Reynolds 1 McEssay: multi-genre essay

It has taken me a decade, but I have perfected my Sunday night ritual: fill a deep ceramic coffee mug with steaming light roast coffee, snug my ipod headphones into each ear, cradle my gold Cross pen with blue ink (red ink is so 1950s) in my right hand, and select an essay from the stack of College Composition papers on our kitchen table. Then I get lost in the writing. For the next few hours, I have the best job in the world, and I am not even at work. My pen is almost non-stop. Tell me more it scrawls in the right margin of one

paper while on another essay it circles an entire paragraph and responds, Now youre showing! Do more of this! On another essay it weaves over the first paragraph, Dont tell us what you are going to write about, show us! and later in another, This would be more vivid if you used dialogue. Of course, it often swoops in and notes the wrong use of there or spies a missing comma and advises, End an introductory adverb clause with a comma. But it seeks the potential more than the errors. In one essay a student recounts the final bitter words she said to her mother as she left for grade school, only to have her father pluck her out of class later that day and

Reynolds 2 rush her to the hospital, where her mother would die that night in surgery. Another essay takes me onto the golf course in the hazy heat of late August, where the writers rivalry with his older brother comes down to one final putt. Despite his escalating heart rate and his brothers barrage of insults, the writer drains the putt and defeats his brother. By now my coffee is cold and my iPod playlist is repeating, but Im lost in the work. I am giggling as a student recounts how, as a child, she was fond of discovering new moles and freckles, which her mother dubbed Angel Kisses. One day she

proudly thrust her head in her older sisters face, displaying the newest peck from heaven. Thats not an Angel Kiss, you freak, her older sister declared. Youre

growing a third ear!

She believed her sibling, bragging about it at daycare, even

believing she could detect conversations from the house next door. Her mother finally had to break the news that it was -- alas -- just a mole. In another essay, I hurry through downtown Minneapolis, dodging traffic, pedestrians, and vendors,

accompanying a student and his father on their trip of a lifetime to see U2 at the Target Center. Their seats are so close the student can see Bonos stubble. After that paper, I spit out a mouthful of icy coffee and scroll through my ipod in search of The Joshua Tree. It was not always like this.

In the summer of 1984 my father bought a 160-acre farm ten miles from town, and to my eternal misery, he moved us, which included my

Reynolds 3 father, mother, and me, there. face as a com!osition teacher. "he land on the edges of our new farm was fenced off into several large and !ainsta#ingly maintained fields of alfalfa. $e cut, ra#ed, baled, stac#ed, and, finally, fed the alfalfa hay to my dad%s herd of &00 shee!. "he rest of our farm was withering grass, vast forests of thistles, and countless craters of stri!ed go!her mounds. 'ne day in late (une, I was hel!ing my dad grease our (ohn )eer *+* before we began mowing my dad%s beloved alfalfa, when a strange green truc# !ulled into our yard. + !eculiar little man got out and a!!roached us. ,e had a long, white beard that would have reached to his waist had it not been so windy. Instead it flowed hori-ontally from his chin. .y dad went to see what he wanted while I /uic#ly finished greasing the tractor. $hen I was done, I noticed my dad leaning against the side of the man0s truc# with one hand tuc#ed in the lone bac# !oc#et of his tattered 1evi0s. *2es,* I thought. )ad was in his *visiting* stance. "his was !romising. "he man too was !ro!!ed u! against the side of the truc#. "his had the ma#ings of a real 3aw session. +s I !lotted my esca!e, I noticed that the driver0s side door had a s/uare yellow !la/ue on it with *4tate of . * stenciled on it. ow twenty years later, I have come to an

amusing analogy between a foe I faced on our farm and a threat I currently

Life for a child is an adventure of epic proportions. Life for an adult is a routine of monotonous survival. This sucks. In a summer long ago, I got up and donned a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, usually either my Han Solo shirt or my "May the Smurf be with you" shirt. I had other shirts, but these two were my staples. It didn't seem at all odd to me then to simply wear the same clothes every single day. My mother didn't quite see it that way though. Properly attired, the only thing left was to find socks of the same color, slip into my tennis shoes, and fasten the velcro straps. Then I scampered down our uncarpeted wooden stairs, skipping over the fifth step from the top that always cried out when stepped on, tear through the living room, whirl into the kitchen, and leap out the back door.

Reynolds 4

We arrived. For the second time in my life, I found myself located in a small, rural town, out in the middle of nowhere. The surrounding land was a flat and forested, or farming fields that seemed to go on for miles. It had an unpleasant aroma of manure and mowed grass that seeped through the windows, and stayed there. In what felt like the last hour of driving, there was nothing. There were no cars, no humans, nor any houses, just trees and land. But finally, traffic increased and businesses appeared over the hori on. We passed a rectangular, green road sign, and my heart sank as my eyes overlooked the white, sans!serif font that stated" Thief #iver Falls, $opulation" %,&'(.

Reynolds 5 II.

Okay, who Lets hear one, I students. My averted their eyes. front row made for Doc Martin hoping buy him a few

has a topic? asked my

sophomores A boy in the his that untied would

seconds. back

Another boy farther

Reynolds 6 fidgeted and dragged his pencil across the spine of his notebook, praying I wouldnt call on him. A girl to the left of the fidgeter looked straight ahead but not quite at me, focused on a point just over my right shoulder on the white board. Well, this is not how I imagined it. I would love to have been given my choice of topics to write about when I was in school. Instead I had some ancient professor assign the topic and, like it or not, I had to write about it. Come on now. What do you feel like writing about? Let them choose the topic. Allow them to have mastery of the subject matter. Model how much you enjoy writing. Model the writing process. Show them how they can master it to produce excellent essays.

