EmpoWord: A Student-Centered Anthology and Handbook for College Writers PDF
Preview EmpoWord: A Student-Centered Anthology and Handbook for College Writers
In a 2012 article published by The Washington Post’s “Answer Sheet” section, curated by Valerie Strauss, John G. Maguire decries the failure of college writing students and their instructors. The article, “Why So Many College Students Are Lousy at Writing—And How Mr. Miyagi Can Help,” explains that many students “enter college as lousy writers—and … graduate without seeming to make much, if any, improvement.” The problem? College writing classes don’t teach good writing. The article scorns those writing courses which cover “rhetorical strategies, research, awareness of audience, youth civic activism—everything except the production of clear sentences.”
Maguire’s article advocates for a return to old-school instructional methods—specifically, teaching style and mechanics so that college grads can produce clear, readable sentences. Maguire concludes with a reference to a 1984 film, The Karate Kid. (If you haven’t seen it, the film is an underdog story about an outcast teenager learning martial arts from a caring but mysterious karate master, Mr. Miyagi.) Maguire asserts, “I’m a teacher, and I know what Mr. Miyagi did — he tricked the kid into learning. He got him to do important behaviors first, and didn’t reveal where they fit into the overall skill until later.” He continues,
[Colleges] should offer new writing courses that assume students know nothing about sentences and train new sentence behaviors from the ground up. Be repetitive and tricky—fool the kids into doing the right thing. Create muscle memory. Think “wax on, wax off.” The kid’s goal was to win the karate contest. The student writer’s goal should be mastery of the readable style.
So, according to Maguire, more teachers should “trick” students into learning grammar and style, only to reveal to the students at some faraway time that they knew how to write all along.
In case you can’t already tell, I am very resistant to this article. I introduce it not because I have
an axe to grind, but rather because I find it demonstrates essential misconceptions about
writing that many people share. I have taken to teaching this text on the first day of class to
show my students what they’re up against: teachers, readers, parents, The Washington Post
reporters, and many, many others who assume that (a) there is one “correct” kind of writing,
and (b) today’s students have no idea how to execute it
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