Let's Get It Started

Last Saturday, I taught the first 2010 session of my Upward Bound* enrichment class. Because it was the start of the year, I addressed a common question that I hear in the Writing Lab: How do I start this?

Many student writers get an assignment and they just sit down and start banging keys. Or they just sit down and start staring at the computer hoping the paper will magically appear. However, before they write the first sentence, they need to know where they are going.

I gave the UB students a common assignment here on the DV campus, that significant place paper. I talked about how many students begin those papers with sentences like "Many places are significant to many people." True. That's actually so true that it's the seed of the assignment. The trick is to get past that and into the particular place and it's particular significant to you.

We talked about how they need to start with a basic claim**. Not a fully formed thesis yet, just an idea of Your Topic + What You Are Saying About Your Topic. I gave them some scratch paper and had them come up with a few ideas. Here are the places they came up with and the significance those places hold to these students, and a snippet of what we discussed about each.

Shower: get thinking done
(not the functional use of the place, but an unexpected function of the private place that turned out to be shared by a good portion of the students--student discovered commonality that he didn't assume would be common)

Ditch: privacy to paint
(unexpected place to be used by someone for anything, let alone a creative endeavor--intriguing from the get-go)

School Auditorium: break in and run off energy
(use of place focusing on one characteristic--big open space--instead of main characteristic--stage--that readers wouldn't assume)

Bathroom: unwind and get away/get out of things
(student focused on not only the privacy but the Do Not Disturb nature of the bathroom as a way to escape responsibility of rest of house)

Track: face a challenge, release stress
(discussed at how two people use same space differently: one to overcome and accomplish, one to escape and only compete with self)

Tennis Court: be in control
(student said it was where she could "be herself," elaboration lead to idea of exerting control; we discussed how even her close friends and family could learn something about her by reading an essay that explores this idea)

Kitchen: quiet place to draw
(asked students what they expected the significance to be, answers included cooking, food, and gathering; student instead pointed out particular characteristics of his kitchen--quiet, solitude--and how his unique talents play into how he sees that place)

Basketball Court: show effort, just play and not be judged
(again two students with two views on one place, one focused on competition and one focused on freedome; discussed how specific details--in a gym vs in a park--alter the expectations of a reader)

Golf Course: release anger
(opposite of expectations--golf as difficult game that frustrates people--that would be intriguing and need the explanation an essay would allow)

Open Field of Grass in a Park: see nature and remember place in the world
(student originally said "open field" and further questioning revealed the park; discussed how providing that detail was vital because "open field" could mean many things to many readers, so it would be important to direct readers to proper mental images)

Black Box Theater: become another character
(unique place unfamiliar to many people would ask the writer to provide good description in order to understand the difference between becoming another character in a traditional theater versus becoming another character in a black box theater)

These were intelligent answers that were brainstormed in only about ten minutes, so the students saw how little time it took to form a basic claim. I told them that they would now just need to explore the truth of that place's significance in their essay. They wouldn't have to make anything up or hope to be divinely inspired to write three pages about a place that is significant to them. They already know why it's important, so they need to explain it to those of us who don't see that place like they do.

I told them to file these essays ideas away in case they are ever asked to write about a significant place. Maybe I'll run across one of them in a future DV class.

*UB is a bunch of high schoolers who are looking to get into college. The program exists to help them do that. I am there to help them get a leg up on what they'll need to know about writing for college. They are generally good kids whom I enjoy spending some Saturday mornings with.

**I used a road trip analogy: you want to know where you're going before you pull out of the the driveway. This was interesting because a couple of the students had actually taken a road trip that had no known destination. I had to revise my metaphor: it may be adventurous to set off on the open road with no destination, but that strategy is won't work out when writing a paper.

Evolution as It Pertains to Introductions

I've noticed myself repeatedly saying something new about introductions lately. It's the natural evolution of my usual advice.

My usual advice on intros: Wait.Work on the body paragraphs. Know what you have to say first. It's okay to work on the middle before the beginning.

See, people jump in and write their intro first because it's the first part of their paper. They jump in without knowing what they have to say. They just know that they need to get this paper done, so logically start at the beginning and try to work from there.

The problem, as I said, is that they don't know what they have to say. Thus, the evolution.

The evolution in my advice on intros: Your intro should introduce your paper, not the general topic you're working with.

Student writers sit down with a blank Word document and they start generally writing about whatever it is that they are supposed to be writing about. They make broad statements that include all people everywhere or every time anyone has done a certain thing or been a particular place. They are doing the wrong work. They are trying to go from general to specific before they know the specifics. They are not introducing their paper. They are trying to introduce a subject, an assignment, a big idea, but they are not introducing what they will cover in their essay.