4o I cre!t over to a shed on the other side of the truc#, feigning that I was loo#ing for a tube of grease. ,ad )ad not been so wra!!ed u! in whatever they were tal#ing about, he would have recogni-ed this !loy and cast me out to the field to mow. I was in luc#. )ad was wholly engrossed in the conversation. It was going to be a real 3aw session indeed, for I was able to effortlessly sli! around the shed and dash toward the house. $ithin seconds I was in a "-shirt and cut off 3ogging !ants, lying on my bed with )ef 1e!!ard on the stereo and 4te!hen 5ing0s The Tommyknockers in my hands. 6ventually, )ad bec#oned me bac# to wor#, and we mowed the 60acre alfalfa field. 'ver the clatter of the blades, )ad e7!lained that the visitor had been the state *weed ins!ector.* *"here0s no !ot around here8* I shouted over the chugging tractor and the racing blades slicing down the alfalfa. * o. ,e ins!ects wild weeds li#e . . . * and my dad began rattling off names of !lants that I had never heard of, li#e *leafy* something and

Reynolds 7 something *s!urge* or maybe it was *leafy s!urge.* )ad e7!lained to me that the *weed* ins!ector%s real mission had been to warn him about the thistles. I encountered the thistles several times on my three wheeler. In fact, my favorite thing to do when my friends visited was to rev u! the three wheeler, ta#ing them through a thistle !atch. 'f course I lifted my legs u! onto the front fender, racing through the thic# !atches. .y friends were caught unaware, screaming as the thistles tore and gouged their legs. "hey !ounded my bac#, trying vainly to raise their legs out of the way. ,owever, that was im!ossible for they had to lift their legs u! and forward, bringing them even dee!er into the thistles scra!ing by the gas tan#, my friend0s legs, and the rear !lastic fenders before going under the tires. I roared the whole time until my sides ached.

Once outside I plopped on the wooden step to our back porch. At first I shivered from the crisp air and the cold metal of the screen door against my back. Yet, I relished the goose bumps. Part of me longed for the warmth of the kitchen where my mom poured ovals of batter, which would later magically solidify into pancakes, into the frying pan. I heard the bacon and eggs spit and hiss, knowing all too well how their greasy venom can easily lash out and strike a poor unsuspecting kid watching his mom make breakfast. The rest of my family struggled to pull free from their sheets. But I forced myself to remain on the step with the damp wood soaking the seat of my pants and the splinters and tiny rusty nails in the step nipping at my backside. My eyes soaked up this green, damp world. The grass and the leaves in the trees and in the bushes all seemed so fresh from this perspective. I crossed my arms and keeled over a bit, forcing myself not to shiver, but shivering nonetheless. I noticed the bottom of my shoes, shiny and dark from the dew. While I concentrated on warming up, a parched mosquito quietly perched on my arm and pried into a vein. Suddenly, the sharp prick broke my concentration. Even at the age of five I was accustomed to this menace and an instinctive slap left the pest a red smear on my arm. From then on I alternated between fighting off the cold and scratching the tiny welt. The more I scratched, leaving small white zigzag lines on my dry skin, the more it itched. Finally, the moment I suffered for arrived. The sun fell on me, banishing the goose bumps and shivers. I soaked up the yellow warmth like a Bounty towel and felt the heat in my tight lungs. Once sufficiently thawed, I became aware of the chattering coming from our Elm tree. When I peered up, I just saw leaves. Then slowly I discerned the small dark, fluttering shapes of sparrows and robins amidst the leaves and branches. Beneath their songs I picked up a constant

Reynolds 8 bass line reverberating from the lilac bushes. At first, the buzzing seemed to be coming from the lilacs themselves. But as I watched carefully, I detected minute movements among the purple flowers. Soon everywhere I looked on the bush I saw the gold and black insects. Normally I would flee in terror, but since the bushes and bees were across the yard, I sensed no immediate peril.

The buck stopped broadside down the trail. I swiftly pointed my rifle through the cracked window. Cheek on the stock, I focused on the cross hairs. Making one last

adjustment, I feathered the trigger with confidence. The .308 round cuts the silence and meets its target.

III.

It was the fourth week of my second year teaching sophomore English. I had spent my rookie year just staying a few days ahead of my students, acclimating myself to the role of teacher, struggling with discipline, and trying to get my sophomores ready

for the Minnesota Basic Skills Test in writing. My students had to write an essay, which was then sent to the state for scoring. Those who scored above a three passed; those

Reynolds 9 who did not had to retake the test. I had learned little about the BST in college, so I devoted the summer to restructuring my curriculum so my sophomores would pass the writing test and I would not look like a complete failure. That was exactly how we spent the first part of the following year: writing essays. The only problem? The majority of my English classes were devoted to literature. Even the ones devoted to writing focused on teaching me how to write. Only one methods class actually focused on teaching me how to teach my students how to write, and that was a semester before I even student taught. Literary Criticism, Shakespeare, Twentieth Century British Literature , Multi-Cultural Poetry were not going to get 120 sophomores past the BST in writing. Desperate, I turned to the Minnesota BST Written Composition Handbook. I found a diagram that demonstrated, using a simple metaphor that my sophomores could easily comprehend, how to create a passing essay: the hamburger method. It highlighted the three basic parts of an essay. The beginning of the essay was the top bun, the middle formed the hamburger patty replete with fixings, and the conclusion served as the bottom bun. After visiting with a friend who taught writing at our districts middle school, I found they used the same diagram for constructing simple paragraphs. This seemed like the perfect segue to take my students to the next step for passing the BST in writing: the five-paragraph essay. My students already knew that a topic sentence, three supporting sentences, and a concluding sentence made a sound paragraph. How hard would it be to take that

Reynolds 10 format and just expand it, turning their topic sentence into an introductory paragraph that ended with a thesis statement, expanding their supporting sentences into three paragraphs that referenced, with clear topic sentences, their thesis, and finally developing their concluding sentence into a final paragraph that effectively restated their thesis and wrapped up their essay? Obviously, the handbook encouraged the five part essay formula because nearly every essay scoring above a three was written according to that recipe.

