Getting along to get along

Clever little article that Bryan sent along today about the proliferation of Robo-readers to score standardized essay questions. How ironic that the very people responsible for testing “learning” are wary of dissension, or feel above improvement/rebuke — dare we say assessment — according to the NY Times article, “Facing a Robo-Grader? Just Keep Obfuscating Mellifluously .”

Two of the testing companies, according to the story, declined to have their testing tested for fear that they might be given a failing or “non-proficient” grade. Their reticence to allow outside vetting speaks volumes.

As for the story itself, as a newswoman and word lover, I offer kudos to the writer for fashioning the entertaining and clever section, excerpted below:    

E-Rater, he said, does not like short sentences.

Or short paragraphs.       

Or sentences that begin with “or.” And sentences that start with “and.” Nor sentence fragments.       

However, he said, e-Rater likes connectors, like “however,” which serve as programming proxies for complex thinking. Moreover, “moreover” is good, too.       

Gargantuan words are indemnified because e-Rater interprets them as a sign of lexical complexity. “Whenever possible,” Mr. Perelman advises, “use a big word. ‘Egregious’ is better than ‘bad.’ ”

Love it.

-30-

Uh, 63? Does this make sense, anyone? (or, blog failure, again)

So, just as I thought I was getting the hang of this blogging thing, I have failed again. In revisiting Scribe Stuff, I glanced to the right the other night to see the list of headings from previous posts. There were familiar titles. But as I scanned the list, one weird one jumped out at me. “62” the hyperlink to it read.

In hindsight, I think I did not title that post, at least formally and the way that wordpress prefers titles be entered. So I think its computer brain came up with its own title for my post. Where 62 came from, I have no clue. You would think the first untitled post might be “1.” But 62, it is… And so now we have 63, in keeping with the confusion of the computerized world of writing. Maybe one day it will all make sense.

Text (and subtext)

Kelly Gallagher advocates using an “article of the week” approach to teaching reading and writing. That is, he writes about how he surmounts the dearth of experiences (and subsequent wisdom) his students lack by offering context for what they do and read in the classroom through an “article of the week” assignment. The journalist in me loves this (especially the dinosauresque print variety of journalist). But it goes beyond exposing new readers to the dying efforts of newspaper writers like myself. The other day, I heard a report on NPR about Rwanda and its unfortunate meddling in the Congo. Instantly, as the foreign correspondent faded in and out of reach via an unreliable satellite phone connection, my mind started to connect all that I knew and have read about the Congo. Of course, there is “King Leopold’s Ghost,” a remarkable work of nonfiction tracing the horrific, post-Colonial fallout of empire building and greed that left so many maimed, dead and/or exploited vis-a-vis the rubber industry. But some of the most lush images of the Congo I pieced together as I listened to the report came from credible fiction (that is, fiction by authors who have been there). I thought of Kingsolver’s “The Poisonwood Bible” (was ever a greater cautionary tale about missionary work written?) and Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” (whether you consider it a racist text or not, it remains a must-read).

These texts provided subtext to help me understand what the radio show was explaining was ongoing in the Congo. Coupled with myriad post-Colonial readings, from Achebe to VS Naipaul, exposure to other texts helps flesh out understanding of, or thoughts about, what may sadly be continuing to transpire in the Heart of Africa today. As my fellow composers recently said, sometimes younger writers find they don’t have much to say for want of more life experience. Reading reporting from around the globe — especially good reporting — should broaden their worlds, minds and horizons and, hopefully, give them something to say.

Writing is all right, alright, all write and, with a nod 

to Doug E. Fresh, i-ight.

In other words, it is everything.

Kelly Gallagher’s text is chock full of useful, fun and engaging activities for the classroom. I can envision using many of them to help students move ever closer toward mastery in writing. But beyond such great little nuggets he suggests — from the six-word memoirs (My own at this moment: Striving hard for a better future OR Racing between home, school, work, baby) to interpreting aphorisms — I realized that Gallagher also makes the case as to why schools need people like me. He emphasizes the dire need to communicate “clearly and quickly” in today’s society, but notes the myriad ways in which we are failing students in equipping them to this end. It seems almost like writing is at a crossroads and starting to gain the attention reading commanded in schools a few years back. This notion excites me, as while I believe reading and writing are inextricably linked, it is ultimately writing that will help land that job/grant/admission to college/refund from WalMart/etc. Reading is necessary in its own way, but being able to communicate effectively through writing is empowering on a whole other level.