So I've started to talk about that specifically with people whose intros are painted with broad strokes. It seems to be helping because it removes the stress of getting the paper off to an interesting/humorous/engaging/thoughtful/never-before-seen/amazing start and subtly plants the seed that they do in fact have something specific to say with this paper.

First of All,

Yesterday, a student who had no idea what she was going to write about was worried about her introduction. Today, I asked a student who needs to revise a paper what she plans to do; she said, "First of all, I need to make it longer."

No. First of all, both of them need to figure out what they are saying. It's like they are planning trips without deciding where they are going. Actually, in the second student's case, she took the trip with only a vague idea of where she was going, didn't really map out her route, and didn't remember her trip well enough to make it worth her while.

For the first student, the one who worried about her introduction: Her teacher was standing with us. I asked the student which one, her teacher or me, she could introduce better. She said her teacher. All she could do for me, since she just met me, was remember my name and my job. Not an absolute failure of an intro, but not a thorough one, either. I told her she shouldn't worry about introducing something she doesn't know well. She should figure out what she has to say (she was leaning toward arguing something about coaching methods for children, about keeping it about teamwork and the like instead of becoming a raging lunatic who only cares about winning and forgets that the kids are more interesting in the orange slices after the game) before she tries to write her intro. I told her to write her introduction last if she wanted. She seemed calmer and more willing to explore an idea instead of stressed about completing a paper.

For the second student, the one who wanted to first of all make it longer: longer about nothing is worth nothing, so first of all, we talked about her core idea. Second of all, we broke down what she meant and where she could take that idea in terms of smaller ideas (paragraphs!). Later, as she was working, I asked her about one of her statements. She spat out a general "explanation" in a tone that said You Know, Or At Least You Should Know Because I Know. We talked about her job as the writer--the expert--to give us the details, about how we don't know what she knows, and about how that is where the length of papers can come from, in the provision of clear, meaningful details that help people know what they didn't know.

We Hope You Grapple More

Here is a piece of instructor feedback that I lifted from the pages of an article in College Composition and Communication (Volume 58, Number 2 December 2006 if you're interested; it's from the series of articles on responding to student writing).

"Lousia, a technique that can work well for opening a paper is to begin with an intriguing detail, especially one you find difficult to account for. Beginning in this manner not only draws in your reader, but also forces you as a writer to grapple with a troubling aspect of the text, which can often be a key aspect that you had previously set aside. This, in turn, can focus your thesis and argument."

This instructor, who is anonymously quoted in the article, gives:
1. Useful strategy. Look for a strange detail, something that sticks out, is unique, an anomaly or an outlier. Start there. You, the writer will be interested; your reader will be curious, as well.
2. Permission to grapple*. There is not enough grappling done by readers. More grappling, really, would be quite helpful to education in general.

*grapple, verb: "to engage in a struggle or close encounter (usually followed by the word 'with')"

How Do I Start This?: Mario's Miracle, or Scott's Valid Reason to Discuss Kansas Basketball in Class

In my class last month, we talked about introductions. I didn't plan to include any self-gratifying discussion of the Kansas Jayhawks'* win in the national championship game of the NCAA tournament, but when good writing presented itself in the form of Grant Wahl's Sports Illustrated article on the Jayhawks, I couldn't help myself.



I showed a YouTube clip of the final ten seconds of overtime, shared the context of the game with the non-sports fans, and opened up a discussion of how they would choose to begin writing about the game: the beginning of the season, the beginning of the game, the missed free throws, the inbounds pass--one student even suggested starting from the perspective of a fan looking up at the scoreboard.

Then I shared what Wahl wrote:

"The ball floated through the air, its pebbled surface spinning softly, as serene and peaceful as a space capsule in a low-earth orbit. At 10:29 p.m. CDT on Monday at the Alamodome in San Antonio, the fate of a college basketball season rested on Kansas guard Mario Chalmers -- or, to be more precise, on his last-ditch three-pointer, a make-or-break heave with 2.1 seconds left that would either send the NCAA title game into overtime or give Memphis, clinging to a 63-60 lead, its first championship in school history."

A student said it was like Wahl was in The Matrix, slowing down time, letting the ball spin and spin and spin. Exactly. His entry into the subject wasn't the beginning of anything. It was a zoomed-in look at the middle of the most important moment of the game. In the article, he goes back to the season for both teams (and way back for Mario Chalmers), and he continues on to the future, into overtime and the post-game celebrations, but I love where he started and how he describes the ball itself--not even the teams or the shooter or the fans or the game, just the ball.

*I grew up in Kansas, where basketball=Jayhawks.