)ad said the state ins!ector warned that if we didn0t s!ray the thistles, they would storm the entire farm. .y dad was not about to buy into any such ty!e of cons!iracy theory. +fter all, he adamantly believed 1ee ,arvey 'swald really shot 5ennedy and that +rea &1 was actually 3ust a military base. 9lus, there was no way my dad was going to !ay the state to fly a !lane over and douse the thistles with weed #iller. ,owever, my dad loved our alfalfa fields li#e another son: he was not about to allow the thistles to corru!t them. )ad informed me that once we finished mowing the alfalfa, we were going mow the thistles. "his, though, was only a tem!orary solution since the roots would still be intact and the thistles would sim!ly grow bac# again later in the summer, germinate, and then lie dormant over the winter. ;ut )ad didn0t seem concerned.

The odd thing now, some 20 years later, is I can't recall leaving. I remember sitting and reveling in the wonder of morning, but other than morning I don't know when it was. It had to be summer, but I don't know what month. I don't know what time it was. It was early, but I don't know how early. I don't really know why I even sat there. I don't know how long I sat on that step. It could have been fifteen minutes. It could have been an hour. I didn't have a watch. Even if I did, I couldn't yet tell time. Time seemed to flow into one great unforgettable state of being: Life.

Reynolds 11

Whatever happened to my wonder? Somewhere along the way I went and lost my sense of wonder. Our culture, I believe, works to abolish the sense of wonder in adults. The imagination is an endangered specie. Stay focused and determined. No time to day dream or ponder. Amongst jobs, lists, classes, routines, bills, errands, cars, computers, televisions, that sense of awe I had as a kid was lost. Or stolen. Every adult day seemed to become a new exercise in disappointment.

Shut up, Nancy Drew. I didn't say anything! Everyone is sitting in a slight arc hunched over their desk laughing. Thats the typical start of my conversation with Mr. Reynolds. First to be a Nancy you simply must be in his class and contradict everything. For example, I said, I think and was instantly cut off with a sharp, Shut up, Nancy Drew from a smirking Reynolds. He gets quite a lot of enjoyment from this childish name calling.

As everyone laughs at me, I can't help but join in.That is the second step: to be able to take his comments and not go into a depression. Last, but not least, you must be able to simply wear sweatpants. This really irks him and his dressup every day motto.

Reynolds 12 IV.

Come on. Someone give me a topic. Finally an over achiever broke the silence, Lets write about our favorite hobby. Good topic, I said with my back already to the room. My thumb popped the cap off my Expo marker. Behind me, tablets rustled opened and pencils stood poised. They know the routine. Lets brainstorm some hobbies now, I said with one glance over my shoulder. Sports, someone called out only to be met with, No, we always write about sports. Reality TV, someone else yelled. Yeah, I have seen every episode of Survivor, another student added. My marker flew across the board to keep pace.

Reynolds 13 Playing guitar . . . Working on my truck . . . Video games . . . Weight lifting . . . Work . . . Archery . . . Painting . . . Okay. Okay, I said flexing my aching hand as I backed away from the board and examined what we had come up with. Not bad. What should we focus on for our model essay? Model the essays for my students so they see the importance of form and focusing on a central idea, just like the handbook advises. The entire middle row, comprised of junior varsity football players, cried, Video games! The girls let out a collective sigh, but the boys in the front section of the middle row chanted, Vid EO while on cue the boys in the back section of the middle row chanted, games! Vid - EO . . . Games! Vid - EO. . . Games! Okay, okay, okay, I said. Remember the principals room is below us, so lets try and keep it to a dull roar. I grabbed the eraser and carved great swaths of white through the brainstorming on the board, leaving just the original video games in the middle. Thats a start. But what type of video games? Are we talking sports games? How about Madden? Or quest games, like Zelda? Shooter games? Resident Evil? How about a classic, like Pong? One lone student snickered at my joke. Madden! A football player called.

Reynolds 14 Why? I urged. Each year they make it better. This year theres the franchise mode where you can sign free agents and draft players, a student called out. Yeah, there are new playbooks too, another added. Okay, so the hobby requires some technical knowledge and skill, I said as I jotted that on the board. What else? It brings us all together, yet another student began, and I drew an arrow and wrote that on the board. Nearly every Saturday were over at Ryans. Everybody throws in ten bucks, plus an extra two for pizza, and we draw teams from a hat. You can only use original players, no modified ones. Last year Matt dominated, but this year I own him. Last weekend I raked in $60. Yeah, but thats only because my quarterback got hurt in the second quarter, Matt called out from the back, I was up on you by a touchdown too. All right, weve got two things we can develop. But we need a third item, I said. Its practically a tradition in my family, Jason stated, and I hurried to record the idea. My dad grew up playing Atari, and my older brothers grew up playing Nintendo. Whenever theyre home from college, we hook up the Playstation to the big screen in the basement and spend our whole day down there while Mom and my sisters go shopping. My uncle even comes over and plays sometimes. Great, I said and stood back from the board and surveyed our pre-writing. Impressive. Just look at all that thinking on the board. Give them a visual pre-

writing method. Just like the handbook suggested. Very impressive.

Reynolds 15 Now given what we have up here in our brainstorm, someone come up with a thesis. They know the routine.