Thick skin

Last week’s discussion and “FAQ on Grading and Assessment” got me thinking about the models used to review writing in schools.

An important point was made in class regarding the peer workshop model and how it cam be problematic among students who are reticent to critique one another –especially when compounded by popularity contests and introverted vs. extroverted personalities. I think offering sentence starters is helpful (i.e. “I like how you…” and “One area I thought could be stronger was…”), but I agree that ultimately many students are looking to an authority figure (i.e., the teacher) for feedback.

Regardless of who is doing the grading, critiquing, editing, whatever you wish to call the feedback, writing can be hard to assess in abstract. What makes an 87 versus an 89, especially in an assignment such as a personal essay? Numbers, especially when it comes to the personal essay-type of writing, start to seem arbitrary in relation to one another, regardless of any “rubric.”

Some writing sings. Other writing sucks. We are not all good at all genres, not all master storytellers and speechwriters alike. It would beg to reason, then, that some students will thrive in poetry units while they might fail miserably at writing research papers. Some inevitably do well in all forms. But in regard to writing and assessment, I find it hard to be the judge when it comes to certain writing, even as it is part of my job to do so. Perhaps it is the writer in me, who believes there is always room to improve, always a chance for revision. I always believe in offering chances to improve and think a key part of learning to write is understanding how to self edit. In the end, by re-examining our own writing, we realize things we are strong at and spot offences we repeatedly commit. For my students, writing assignments might always be works in progress, with chances to improve the initial grade at any time, should students choose to revise.

Three burning questions on writing

With a tip of the pencil to classmate Keith and Natalie “Writing Down the Bones” Goldberg:

(1.) Is to suffer to write (or to be creative, for that matter)? Is this the First Noble Truth of those who mine intellectual or artistic domains? What do we make of the many greats who met tragic ends? And does some measure of one’s greatness reflect the degree to which that person is tormented? See Ernest Hemingway, Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf, Primo Levy et. al…And for everyone else: How do you come to terms with falling short of said greatness? How best to confront the grim reality that we may never rise to those unattainable heights to which many aspired when they were young and naive?

(2.) Must you have lived a lot to write well? And by lived a lot, do we quantify that in years lived, or the manner in which one has lived? I am not the same woman I was two years ago, nor the girl I was two years before that. In that vein, does the mere act of living longer and maturing make us better thinkers and, therefore, better writers than we were a year, or a decade, ago? How does that translate when considering authors like Zadie Smith, who managed to masterfully craft a fantastic first novel at an impossibly young age?

(3.) Can you take the “i” out of writing? That is, is writing an ego-driven activity? Is it possible to truly remove oneself from the writing process and still be effective, or is engaging one’s ego part and parcel of the task of composing? Why *do* people really write?

Jonesing for Poetic Justice

Janet Jackson and the late Tupac Shakur in the 1993 film “Poetic Justice”

It is at once powerful and intimidating, this organizing of words and ideas artfully. What makes poetry so alternately loved and flabbergasting? Perhaps it is its intimacy, its primal way of cutting through verbiage to deliver pure emotion or sentiment, whether love or loss, shame or pride. Or maybe the at-arm’s-length attitude it engenders lies in all those fancy phrases and the exacting, tedious idea of writing to fit a certain rhyme scheme or syllabic pattern (though not a requisite). Whatever the reason, poetry seems to either speak deeply to people, or to turn them off.

Before listening to Jack Powers, I spent a couple days considering what made poetry so mystifying to many, myself included. Like most, I appreciate some works, while others cause my eyes to glaze over. What separates the good from the bad? When I first contemplated this question, I felt ill-equipped to answer it. After all, I am no poet. But in the end, good writing is good writing, whether it is an essay or a novel or a poem. In this spirit, I figured it best not to build this figurative wall around the genre of poetry. Knowing that what tantalizes one reader turns off others, I considered those qualities that transform simple lines and verse into something more powerful according to my own tastes. So, what is good poetry? To me, it has immediacy, poignancy, and almost a distilled intensity that other forms of writing dilute with excess words. After reading Fletcher (with polite apologies) I came away with a sense of where poetry walks the line between transcendent and terrible. It is a good way to organize thoughts, to get feelings out. But if we fail to push to that next level of reflection or examination, poetry falls flat, bordering on mawkish or trite (see “Weeds” p. 80 or “Divorce” p. 100, though I acknowledge Fletcher’s intent was not to publish polished poetry but to show by example the writer’s notebook).

