Thanks, tsuwm! I don't read the NYT near as much as I should.
Here are some letters to the editor:
What You Write, How You Write It
Published: June 3, 2005
To the Editor:
In "Devoid of Content" (Op-Ed, May 31), Stanley Fish says that American students need to become explicitly aware of the functions of form in writing. I have to disagree, though, with his main point - that form trumps content.
Sentence form is not as free from content as Mr. Fish would have us believe. He says he gave students the words "coffee, should, book, garbage and quickly" and asked them to write sentences using those words. But had the words been "function, limit, derivative, slope, secant, rate, average and ratio," I doubt he would have seen the same result.
The words in my collection, when used mathematically, are highly constrained in the ways they can be put together sensibly. One must know what the words mean in order to find ways to relate them.
While my example could be seen as a trivial riposte to Mr. Fish's claim, I would hope he sees it as arguing that when actually writing to communicate, form and content are equally important.
Patrick W. Thompson
Nashville, May 31, 2005
The writer is a professor of mathematics education at Vanderbilt University.
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To the Editor:
As a writing teacher whose method is to have students engage in personally and socially meaningful topics, and to write about these topics in full, drafted and revised essays, I am as concerned as anyone about students' difficulties with writing effective, clear prose. But I have had no luck with the formal teaching of form.
Students are able and willing to attend to issues of readability and surface error only when they have written something that is of enough value to make the arduous task of making it readable worth the effort.
Emily Isaacs
Montclair, N.J., May 31, 2005
The writer is director of first-year writing, Montclair State University.
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To the Editor:
Stanley Fish's assignment - asking students to create their own language - is brilliant! At last an educator who gets students to think about language.
I did not figure out English grammar until I taught myself Swedish during a year abroad in college. I see the same "aha!" moments in my students who learn a second or third language.
Sometimes a student needs to step outside her own conventions to see that she was trapped by them in the first place. And when she understands the logic behind the rules and conventions, she is no longer trapped, but freed.
Karla Spletzer
Boulder, Colo., May 31, 2005
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To the Editor:
As a father of three teachers and a longtime advocate of teaching sentence diagramming as a prerequisite to proper writing, a subject I was taught in sixth grade in 1922, I was pleased to read that someone understands the problem that faces our country.
When will our educators wake up?
Francis L. Fahy
Trumbull, Conn., May 31, 2005
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To the Editor:
Stanley Fish points out that we have been brainwashed into believing that content is paramount to form. Furthermore, we have been given technological crutches through computer spelling checkers and grammar programs to support this mistaken belief.
I am routinely appalled by writing that is not edited for correct syntax beyond these computerized quick fixes. The result is something that at best sounds unprofessional and at worst is incoherent.
Drew Lebkuecher
Washington, May 31, 2005
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To the Editor:
If we want students to learn the form of language, we should require that they take two years or more of ancient Greek or Latin.
Scores of students to whom I've taught ancient Greek have told me they not only learned the form of English for the first time through studying Greek, but also learned to read English with a more critical and discerning eye. Latin can achieve the same end.
When one learns Greek and Latin, form comes first, but then, following form, comes content, sublime and concise.
Michael Simpson
Dallas, May 31, 2005
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To the Editor:
Employers looking for copy editors should look for college grads who took Stanley Fish's composition class and hire them quickly.
His students will be able to untangle other people's sentences - preferably sentences that are written in their own made-up languages but maybe in English as well. And his students won't ask any uncomfortable questions because they will not care what the language means or what it may do to other people.
We learn what we are taught. What Stanley Fish teaches isn't writing.
Deborah Brandt
Madison, Wis., May 31, 2005
The writer is an English professor at the University of Wisconsin.
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To the Editor:
Yes, writing clean English sentences is a learned craft. And like any other craft, it requires practice and guidance. But what student, confronted with contemporary popular artists of all stripes, wants to be a craftsperson?
As long as artistry is perceived as celebrity, and not the embodiment of art, the acquisition of skills is less necessary than an ability to generate clever ideas.
Yet artistry is more likely to arise from craft than craft is to arise from artistry. As I've told my students, "You can't deconstruct before you learn how to construct."
Mark Rosenblatt
Brooklyn, May 31, 2005