)ad and I made one good swee! through the thistles, cho!!ing their dense battalions down effortlessly. "hen something wonderful ha!!ened. "he far end of the mower dug into a go!her0s mound and sna!!ed the mower%s drive shaft. $onderful. It was around si7 in the evening and both of our stomachs were growling. "he last thing I wanted to do was s!end the entire evening mowing thistles. +s we !ulled into the yard, )ad said, *I want you to come with me to the /uonset.* <h-oh. "hings were not wonderful after all. "he /uonset was my dad0s laboratory, so to s!ea#. =rom there he hatched all of his cra-y ideas to #ee! me busy while he was gone.

I miss how time distorts itself to children. I remember practically drying up and turning to dust waiting to see the doctor. Summers were decades. A trip to the mall in Grand Forks, an hour's ride imprisoned in the car, seemed to me a lifetime. The six weeks I had to wear a cast after breaking my ankle seemed to me two lifetimes. The year between my birthdays was a century. A single Sunday church service was a millennium. Christmas Eves, when my parents insisted I wait until morning to open my presents, were an eternity. How many times as a child did I get up and not even know what day it was? The only day I ever kept track of was Saturday. And that was just because of cartoons. I remember once I must have forgotten it was Saturday and slept right through cartoons. The next morning I got up early, thinking it was Saturday. Instead of "Godzilla," "He-Man," and "Sigmond the Seamonster," I got Jerry Fallwell on one channel, the 700 Club on another, and Meet the Press on yet another. I never lost track of a Saturday again. Now, however, my life is dictated by the days of the week. And there aren't enough hours in any of them. Somehow life went from a crawl to a sprint. I miss reveling in the mundane. Living in a constant state of shock. Experiencing everything like it was the first time, because it was the first time. How can I forget my first movie, The Empire Strikes Back? Playing with my first race car track? Wailing my first time perched in Santa's lap? Donning my first Halloween costume? Fearing for my life while subjected to my

Reynolds 16 first haircut? These events are etched permanently in my mind. How many movies have I seen in the past year? How many haircuts have I had? Now they all blur together with everything else into one great indistinguishable event: life.

)Whoa whoa whoa, you cannot put the hot fudge on before the strawberries*+ I said to my sister. ),on-t you know that if you put hot fudge on too early that it will melt the ice cream.+ )Well I-m sorrrrry. I didn-t know there were rules to making a stupid ice cream dessert.+ /tupid. I think not. 0sually, I could care less about what she does with bananas, ice cream, and chocolate. But the day I tasted the 1real deal,- my life was forever changed. Therefore, I couldn-t let her create it carelessly. 2ere are the steps to making it perfect.

V.

Reynolds 17 Finally Matt called out as he surveyed the board, Madden is one of my favorite hobbies because . . . his head bobbed as he followed our clustering, it is challenging . . . uh, brings friends together . . . and it is, kinda like a family tradition. Okay, weve got a thesis. Thats a start. What do we need next? I asked. An outline, the middle row responded. They know the routine indeed. I could practically see the outlines taking form in their minds. Yep. Who wants to time me? Have them time me to illustrate how quickly I can devise an outline. Just like the handbook suggests. Ill do it, Cheryl said, already looking up at the clock. Ready when you are, I said with my marker poised. Go. I knew the routine better than anyone. I quickly jotted down an introductory sentence and a thesis. I organized the three supporting ideas, formulating a topic sentence for each. Then I added at least three examples for each idea. Finally, I restated my thesis in the conclusion and ended with a clincher sentence. Done, I said and slammed the marker down. Thirty seconds, Cheryl said on cue. Now Ill turn you loose to work on your own essay. Remember, brainstorm just like we did up here, I said cocking a thumb at the whiteboard covered in blue marker, until you come up with three good points. Devise a thesis. Create an outline based on

Reynolds 18 your thesis. Be sure to come up with plenty of examples to support each of your three main ideas. Use details in those supporting paragraphs. The richer you make them, the clearer they will be to the reader. Use transitions to move the reader from one topic to the next. And last, but not least, be sure to have a conclusion that restates your main ideas. I want to see two full pages. Rough draft due tomorrow.

I trailed him to the /uonset in the fa#e yellow hue of our yard light. )ad entered the /uonset, rummaged around, and emerged. ,e held what loo#ed li#e a wooden stic# with some blue, 3agged metal at the end. *$hat is that>* *It0s an old fashioned sic#le.? 'h no. thistles. *)ad, I won0t be able to get them all. )ad, they0ll 3ust regrow. )ad, why don0t we wait until the mower is fi7ed. )ad, then I0ll gladly mow them down ne7t wee#. )ad . . .* )ad wasn0t having any of it. 4o began my battle with the thistles. I could tell right away what he had !lanned@ 5urt vs. the

I remember going with my mom and grandmother to Grand Forks when I was around six. My mom took me across the street to a large building. It was some thing called a department store. All I remember, or cared about, was that it had the most incredible thing I had ever seen in my six years on this planet: an escalator. I rode up and down those shiny, folding metal stairs all day. I remember trying to storm them in an attempt to beat them to the top and walking backward trying to work my way against the flow. I remember thinking how dreadful it would be to get an errant shoelace caught in the stairs as they collapsed and folded back under and came out the bottom again. A security guard came up to my mother. I remember her saying, "you never could guess that we come from a small town?" When we finally had to go, I begged and begged, tugging with my small arms and planting my tiny feet firmly, for one more ride, just one more as if my entire life depended on one more ride.

Reynolds 19 A few summers ago I went to the Mall of America. There were escalators there. I know we rode on them. But I can't recall riding on a single one. Too many places to visit. Too many things to buy. Too many things too see. So much for the wonder of the escalator.

I look up at the scoreboard and see that there is 12 seconds left on the clock. The score reads 62-62. Nick throws the ball in to me, and I spin around. My heart is pounding as I bring the ball up the left sideline. My dad, who is coaching us, screams, Jake! Come Here! I crossover and take off towards our bench. One of West Fargos players is riding my right hip, forcing me to keep my armbar up and slowing me down. I finally reach our bench, thinking my dad will call time out and then draw up a play for the winning

basket.

