High school journalism teachers universally advocate for the practices, objectives, and skills of journalism being the most effective way to teach thinking and writing... and their colleagues in the English departments of America universally ignore the point.
In a recent post, a community college professor argues persuasively that reporting and publishing for a larger public (larger than the teacher, anyway) is something that community colleges should be doing more of. I shared this story with Colorado journalism teacher colleagues last week, claiming that what is true for community college is also certainly true for high school.
I have had a few responses, with a couple of advisers saying they would be sharing the article with their English department peers. But no one seriously believes that much will change, and that is one of the tragedies of American education. We actually know practices and resources that work better and we willfully ignore them.
What do we ignore them for? Well, how about those squishy poetry units? How about those pet projects on "Of Mice and Men" that lead to posters as the final artifact "proving" student understanding and skill? What about continuing to ask students to write incredibly long paragraphs (and just ONE paragraph, or else) that are supposed to delve deeply into motif or theme or character development or connections to contemporary events?
No wonder my college writers default to one giant paragraph so often. They have been punished for using shorter, more focused paragraphs and now some guy is asking them to upset that established pattern? How dare he (I)?
The creation of paragraphs is somewhat obscure, though many scholars mention the revolution of movable type leading to columns of densely set text necessitating adding some white space now and then to give readers a chance to "rest" or at least refocus their eyes.
In 1866, a Scottish professor named Alexander Bain wrote a book that laid out the still-common "rules" for paragraphs, including his idea that a paragraph should be thought of as an essay in miniature, containing one subject developed and supported over its course.
That led to English teachers over the past 150 years plus forcing students to write "topic sentences," and supporting paragraphs that are essentially complete essays. The heck with thinking about readers and about how actual books and magazines almost never consist of a series of paragraphs with each containing a topic sentence, expansion on the claim or topic, and a transition to the next graf. (I like the journalistic jargon of "graf," BTW -- a shorthand that reflects the need for shorter grafs).
When newspapers began using long vertical columns of text, those shorter grafs became the default of journalists. People don't want to read with their finger underlying each line as we descend the page. What is needed is some sort of quick way to insert a bit of white space that help guide a reader through the prose.
I often urge my college students to consider using shorter grafs mostly to help themselves (who cares about readers?) by forcing them to "see" where their claims are not supported by facts. Once you clearly see a graf like this: "Billy's insights into current trends in technology are eye-opening and provocative," followed by, well, nothing, you can begin to dig into what is missing.
What ARE Billy's insights? How are they so provocative? What examples can we share from the text? Why would a reader come to agree with your assessment of Billy's essay?
When students choose interminably long gray paragraphs, the logic and the impact can be lost in the fog.
Online writing benefits particularly from shorter block grafs, but few high school English teachers seem to care about that. And few will spend more than a moment considering the arguments from our community college professor.
After all, there are important 18th century poems that can inspire the next generation of poets.
No comments:
Post a Comment