Are English courses becoming too roundabout?
English is my second language, so I have a special appreciation for English courses. I take excellence in writing very seriously. It’s the stuff I’m not supposed to be good at that I want to be good at – math because I’m female, science because I’m creative, English because I’m an immigrant. I’m a bit pigheaded in that way.
If I get asked to write a 3-4 page paper, I write a five page paper and make the text slightly smaller for it to fit four pages. Additionally, I go above and beyond with vocabulary, create an easily-readable structure and insist on arresting descriptions. (If my descriptions don’t send you to jail, we’ve got a problem.) I love writing: I love creative writing and I love research papers. I love any opportunity where I can construct something from the ground up that can represent me and my abilities. So it’s not like me to complain about a writing assignment. I am taking an English course right now, and even though I’m a very active participant in the class, there is something that’s starting to bother me. It goes something like:
Okay, class! Let’s write a summary of this summary.
That was the lecture I had today: A rhetorical précis of an article that summarized a researcher’s findings. I guess the first problem I have is solely with structured concepts like the rhetorical précis (RP). Writing should have structure – but not a predefined one. I think the RP has GREAT value for people who know nothing about summarizing, and it could even be a great reference – but teaching writing through structure is a beginning stage. This is not a beginning English composition course. At one point you have to take the training wheels off and you have to write a summary that fits the situation best. The RP is four sentences long. It’s quite effective if you use it for a short news article, but it gets wordy and the structure is strained when you try to summarize a 12-page editorial and still include everything the RP requires. Brevity is a strength only when it is efficient. I joked in class today that we would keep summarizing the summary à la Inception. Someone else commented that we would end up with a single word: Summary.
The study of rhetoric is important, but the approach is misguided. I guess they are hopeful one day every American will know what a straw man argument is and nothing more. To me writing is one of the few infinite fields. I think the expectations are too small when you simply focus on arguments and rhetoric. Rhetoric-focused English courses also produce situations where handouts are given to students with “good words to use in Situation A or B”. English possibly has more words than any other language. By the way, these lists of words are not vocabulary words that one might overlook or need to learn. They are rhetoric words: The author (states, argues, implies) this. What if I want to say the author impugned the argument of his rival? Nope. I need to stick to a list of words and follow the RP structure. The end result? Something I’m not proud to have written.
Ultimately – the meta-summaries become ridiculous.
Writing without a purpose makes even someone like me not love their work. Not even like it. Actually, I kind of hate it. I’m not producing anything valuable. I’m rehashing summary techniques and treating the written word like legos. The end result isn’t allowed to be a multi-colored palazzo of awesome. It’s a simple square wall with clear defined edges, in a drab slate blue. It’s the same one over and over.
Just for kicks:
In her blog post titled “Are English courses becoming too roundabout?” (2011), Noemi Titarenco argues that her English course is roundabout. She supports her claim by showing the circular logic of summarizing summaries, how her soul dies when she has to summarize summaries, and by summarizing her own blog post to prove a point. Her purpose is to convince readers that free-reign in writing should be an essential part of an advanced English composition course in a playful and sometimes dark-humored way in order to relieve the stress of her daily life and perhaps influence the web in a miniscule way. Her intended audience seems to be people who are trying to avoid work or school by perusing through Facebook or Google Reader.
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Have something to say about this post? Contact me.LACMA was a success!
I had an awesome day driving around through East LA trying to find my way to LACMA. Once we got there and found parking, the fun really started. For starters we saw the La Brea Tar Pits and marveled at the bubbling up and the tarry smell. In LACMA, we perused quickly through Korean Art – we were looking for the good stuff, AKA Art of the Ancient world. There we marveled at stuff over 6000 years old, cuneiform tablets, stamps, and detailed relief carvings. We looked through some early renaissance stuff, noting how they did not yet perfect perspective and fore-shortening. We then looked at Islamic art, the Five Car Stud installation (creepy doesn’t even begin to explain it), some Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo and other Latin American artists. Later we quickly saw some early meso-American art. We were already super tired by this time. We picked up some really neat solid graphite pencils from the gift shop, and looked at the tar pits more before we had to leave. We missed out on Modern Art and Japanese Art. There’s always next time!
Best moment: When me and David were looking at Abraham van Beyeren’s Banquet Still Life, I mentioned how it symbolized death because the fruits were eaten in the still life, and how it was a reaction to previous still life paintings, and a bunch of other boring stuff I learned in Art History. A dude BURST into the conversation and said it wasn’t a still life because it had a mouse in it. Long Story Short:
I don’t like this setup.