VI.

Reynolds 20 After a total of six weeks of producing perfectly assembled hamburgers . . . I mean essays . . . the students were becoming trained quite effectively. I continued to model the format, typing up essays and copying them to overheads. This format was so easy to master that I continued to crank out the essays right along with my students. All I had to do was just give the command - write an essay on your favorite relative or write an essay about an important lesson you learned and we mass-produced them, as if they were McEssays, easily slapped together and readily consumable. Once their final drafts were submitted, I collected them and applied the states rubric, checking to make sure that the essays were clearly related to the topic, focused on a well developed central idea, were properly organized, and were relatively free of mechanical and structural errors. Soon they had the form mastered. I too began to feel a mastery of writing as I illustrated the five-paragraph format over and over for my students. Instead of wrestling with ideas and directions, as I had done so often as an undergraduate, all I had to do was select a topic, brainstorm some ideas, determine which three could be best supported, formulate a thesis based on those selections, and begin writing. The essay practically wrote itself. Why hadnt I encountered this form in college? When a paper was looming on the syllabus, I literally spent weeks holed up in the university library with my sources stacked around me. I randomly explored one idea, only to abandon it when I couldnt fully support it. So I would start after another. After days of writing, I would finally emerge with some ideas gathered and, hopefully, adequately supported. Then I would

Reynolds 21 type them into the proper format and submit the thing to my professor. Think of all those hours wasted! What a service I was providing my students. They might be bored with cranking the essays out now, but they would thank me when it came time later in the year to write their research papers. When they went off to college and saw what writing was like on that level, they would literally send me thank you cards. I couldnt wait to get the mail. Not long after the mid-term, though, they tired of essays: theirs, mine, and, especially, the student samples from the state. I decided to show them some real essays written by professionals, so I rummaged through the outdated magazines in our school library. I also devised a checklist that called for them to search professional articles for the elements of an excellent essay (after all, I had ordered a set of posters chronicling the five essential parts of an excellent essay proudly adorned them on my walls). I could not wait to illustrate the importance of precise topic sentences, wellsupported paragraphs, and effective conclusions. They would then see how real writers write.

.y foe was a worthy adversary.

"he thistles had no natural enemies

in our !asture. 'ur herd of &00 shee! sure didn0t eat them. "hus, they grew unfettered. 4ome were as tall as a full grown man. ,ave you ever seen a thistle> "hey are armed to the teeth. If Aambo was a !lant, he would be a thistle. "heir stal#s are thic#. 'ftentimes I had to hac# away at their bases "hey had organi-ed li#e a mad lumber3ac# hac#ing away at a !ine.

themselves into great, dense battalions around the !asture. 4ometimes they were so tightly hun#ered that it was hard for me to cut a !ath through them.

Reynolds 22 )id I mention they are covered in ra-or shar! thorns> bees. If the thistle didn%t sting me, they bees tried. )es!ite their best efforts to defend themselves though, it became my !ersonal mission to drive the invaders from our land. I s!ent many scorching (uly and +ugust afternoons with my wal#man stuffed into the bac# !oc#et of my 3eans teeing off, literally, with the weed whac#er, for it was little more than a wooden shafted golf club. Instead of a club at the end, though, this thing had a flimsy row of metal teeth. 9art golf club: !art saw. ;ut in the end, they won the war of attrition. they #new it. "hey were too dense in number for me to van/uish alone in 3ust a few months. "hey had me outnumbered, and In fact, by cho!!ing them down when they were ri!e and blooming, I unwittingly hel!ed s!read them. "heir s!ores would catch the rare bree-es and float across our land. 2ears later, the thistles did indeed storm much of our farm, des!ite my tactics. )ad finally ca!itulated and !aid a local cro! duster to dro! the herbicide bomb. ow, what does that e7!erience have to do with teaching 6nglish, s!ecifically teaching com!osition> $ell, a lot actually. 6ven worse, they

seemed to be eternally in bloom, which meant they were swarming with

Throughout grade school, I spent winter afternoons sliding down the hill behind our house with my friends. My mom bundled me up in my snowsuit, moon boots, and a damn sissy scarf and sent me out into the cold. Once down the hill I promptly took off the scarf and stashed it in the knot of a tree. Then and only then I hopped on my red plastic sled and roared down the hill for 10 seconds of genuine bliss. Then I grabbed the white rope my dad tied to it and lugged it back up the hill. After what seemed like 10 minutes, I hopped back in my sled and raced down the hill again. Now I rarely venture outside in the winter. It just feels too cold to my 28-year-old skin. But when I was eight, the worst thing that mom could do to me was quarantine me to the house. I even sacrificed watching afternoon cartoons to go sledding. The last time I went sledding? Nine years ago. It was with my girlfriend at the time and her brothers. I remember having fun but looking forward much more to her and I lying beneath the blankets in front of their fireplace, instead of reveling in the joy of sledding.

Reynolds 23 But when someone puts effort into something, crafting it with their own hands and mind 3 a piece that rustles up emotions in another individual 3 that is beauty. 4ne the other hand, the idea of beauty is in the eye of the beholder holds some truth. 4ne might not think =aust is good or that Birgin of the Aoc#s is a bit dull, but I think they are both pretty substantial pieces of human e5pression 6pardon the cheese 3 sometimes you just need a big slice of bushe de chevre to wash the /avignon down7. There are a lot of beautiful things in this world, probably millions. 8aybe even billions, but that-s hasty 3 most people don-t reali e that a billion is a thousand million, which is a hell of a number. 9et with all these billions of beautiful things, none of them are humans. :one of them are acts, none of them are an event, and not a single one has ever involved 8T;. I have a $h, in Truth, and you just got my prescription.

