on those experiences. The essay exists for both entertainment and enlightenment.

(21) The essay values the individual who is both participant–someone engaged in life–and spectator–someone who steps back and observes life.

(22) The essay is lyric poetry, emotion recollected in tranquility but written in prose.

–RLM

Propositional and Appositional Essays

Propositional/Appositional Essays

[What follows is something I wrote a couple of years ago, but it introduces a distinction in writing essays that strikes me as fundamental in understanding how to write and read many of our texts in these classes.]

Of the thousands of articles and books I’ve read in the last twenty years on the subject of teaching writing, there’s little doubt that the piece which has most influenced my thinking is W. Ross Winterowd’s “Rediscovering the Essay” in the Journal of Advanced Composition (1988). Winterowd’s essay provided me with a language for describing texts I was frequently reading–and asking students to write–but I did not know how to describe or categorize. When I read Winterowd’s essay, I immediately had a shock of recognition, accompanied by a suspicion that his terminology would help students understand how to distinguish between tasks demanding a clear, focused communication of explicit conclusions and those writing tasks requiring the exploration of divergent ideas without imposing a premature, thesis-driven closure. Winterowd asserts that the essay is and should remain the “central genre in composition instruction.” The problem has been that the essay has been classified into two vague, ill-defined categories: the informal (identified by its personal, anecdotal style) and the formal (a less personal, more argumentative style). In his JAC article, Winterowd suggests a new set of terms for analyzing and classifying essay as “propositional” and “appositional.” Winterowd is not advocating the superiority of one essay model over the other; however, he does recommend that students have opportunities to work with both of these writing/thinking processes.

The Propositional Essay

• These structured essays will typically have a precisely worded, carefully defined thesis. With its emphasis on a coherent, hierarchical structure, there is minimal allowance for detours, tangents, irregularities in tone or style. All elements in the essay are part of a rational hierarchy, each piece of evidence subordinate to the text’s overriding purpose. 

• Ambiguities, reservations, hesitations, unsupported hunches are to be excluded. The emphasis is on the communication of logical, well-supported conclusions.

• The recurrent structure for propositional essays “is a branching tree diagram or organizational chart with the topic . . . or macroproposition at the top.”

• An argument unfolds by following a syllogistic progression, “the form of a perfectly conducted argument, advancing step by step.”

• The goal is the explicit, clear, unambiguous delivery of information and insights.

Prevalent examples of the propositional essay would include five-paragraph themes, research reports, traditional argumentative essays, and most articles in academic journals.

The Appositional Essay

• A thesis, if one exists, is often implied, not stated directly; it is left to the reader to derive or create a “macroproposition.”

• A primary function of the essay is the exploration of a topic by a combination of means appropriate to the topic; the essayist might juxtapose anecdotes, metaphors, expository passages, narratives, memories; the organic arrangement of these different elements determines the direction and evolution of the essay.

• An appositional organization is flexible; these essays typically offer a series of stories or meditations on related subjects, inviting the reader to construct the connections among the essay’s different segments.

• These essays often begin with anecdotes and stories, emphasizing specific, thought-provoking illustrations.

• The form “is that of a galaxy, with dense clusters of bright stars related as subsystems within the whole.”

• The reader is called upon to fill in “gaps” in the text; the reader must be “actively involved in constructing, not merely recovering, meaning.”

• These texts often resemble a “prose lyric,” moving forward by means of “anecdotal progression.”

Essayists who provide frequent examples of appositional writing include Joan Didion (“Los Angeles Notebook”), Loren Eiseley (The Unexpected Universe, The Immense Journey), Lewis Thomas (Late Night Thoughts on Listening to Mahler’s Ninth Symphony), Gretel Ehrlich, James Thurber, E. B. White, Mark Twain, Henry David Thoreau, Charles Lamb, William Hazlitt, and the master of the appositional essay: Michel de Montaigne. It is also a dominant form in thousands of mass media magazines and publications (e.g., The New Yorker, Sports Illustrated, Harper’s).

–RLM