Some Principles for a Classical Writing Program
Over the summer, as I worked to prepare for this school year, I spent a considerable amount of time thinking about our writing program, and its integration with the contents of our curriculum. In doing so, I had a sense that I was addressing the heart of our program. I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that the success of a classical school hinges on the success of its writing program, as it is the integrative component drawing together all the disparate modes of knowledge imparted to students. It is the primary means through which their powers of comprehension are exercised, enhanced, and assessed. As Hugh Blair, the 18th century rhetorician, wrote, “when we are employed in the study of composition (or writing), we are cultivating reason itself. The study of arranging and expressing our thoughts with propriety, teaches to think, as well as to speak, accurately. By putting our sentiments into words, we always conceive them more distinctly.”
The centrality accorded to writing instruction was actually one of the key elements that drew me to classical education. For years, working in standard schools, I witnessed a steady decline in students’ writing ability. It was a commonly observed phenomenon among the faculty. It became clear to me that only comprehensive instruction in all the elements of writing, from sentence formation to logical sequence, could address the kinds of deficits we were seeing. Classical educators deserve credit for many things, but none more so than in their recognition of the need for this kind of instruction.
The work I did on our writing program this summer, then, was filled with joy and a sense of purpose. And it allowed me to muse over the shape of an ideal writing program. Here are some of the principles that have come to mind as I have reflected on this topic:
1. Play and Poetry: When I studied literature in college, I more than once encountered the notion that poetry was the most architectonic form of writing, encompassing all the other modes of writing. The fact that the earliest surviving examples of writing from various world cultures are poetic seemed to confirm this claim. Certainly, poetry is the mode of writing that exploits the widest range of linguistic resources, and in this sense appears to represent a sort of apex or culmination of literary art.
Yet when I went into teaching literature, I found that the primacy of poetry was replaced by the primacy of the essay. It was the discursive mode that dominated instruction, rather than the aesthetic. With this shift came a corresponding emphasis on clarity as the over-riding virtue of student writing, rather than inventiveness, vibrancy, or a power to engage. I think a great deal of the anxiety that teachers commonly observe in their students in relation to the task of writing stems from the fact that this task is typically presented as a mode of rule-following, rather than a mode of mental play and invention.
A proper writing program, to my mind, would approach the teaching of writing exactly as we approach the study of writing, with a conviction in the primacy of the poetic, and the aesthetic drives towards beauty and creation embedded in the poetic. From their earliest years, students would learn to associate the task of writing with the expansive energies of the mind, creating imaginary dialogues or composing letters in assumed fictional and non-fictional voices; experimenting with the whole range of tropes and figures available to a writer, and yes, developing a familiarity and adeptness with various forms of poetry. By the time that they are asked to compose in the more rule-governed modes of discursive writing, later in their academic careers, the hope is that they continue to approach the task with the same brio and ingenuity that was inculcated in them earlier in their development as writers.
2. The Power of Invention: Classical rhetoric taught the art of composition under five main canons, namely invention, arrangement, style, memorization, and delivery. But it is clear to anyone who has studied the practical task of writing that the first of these canons has an importance out of all proportion to the subsequent four. There are many writers inscribed in the canon who are hard to follow due to an imperfect presentation of their ideas, or who present those ideas in a drab or bombastic style. There are none entirely devoid of matter. The power to invent, to generate substance and its appropriate stylistic presentation, is almost synonymous with competency as a writer.
It just so happens, of course, that this is the stage of the writing process that gives students the greatest fits. We have all seen them sitting in our classes, staring furiously at the empty sheet in front of them (with occasional glances – red with the same indignation – cast at the instructor sitting insouciantly nearby), straining their Brocca’s area to wring a drop or two of thought onto the paper. By focusing our attention on this first stage of the composition process, we are not only emphasizing the decisive skill involved in excellent writing, we are aiding students in the exercise of the skill they find the most onerous and intimidating.
The key to effective writing instruction then is to ensure that all the elements of writing are taught under their generative aspect. Francis Christensen famously promoted the idea of what he termed the “generative rhetoric of the sentence” which, in his words, rests on a conviction that “composition is essentially a process of addition,” so that the “mere form of the sentence generates ideas.” The principle which Christensen uses here in the presentation of grammatical or syntactic elements can be extended to the entirety of writing instruction: even the rhetorical and logical concepts presented to students have their value insofar as they enhance their ability to say more – to explore the ramifications and underpinnings of their assertions, to specify the application of their thoughts through all the varieties of evidence, to multiply the persuasive effects of their appeals. The overarching goal of instruction is to impart to the students’ minds a bent towards fecundity, towards abundance – towards invention. In this way, instruction in writing becomes instruction in thinking.