Reynolds 24

VII.

The Monday I

following found myself

thinking, It better than surveyed

doesnt get any this, my as first I hour

sophomores scattered about my room. This is what teaching must really look like . My class finally

Reynolds 25 resembled my vision of an ideal classroom. Mine was not to be the traditional

classroom where students sat obediently in neat rows, scrawling furiously to keep pace with my lectures. One boy lounged against the wall, a Rolling Stone obscuring his face, his tablet resting on his chest. Another was lying on his back with his legs arched and feet

tapping idly on the carpet, thumbing through a Sports Illustrated while a stack of previous issues beneath his head served as a pillow. A cluster of girls was in a corner trading issues of Teen and Cosmo. Others were in desks or even beneath them.

Periodically, students halted reading and scribbled on their assignment sheets. Why cant the principal pop in now? Id even settle for our department head strolling by. But no. I alone am here to witness this. Completing my circuit through the classroom, I returned to my desk. Before sitting down to get a head start on some correcting, I glanced up and thought once more, it most certainly doesnt get any better than this . Just then Kyle, sitting almost painfully upright in his desk, called out, Mr. Reynolds, there is something wrong with this article. I was wrong. It just got better . Kyle was quiet, soft-spoken, and keen. Mine was not going to be a classroom where students had to hoist their arms and wait for me to call on them. What do you mean? I asked, navigating my way toward his desk.

Reynolds 26 Well, this article doesnt really meet any of these requirements, he declared, alternating his gaze from the article to the checklist on his desk, before handing me a Time article on hazing among Marine paratroopers. It must have some, I said, scanning the article, confident Id locate a clear topic sentence, several supporting sentences, and ample concluding sentences. There has to be some. This was a real writer published in a respected magazine. And look at that second paragraph, Kyle added half rising out of his desk and pointing. It only has two sentences. My eyes scanned the page. Well, I had to agree. The article didnt clearly address the traditional form. There had to be a topic sentence in here somewhere. I even brought my index finger up and dragged it across the sentences - a reading practice I had not employed since elementary school - underscoring every sentence, hoping to find those essential requirements, which the BST Written Composition Handbook said had to be in every well constructed essay. Plus it has seven paragraphs, Kyle stated as if we were in biology and he just pulled a three headed frog from his pocket. Whoa. One thing at a time, I said. Ah, heres a topic sentence. Look at the third paragraph, I said. Kyles eyes followed my index finger and poured over the paragraph. Order has been restored. Why didnt she just come out and state her topic right away?

Reynolds 27 Well, you see she is setting the reader up with her first paragraph, I began, smiling at his question. She is giving us some background information by telling us a little narrative about the paratroopers and how they earn their golden wings. She is trying to hook the reader with that information. Oh, Kyle said. I see. Then he looked me right in the eyes and pondered, Then why didnt she fully support her second paragraph? Well, here the author is briefly summarizing the hazing from the leaked video that got the military in trouble. Okay, Kyle said uneasily and jotted down the topic sentence I had pointed out. Kyle was right, though. That article wasnt like anything I had my students write. It didnt adhere to a strict form. It didnt bother with a thesis, clear topic sentences, and tidy supporting information. Nor was there a single paragraph containing five

sentences. Were these all lies I swallowed from the state? Worse yet, I fed them to my students. See what you can find in another magazine, I said and turned back toward my desk. Mr. Reynolds, Kyle called. Yes? Um, could I, uh, have the magazine back? I really like that article and want to finish it. I looked down at the issue of Time, still clenched in my right hand.

Reynolds 28 Oh, yeah. Of course, I said and handed it to Kyle. By the time I was half way back to my desk, my initial theory of teaching writing was collapsing.

In com!osition there is an entity much li#e the thistle. It can invade, !o!ulate, and cho#e out all of the good land. It will serve as a nuisance for both the landholder and any one unluc#y enough to come across it without ade/uate !rotection. "his entity is the five-!aragra!h theme or otherwise #nown as, the thesisCsu!!ort form. "o stretch this meta!hor to greater lengths, I ste!!ed into my first Dommunications class with a curriculum that included writing a four-!age research !a!er. * o big deal,* I unwittingly thought. I0m sure that is e7actly what my dad thought when he saw the first thistles s!routing u! too. I decided to begin thesisCsu!!ort !a!er right away. ;efore I #new it, we were three wee#s into the research !a!er. 1ater that year, I reali-ed I was unwittingly s!reading the s!ores across my classroom. 4ince I focused on teaching the thesisCsu!!ort form right away and since it was the only form of writing my students were e7!osed to, I had infested my students with such statements as, *your thesis must have three as!ects, and it must come at the end of your introduction* and *each of your corres!onding su!!orting !aragra!hs must have a to!ic sentence that correlates to an individual as!ect stated in your thesis* and *you must use at least one direct /uote and one !ara!hrase in each of your su!!orting !aragra!hs too* and *your conclusion should restate your thesis* and *your final !age will be your wor#s cited,* and *you must include an outline that corres!onds e7actly to the form of your research !a!er.* I thought, egads, that I was teaching my !oor students how to write, 3ust as I thought I was doing some good hac#ing away at the thistles 1& years earlier.

Reynolds 29 Sometimes I would lie in our back yard with tiny shards of grass poking through my T-shirt and dandelions rustling in my ears and just stare at clouds. I heard somewhere that every cloud looks like something. I watched the white fluffy pictures in the sky completely awestruck. The biggest TV set I had ever seen: God's TV, maybe. Images formed and tumbled above me. There was a car, a fire hydrant, an eagle, a beehive, an eraser, a tiger, a bat, and a spoon. I spent hours just lying there. Now the only time I look at the sky is to pray for shade when I am sweating to death on the asphalt on the highway working road construction or praying for them to go away when we are tubing on the river. When I do see a cloud, it doesn't resemble anything other than a big fluffy cloud. Maybe a big fluffy marshmallow. For the life of me I can no longer see cars, fire hydrants, or anything else. The wonder of clouds has passed me by too.