And so, to me, good poetry also demands revision and precision. During one of the activities Jack led, I started down a path I never considered writing as a poem. I reflected on an unsettling episode I experienced as a cub reporter during a college internship in my late teens, one in which a revered baseball coach said some rather uncouth things unbecoming anyone who works with kids. In light of the Penn State scandal, it made me think about my own response and role in this episode. Our short composing time only allowed me to get a brief outpouring of memories and associated words on the page. But in order for that work to be truly reflective in its essence and really rise to the richer level of good poetry – of having something to say – I knew revisions would need to examine the treacherous minefields of complicity and responsibility and youthful ignorance.

But back to the idea – and film – “Poetic Justice.” I love them both in every sense. Tupac was a magnificent thinker and craftsman in stringing together thoughts and phrases. Sure, he had shortcomings, but in his music he buried gems. A random line or two tossed into one of his songs could prove more profound than other artists’ entire bodies of work. And paired with Miss Jackson, with doses of Maya Angelou interspersed, this film from my younger days brings me back to that broader idea of what makes any work of creativity good: It resonates. Like “Poetic Justice,” and like “Love Jones” (which my classmate, Will, artfully evoked with his reading and Coltrane’s “In a Sentimental Mood” a week ago … Alas, I must digress from my digression here, since that song alone made me sentimental for images of Nia Long and Larenz Tate on screen, pulled together and apart and circling one another like planets on some spiraling orbit propelled by passion and poetry) these works illuminate the human condition. And that is what good poetry – or films, or novels, or short stories – really are: relatable works that tug at something deep within, connecting you and/or audiences to what it truly means to be alive.

Can I put all that in iambic tetrameter? Not now. But maybe one day I’ll try. Because on top of everything I just said, like life itself, poetry can be a challenge and a game – one that takes a lifetime to become proficient at. I’m not sure we ever become masters. But a lucky few – the Coltranes, the Angelous, the Tupacs, the Lord Byrons, the Sylvia Plaths, the Pablo Nerudas and others — come damn close.

Size (and shape, and material) matters

The book I’ve spent the past several days paging through spans 312 pages, yet measures only about 2-1/2-by-3-inches. Its diminutive size but heady content got me thinking: the format or delivery or writing matters. I could tuck this book barely approaching the size of a deck of cards in my coat pocket and oh-so-conveniently pull it out in random places. Waiting for my car’s oil change, sitting over lunch at work, the book fit well into the rhythm and geometry of a life already packed to each right angle with gobs of stuff and ideas.

A sense of accomplishment swept over me with the completion of each miniature chapter. They went so fast, those tiny pages with a few sentences of smaller-than-traditional text. I wondered whether I would have felt the reading went as breezily if the book came in its standard shape and dimensions. I doubt it. The unusual delivery made reading it a novelty, much like I suspect people who read Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” feel a sense of mastery over form, even if they dislike the content of the epic novel itself.

As much as I hate to admit it, there must be positive attributes to the delivery of writing through other more modern and screen-involving means, like the either loathed or loved e-readers or tablets. And yet again, the pint-sized format proves mighty, with that book I have been reading for class also closely resembling an iPhone in its size. I suppose anyone reading on the Apple gadget would find that experience novel, and convenient, too. Maybe one day this Luddite dinosaur will give it a go…

Your Brain on Words

Your writing brain

This is your brain on words.

Regrettably, it has taken me several weeks to summon the brainpower to post my first blog entry. Like any writer worth the title, I fit the bill as someone whose work consists of 90 percent procrastination, 10 percent perspiration.

In all seriousness, I spent many hours wondering why this format proved such an intimidating challenge. Though I’m not sure I’ve arrived at a complete answer, my procrastination allowed me to arrive at two partial conclusions. First, all of our recent readings, from Fletcher to Gallagher, mention how important it is for those who aspire to be decent writers to, well, write. Practice, practice, practice, as they say. As someone who spends the bulk of my day — all day, every day — thinking about and participating in the composition process, I am spent by the time the work day is done. Writing involves a lot of psychic energy. And by the end of the day, I am zapped, with little juice left for any personal efforts at the craft. So, this is your brain on writing. Or, at least my brain on writing. Any questions?

Welcome writers (and readers)!

This blog explores and offers appreciations for all aspects of (the) writing life. Poetry, political essays, purple graffiti on the side of a subway –  this is a place that appreciates all modes of communication as long as they contain something clever or resonant.

Here you will find one daily newspaper journalist’s take on the craft and pain involved in the writing process. Join me in celebrating and contemplating examples of the way words connect people to the world around them.