It’s mildly better now. I removed the slidey keyboard thing from my desk. My chair/legs doesn’t knock into my desk constantly anymore.
I also went back to using my Apple keyboard. It’s still frustrating to work on here though. If I get a monitor I don’t know how I’m going to organize everything. Especially since my laptop needs to be able to open for me to turn my computer on and off, though I could just constantly sleep it.
Although this is one of the first times my Cintiq is at a good height/angle for drawing.
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Thoughts on Salvation Army
Thrift stores remind me of growing up. The excitement of going to Goodwill, the smell of second-hand clothes, the humidity of morning yard sales, the redundancy of mass-produced clocks, the excitement of something you want but don’t need.
It felt like walking into early 90′s America – pants of every color, excessive duck-themed decor, clunky kitchen tools. I’m not one of those people that misses the decade when I grew up. I don’t miss the TV shows or the toys or anything. I appreciate the feelings I get when I walk through a mini-museum like a second-hand store, but I guess I’ve always looked to the future and rarely thought of the misadventures of my childhood. Good riddance.
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Born on a March day
One of the reasons I really wanted to come to Romania in the spring is because of the Mărțișor which takes place on March 1st. It builds up during the last week of February with vendors making shop in the busy streets of Romanian cities selling mărțișoare. Archaeological finds date this holiday to over 8,000 years old and some historians say it has a Roman origin. But more importantly, this was my favorite celebration when I was a kid. The colors are white and red – my favorite colors – and the point? Give little talisman gifts to everyone you love.
The above picture was taken on Valentine’s Day and was the first sign of the Mărțișor. Things got more and more hectic as March 1st approached. Everything was wrapped in red and white. You couldn’t pass a busy street without smelling some zambile or having a talisman vendor say “Spune!” (speak, which is a really demanding thing to say, and my first instinct is to say something. So I say like, “Oh I’m looking!” and then they give me a smart comment like: “Keep looking. Looking is free.“)
One of the difficult challenges is to find hand-made talismans. Many of them, for many years, are basically cheap imported plastic trinkets. This isn’t always bad. There is a sort of farmec (charm) to these trinkets. For one, a lot of them are brought from China, some from India, some even from Ireland. It’s as if all the world’s good luck charms find their way to Romania during March. There are jade elephants, golden frogs, asian cat figurines, coins from a variety of countries, beads from Africa, Shells from the nearby river and handmade trinkets made by Romanians. If you collect mărțișoare, then having various shapes, sizes, and colors will add some interest to your collection, even if they’re not handmade. I ended up finding several vendors that made truly work-of-art type talismans. I bought one for 30 RON (which is a lot relative to prices for other talismans) for a hand-shaped clay bouquet of flowers for my grandmother. The artist that made it has a website, ioniart.ro, but it’s under construction right now.
Although I already mentioned Zambile, the ghiocel, or snowdrop is also an important flower for the Mărțișor celebration. These flowers were selling even in early february. They are not particularly fantastic flowers, since they are pretty small. A bouquet is short and lightweight, and the flower doesn’t even open upward. At first I didn’t really see the point of selling them for 1 RON on the street. They are not the kind of flower you give to someone on Valentines Day or their birthday or for any special occasion. I really underestimated how much Romanians just like having flowers in their homes. There is strong symbolism to the snowdrop and it’s association with spring – but the main motivator for Romanians that buy tiny little Snowdrop bouquets? “It’s just nice.”
And it is. As I was walking around looking for something to catch my eye on March first, I remembered that my mom used to make these talismans and sell them – 21 years ago. She was pregnant with me and found time and energy to stand out in the cold to make an extra buck (I mean, leu). While I was daydreaming about this, a vendor a while back started screaming “St. Nicholas is dead! Spring is coming!” I had never heard this before, but it made me smile. It’s both traumatizing and endearing.
March isn’t over and International Woman’s Day (March 8) was just another reason to bring out the flowers and gifts. Some people wear their talismans all throughout March I’m told. Every gift given in March is wrapped in red and white string. White symbolizes winter’s hold on us, and red symbolizes the inevitable spring.
One of the myths surrounding the Mărțișor goes like this:
Have something to say about this post? Contact me.Spring (personified) walked into a snowy forest and saw a snowdrop, covered in snow, struggling to live. Immediately, Spring parted the snow away with her hands. When Winter (personified) saw this, she got angry and sent wind and cold toward the snowdrop: it froze instantly. Spring, distraught, tried to protect the snowdrop with her hands, which where cut on the ice that Winter sent. Her hands were cut, and started bleeding, the hot red blood fell on the snowdrop and melted the ice, allowing it to survive, and thus, Spring conquered Winter.