<reat. . . I have to write a &!= page paper defining something. Talk about vague. /o many choices, so many options. 2ow does one even go about choosing a topic. I suppose I could just open a dictionary and randomly point to a word. 9eah, that would work* I don-t see why not. /o, that is e5actly what I did. I dug out my dusty old children-s dictionary! what. I got to make it an easy word* /o, I flipped it open and with!out looking pointed to a spot. Then I slowly peeled my eyes open, almost as if my eyelashes were doing the wave. I was kind of afraid to look. I had a hunch that the letter would start with an )2+ because the thickness felt like it could be somewhere around that letter. 8y eyes opened, and I > slowly revealed the world letter by letter. )2+, insert fist

Reynolds 30 pump. . . 0. . . :. 20:, okay, right now it could be a few things, hunt, that-s about all I could think of before my impatience overtook me and I removed my entire hand. . . 20:?2. Being my weird self the first thing I thought of has the ,unchbac# of otre )ame. /illy me.

VIII.

Kyle was right again. All of the essays my students were writing were technically sound. But they failed to inspire interest; moreover, they lacked style and voice. What the state provided was a recipe, and it was a standard recipe for average writing. That writing would get them past the test, but then what? I wanted my students writing to be interesting like that article. I wanted students to read each others essays the way Kyle poured over that Time article. Instead I was teaching them how to formulate neatly composed drivel, a McEssay. In college I did spend hours in the library grappling with ideas for my papers. Now I realize that I was blessed to not have had the thesis-support formula imposed on me. Through my writing, I was able to explore my thoughts. This was learning through

Reynolds 31 writing at its most genuine. I intuitively discovered not only what my thoughts really were but also how to achieve a natural structure for them. Now I have a quote from E.M Forster stenciled on my board, How do I know what I think until I see what I say? Too often the McEssay makes it appear like the writer has naturally thought these things all along. It certainly leaves no room for any type of deviation or revelation. It robs the reader of the rich experience of watching the writers thinking unfold in a natural progression. As I plopped down into my chair and observed Kyle read the article, the most obvious truth hit me: real writers dont write five-paragraph themes. Why was I teaching my students to write them? Real artists dont paint by A five-

numbers, so would our art instructor ever teach her students to do so? paragraph essay was just writing by numbers.

Fortuitously, my prep hour was next. I filled the recycling box in the staff room with the copies of the state BST handbook and its hamburger method of essay writing. What I didnt realize all those years ago was that this method of writing was designed to just get students to pass the test. I wanted to do so much more with the nine weeks than just pass a test. I wanted them to develop voice and style, to experiment with form, to analyze and interpret important events from their lives. I wanted them to do what real writers do. I havent looked back.

Reynolds 32 ow I can see what the thesisCsu!!ort !a!er really is@ a ram!ant, !arasitic life form that, instead of cho#ing off /uality !asture land and invading cro!s, cho#es off a writer0s voice and invades genuine writing. "he defeat for my dad with the thistles occurred when we were feeding the shee!. ,e was going to brea# o!en an alfalfa bail. "he bail eru!ted. Instead of s!rin#ling alfalfa leaves into the trough, it s!ewed thistles in )ad%s face. "he bail, in the guise of alfalfa, secretly housed a thistle. "he thistles had indeed breached )ad%s !recious alfalfa fields. "he defeat for me with the thesisCsu!!ort theme occurred when I sat down to grade my end of the /uarter !ersonal essays. !ersonal essays. I e7!ected 4ince we wor#ed on the research !a!er earlier in the year, I was really loo#ing forward to some some interesting !ers!ectives, genuine e7!eriences, and maybe even some shoc#ing incidents. Instead their essays blew u! in my face, e7!osing the five !aragra!h themes lur#ing at their cores. Instead of feeling free to write in some of the other forms we covered, such as observation, commentary, and narrative, my students were overrun by the thesisCsu!!ort form. Instead a lively narrative on a student0s first deer hunt as a rite of !assage, I found a bland introduction concluding with *I learned three im!ortant lessons from my first deer hunt@ how to wor# with others, how to trust myself, and how to ta#e !ride in a 3ob well done* as its thesis. "here is nothing more distressing for a com!osition teacher Eat least a good oneF to e7!ect some lively essays and only to find out that they are Gthemes% in disguise. 4omehow the thesisCsu!!ort form had stormed my beloved com!osition course.

When I was ten, every bus ride home was an adventure. I sat in a different seat every time delighting in the many perspectives. Every day something new leaped out at me: the huge tree outside a house with weathered planks nailed to the trunk leading up to a tree house, someone's dog chained to their porch, the flag hoisted high and flapping in our school yard with the cord dinging against the pole, the Yoda back pack an older kid had, the songs "Physical," "Billy

Reynolds 33 Jean," and "Jessie's Girl" which the bus driver turned up to drown us out, a pile of orange, brown, yellow, and red leaves in someone else's yard, the painstakingly trimmed shrubs bordering the court house lawn, the elaborate couches and lamps and dressers in the window of Wilcox Furniture Store, the different cars parked along main street. Now I am so wrapped up in planning supper, what I'm going to do for the evening, lesson plans, when I have to send in my bills, or what I'm going to do on the weekend, that I hardly even notice traffic on the way home. It's a miracle I don't get into an accident. I never once wondered what ever happened to the excitement that used to be inherent in the ride home.