3. Things, Not Words: Jacques Barzun noted a pattern to movements of educational reform in the modern world. Repeatedly, he claimed, reformers sought to break free of moribund and stultifying formalisms, aiming to equip their students with a real power to reason fruitfully about their experience, rather than a mere habit of reciting empty formulas in the place of wisdom. “Things, not words,” was their recurrent refrain.
Far be it from me to depart from tradition. I likewise believe that a proper writing program is marked by an orientation towards the things of the world. In this context, what I am objecting to is the near universal tendency of academic writing to be writing about other writing. From very early on in their formal education, students are asked to employ their words in the interpretation and assessment of someone else’s words. “Words, not things” would make a fair slogan for most writing instruction.
Such an approach is not classical. In classical praxis, the reading of an elegy was not followed by an essay about the elegy; it was followed by the composition of an elegy. The study of a famous oration was not assessed through a rhetorical analysis of the oration; it was assessed by asking the students to recreate the rhetorical effects they studied in an oration of their own composition. Texts were presented as subjects of emulation, not analysis.
The consequence of this is that students had the same opportunity to write about love, and devotion, and heart-ache, and wonder as the authors they studied. Things, not words. Our students should be afforded the same opportunity. Only by allowing them to exercise their powers of articulation upon the common patterns of human experience will they come to appreciate the value of writing and speaking as a means of ascertaining meaning in those patterns.
4. There is No Such Thing as Creative Writing: To my mind, one of the most unfortunate developments to occur in secondary literary instruction in recent times has been the increased popularity of creative writing courses. This is partly due to the extremely dubious ethos that typically underlies the instruction in such courses: an ethos of standardless self-expression.
But the greater evil of these courses is that they seem to institutionalize a strict division between discursive modes of writing and the drive towards invention. It has effectively provided a rationale for English Teachers to eliminate assignments of a narrative or poetic nature from their classes, and to compel their students to labor solely in the genre of the analytical essay. What wonder if students almost unanimously come to regard the task of writing as perfectly tedious.
In truth, the cultivation of the creative drive should not be the exclusive labor of those who find their names on the roster of creative writing courses. It is the common labor of all students. It was once the general expectation of an educated person that he could compose a competent sonnet for his friends, or speak with moderate eloquence on the topic of the day. It should be the expectation again, and it should be the duty of all teachers in the humanities – not only the creative writing teacher – to equip students to meet that expectation.
The obvious expedient for cultivating students’ powers of invention is to regularly invite them to compose their own poems, dialogues, and stories. But beyond this expedient, it is advisable to conjoin their discursive assignments with some creative element, in order to stimulate the mental momentum required for sequential thought through the arousal of more playful and expansive energies. Over the years, I have found that when I mix literary analysis with an element of creativity, the students’ analysis improves and they produce far more readable work than would be the case with a strictly analytical essay. I have asked them to write in the voice of Elizabeth Proctor as she pens a letter to her grandchildren, extolling the character of their martyred grandfather. I have asked them to assume the voice of a selected historical figure in a public address employing the three rhetorical appeals. Through assignments such as these, I have tried to ensure that my students’ inventive drives receive regular exercise in my class.
5. The Sentence is King: Think about an author you consider truly excellent. If you were trying to convince a friend of this author’s excellence, how would you go about doing so? Most likely, you would begin by culling certain distinctive sentences from his or her writing, and inviting your friend to appreciate their quality. It is in the manner of sentence construction that a writer’s particular vision of things is embodied, in the way that verb and noun, participle and clause, reveal the special understanding of an author’s mind. And it is in a mastery of these elements that a developing writer will best acquire the ability to make him or herself known and convincing.
When teachers find a student’s writing particularly problematic, it is almost always because of issues that manifest themselves at sentence level – a lack of coherence between noun and verb, faults of tense or of voice, a dearth of subordination resulting in hazy thought. As a result, an increasing command of the components of sentence construction will help most students to address the deficits in their writing. Consistent and systematic instruction in these components is the best way to introduce force into the prose of our students.
I do not mean to entirely discount the usefulness of instruction in paragraph writing, but I do have a sense that too much time and effort is spent on such instruction, and that the formulaic patterns typically relied on for such instruction go very little way towards forming independent and competent writers. I am not entirely convinced that a paragraph is a logical, as opposed to a merely typographical, unit. Once students acquire the ability to construct meaningful sentences, the task of arranging them into coherent sections – with due expansion conducted in the course of arranging – will become far easier. But the command of the sentence must come first.
The copying of model sentences, the parsing and diagramming of their structure, the transformation of root sentences using a range of grammatical elements, the collective revision and improvement of sample sentences – these are the kinds of activities that ought to occupy students on a regular basis. Through such exercises, they will imbibe an instinctive feel for the texture of an English sentence, and acquire the facility that presents its structure as a ready instrument of expression.