I'm the Teacher, You're the Student by Allitt Patrick;

Author:Allitt, Patrick;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Published: 2005-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Paper Drafts (Tuesday)

Michael was one of the students who gave me a draft paper yesterday. I read it this morning, called him, and he comes to discuss it. It is not good. He has written it in inverse chronological order. First he wrote about farms in the plains states. Then he remembered that they had been made possible by the railroads, and included a passage about trains. Then he recalled that the Indians had lived in the area before the whites took over, and so wrote a passage about them as well. When I mention to him that it would make more sense to write it moving forward in time, he agrees with a beaming smile. Other problems include a tendency to imply that everything happened at once. “The Homestead Act of 1862 allowed Americans to settle 160 acres without paying for it if they farmed it for 5 years. Immediately people swarmed out into the plains at full steam ahead.” “Did they really all go at once, during 1862?” I ask. “Oh no, it was a steady process right through into the early twentieth century.” “Right, so why did you put in that ‘immediately,’ and what’s the idea with that ‘full steam ahead’?” “I wanted to show that they were enthusiastic and that they used the railroad.” “How about writing, ‘Settlers were enthusiastic about the availability of free land, and many of them migrated to the plains by rail’?” He understands my point: “Oh, yes, OK, that makes sense.” We talk about many other points of phrasing and I give him another of my standard talks: “When you and I sit here talking, there are lots of ways in which we can make our meaning clear to each other. We have body language, smiles and frowns, hand gestures, and repetition. But when you’re writing you’ve got to be much more careful to say exactly what you mean, because the person reading won’t have you there to explain things that are not clear. When you are editing you should ask yourself, about every phrase: ‘Is this the clearest and simplest way of saying it?’ It’s also easy to be unintentionally comical, and you must make sure that your phrasing hasn’t become an accidental source of merriment for the reader.”

I then read Charles’s draft, which also came in yesterday. My favorite bit reads as follows: “People had gone out west before the Homestead Act on the Oregon Trail, which was created in 1843 in order to be a part of the Gold Rush of 1848.” How’s that for defying the principles of chronology? I have a vision of the hardy pioneer saying to his friends, “Listen men, the California gold rush will be starting in five years. We’d better prepare the way by establishing the Oregon Trail, or how are those Forty-Eighters [?!] going to get there?”

Finally, I also read through a few five-hundred-word summaries of Living My Life, from students who missed Friday’s discussion section on Emma Goldman. Some are fine but too many have a tone of vague and wandering disengagement.

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