Language Investigation #2

The five-paragraph-essay. I have been trying to escape this writer’s trap for most of my adult life. For some, it’s like a black hole that consumes creative capacity. It captured and consumed me until I reached my later years of high school. I blame the five-paragraph essay for many of my writing woes because it disabled me from thinking outside the box.

In elementary and middle school, it was like if you set foot out of the five-paragraph essay form, the entire world was going to topple down on you. Not a toe could walk the line between a fifth and sixth paragraph for fear of upsetting the predetermined balance of your writing. It had to be five: Intro, Body, Body, Body, Conclusion. Like clockwork.

What I find even more constricting than the five-paragraph essay is the thesis statement. I was first introduced to “topic sentences” in my early years of elementary school. I was told to fold a piece of paper into three partsand label each section: Topic Sentences, Supporting Sentences, and Ending Sentence. Each of these categories had its own heading with a colored indicator made to resemble a traffic light (green, yellow, red) in the left hand margin. The class would then proceed to pick apart a given paragraph and copy the sentences in the appropriate place. It doesn’t get more structured than that.

In high school, the “topic sentences” morphed into a “thesis statement.” After hearing the word “thesis” for the first time in my freshmen composition class, I went home and asked what a “thesis” was, honestly thinking it sounded like some sort of nasty disease. Little did I know that it would turn out to be synonymous with the nasty disease as I first suspected. After my parents explained what it was, a wash of dread overcame my brain and my writing hand: topic sentence. Green, yellow and red traffic lights and tri-fold pieces of lined paper invaded my thoughts and consumed my daydreams. Not this again, I thought.

Then, in my AP Language class, I took a risk; I wrote a sixth paragraph, then a seventh and an eighth. Before I knew it, I was breaking the law. I was running topic sentence traffic lights left and right. When I loosened the writing noose around my neck, writing became fun. Without being confined to a five-paragraph box, I was free to add as much as I wanted wherever and whenever I felt the need. I wish some of my other classmates were so lucky.

My dorm roommate last year would always ask for me to proofread her papers. Before I would consent, I would ask her how long it was, implying that I wanted her to tell me how many paragraphs there were. The answer was always the same: five. In not-so-dramatic terms, I would explain to her the damage she was inflicting on herself: How can her ideas be completely formed if every paragraph is between three and five sentences within a five-paragraph structure? How did she make it this far without ever breaking the chains and tasting freedom? She would explain that she simply was incapable of writing beyond five paragraphs, each containing three to five sentences. Oh, the humanity!

My real run-in with the structure law was when I started working for the local newspaper, The Greeley Tribune. It was my senior year of high school and I had two AP English classes under my belt; I thought I knew the ins and outs of writing because I had figured out the weakness of the five-paragraph essay. I was in for a shock. I sat down and wrote my first piece (an editorial) and took it to my supervising editor to proofread. The first thing she did was split up my eight paragraph piece into even smaller paragraphs. “In the newspaper business,” she said, “people don’t like big chunks of text; they want to skim it and get the vital information from it, not read every little bit of poetic prose you so thoughtfully included.” Ok, I get it: the smaller paragraphs make it easier to read, which is understandable. She then started finding synonyms for some of my “elevated” language I had originally used. “The general populace reading our newspaper has an average reading level of about the seventh grade. We need to make the news accessible to everyone.” Seventh grade reading level? Stretching the five-paragraph structure to include at least twice that many? Unheard of! But true.

As if the seventh grade reading level of the general populace of Greeley, CO isn’t shocking enough, I think the most surprising part of the story is that five-paragraph essays are impractical. It won’t help you in college and it definitely won’t help you in the workplace. It may have been appropriate at one time in our lives (elementary and middle school), but the incessant drilling of the five-paragraph essay as an ideal writing structure is worthless and obsolete to us that this point. So go ahead, run as many traffic light as you wish and write that sixth paragraph; the Topic Sentence Law Enforcement can’t stop you now.

Language Investigation #1

I try to speak well and as consistently as possible, so when the prompt asked me how my language differs from one community to another, I didn’t really know what to say. Besides the fact that I have a collection of "colorful" words that I like to use on a regular basis (the censoring process is a current work in progress), my everyday language does not fluctuate often. The only difference I can think of is that I swear less at work and at church, and I use more slang around my peers. I think I speak “normally”, which I know isn’t the truth, but I can’t tell a difference. As I my identity has become more stable; I don’t feel the need to speak a certain way when I am around certain people. However, if someone were to observe me and follow me around all day, this probably would not be the case. I think speaking Standard English most of the time gives people the impression that I am an individual that needs to b taken seriously and that the way my words sound as they leave my lips should be a priority, especially when it means making a good impression.

When I got to college, I noticed a subtle difference in the way I spoke. I was utilizing an expanded vocabulary around people I met at CSU that I wouldn’t use around my high school friends. It was as if I was trying to impress them, like I was proving that I deserved to be at a university because I have control over the way I speak. Maybe I just sounded pompous, but I don’t think there was anything wrong with challenging myself to not use slang and experimenting with language in an everyday setting. In doing so, I also tried to eliminate bad speech habits, like by saying “like” every other word.

I should also state here that when I text, I keep abbreviations to a minimum, especially after I changed my major to English Education. How could I be an English teacher and slip into the bad habit of texting using bad grammar? I try to use correct spelling and punctuation within texts as often as possible, with only a handful of exceptions: bc (because), lol ((duh), and names of my classes (lit crit = literary critism, brit lit = British literature, ed = education) I only use these abbreviations because I feel that they are self-explanatory for those that know my “style” of texting, just as they know if I am being sarcastic, or bummed out, or pissed off, or any other emotion I may be feeling. And many of my friends can tell my mood from the way I text! Interesting… or just plain dumb? We shall soon see…

My parents, on the other hand, are from a small farming community in South Dakota. My parents speak fairly normally, with the exception of long “o” sounds that occasionally slip into the Scandinavian dialect that most northern mid-westerners are notorious for. (I know you are all thinking “Fargo” but that is just an exaggeration. In real life it is much more subtle, but gets thicker the farther north you go.) When we go back to their hometown, it’s another story. The “o” is obnoxiously amplified and they tend to use a lot of double negatives (“ain’t got no…”, or “don’t need no…”). Obviously, the “o” sound can be attributed to the area, but the double negatives could come from a multitude of things. Since it is a farming community, maybe they feel the need to speak like a stereotypical farmer would. ??? It drives me nuts, but I understand the need to speak a certain way around the people they grew up with in the community they are familiar with.

So there you have it: why I speak the way I do whether I recognize it or not.

Memory Vignette

Based on the form of Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried

I didn’t get it. And I wouldn’t get it until years later. What is the point of long division? When will I ever have to use logarithms? Who cares what the hypotenuse of a triangle is? Knowing math makes you seem smart, lets you have more opportunities later on in life. My sister gets it; I mean, we were born in the same family, so why hasn’t the math button “clicked” for me? Math is another language, literally. It almost seems as if those who know it are bilingual if they are “fluent” enough. Being fluent in any language opens the door to so many more opportunities, so what is to become of me as an “illiterate” English teacher?
But I’m going to be an English teacher, so why do I care? Well, math is a multitude of things, even though I want deny the fact that it will affect my everyday life. Math is technology. Math is job security. Math is, well, the future. Math is our children’s future. If you aren’t good at it, then what will become of you? Obsolete? Discontinued?
Practice is supposed to make you better at it. I’ve tried that. I’ve asked questions, I’ve done my homework, I’ve tried. Maybe I’m overexaggerating, maybe I have nothing to worry about. So I’m not good at math. So what? I’ll learn Spanish instead.