Below me I can see big horned sheep roaming the alpine

tree line. The once large pines now look like small ?hristmas trees. There is no sign of any mos@uitoes or flies. 2awks, eagles, and ravens are among the few birds that actually soar among the mountain top. /mall rodents like the yellow!bellied marmot pop up une5pectedly between the rugged rocks.

IX. Now I urge my students to explore the rich, unique experiences of their lives in the personal essay. I tap into their natural storytelling abilities. I learn more about my students and their lives in two weeks of narrative essays than I ever did teaching the

Reynolds 34 McEssay. Students recount the deaths of parents and grandparents (one even read an essay she wrote in my class at her grandfathers wake), explore rites of passage and epiphanies, analyze relationships, divorces, and arguments. In short, their lives have become the context for my class. Looking back at the MN BST handbook it is interesting to note that at the very end of the sample essay portion is the highest scoring essay, the almost mythical six. These are not McEssays. They have more than five paragraphs. They engage the reader immediately with dialogue or thoughts. They employ figurative language. They have voice. The style inherent in these essays is as distinctive as fingerprints. They ooze personality. These are written by genuine writers. In all instances, these are excellent personal essays. Somehow these writers forgot all about the hamburger method of writing. Instead they wrote with voice and passion. The same voice and passion that kept Kyle reading that Time article nearly a decade ago. The same voice and style that I have devoted my career to getting my students to breathe into their writing. The same voice and style that keeps me reading their essays long after my coffee is intolerable and my ipod has shuffled through my playlist several times. Every year my sophomores take the MN BST in writing; every year they are above the state average, never dipping below 93 percent passing. None have yet reached that elusive six rating, but at least they have spent their time crafting skillful personal narratives as opposed to manufacturing McEssays.

Reynolds 35 Proponents of the McEssay, like Kerri Smith, who published the article In Defense of the Five-Paragraph Essay in the March 2006 issue of The English Journal, argue that the five-paragraph essay offers students a way to organize their thinking, is a must for standardized tests, ranging from the written BST all the way up to college entrance essays, is necessary to excel in college, and is the preferred format in the real world. I once knew all of these reasons too; however, I had them dispelled with Kyles analysis of a real article. Our lives, memories, and stories cannot be reduced to tidy, easily supportable theses. Nor do my students walk around with readily formed theses in their heads. When they enter my room on Monday morning, they do not begin postulating, There were three contributing factors behind the football teams dominating performance Friday night: a punishing ground game, a defense that forced five turnovers, and a strong punting game that kept the opponent pinned deep in their won territory the entire night. Rather, students walk into my room sharing their stories and versions of what happened at the game. From their stories and experiences, students derive meaning and give shape to their worlds. Why not start there instead?

It has become my !ersonal mission, if not eradicate, to at least return the balance to my classroom between the 0theme0 !a!ers and the familiar essays. "he tas# is a daunting one. (ust as thistles can cree! u! and infest acre u!on acre if unchec#ed, so can the thesisCsu!!ort form. In "he 6ssay, 9aul ,eil#er, notes a study done by Aussell 5. )urst in which )urst discovered that once students learned the thesisCsu!!ort !a!er form *0they tended to rely on the thesisCsu!!ort structure almost e7clusively in their

Reynolds 36 6nglish critical writing0* and * inety !ercent of the student te7ts in his sam!le were organi-ed this way, students using the thesisCsu!!ort form to structure literary analysis, autobiogra!hical, informative, and argumentative com!ositions, and even writing outside of the 6nglish class.* =urthermore, *the students in this study 0were almost totally faithful to the thesisCsu!!ort HformI in their high school 6nglish writing, using it in virtually all of their H!a!ersI from ninth grade on0* EJ-KF. If that doesn0t reveal the frightening reality of a full blown infestation !roblem, I don%t #now what else can.

Because children still have their imaginations intact, before teachers or televisions can suck it out, they attempt the impossible. When I was nine my parents left me alone for the weekend with my brother. He left me watching "Wild Kingdom" while he went to his room to lift weights, crank up Deep Purple, and probably smoke a couple of joints. I was enthralled in the show, especially when they showed the flying squirrels. It was at that moment that I decided I was going to fly. So after a quick trip up to my room, I paraded out into our backyard. With my Star Wars bed sheet tightly secured to my ankles and wrists, I scaled the gigantic oak tree at the very back of the yard. Once I reached a limb of adequate height, about fifteen feet off the ground, I did my best flying squirrel imitation. It was at that moment that I decided I was unable to fly. Luckily, the sheet snagged another branch on my maiden flight and kept me from breaking anything. Eventually my grandmother stopped by to check on us and found me hanging there and set me free. Now everything seems impossible. I talk myself out of half a dozen things a day. When I finished my undergraduate degree, I wanted more than anything to go to grad school. But I told myself it was impossible. It took all of the courage I could muster over four years to eventually apply for grad school. Even then I never thought I would make it. I never stopped to wonder about all the things I was missing out on.

:e5t, I caked on the baby powder, thinking that the ne5t time I changed him the pound of powder would help out with the smell. Finally, I unhooked the straps of the fresh diaper, put on his pants, and got him up and ready to go. The cutest thing in the world happened then. As Tanner sprung up in utter e5citement he softly spoke, )Thanks /aner, love you.+ At that moment, every disgusting

Reynolds 37 and horrible event that led up to this cute little boy saying those heart!touching words vanished. With those words, Tanner touched me in a huge way. Those cute words, and the way his facial e5pressions played.

X. The curse of the dreaded McEssay, though, reared its ugly head during my third year teaching. I was reading my way through a batch of sophomore personal essays on rites of passage and came across an essay that ground everything I was doing in class to a halt. At the end of the students first paragraph was a thesis: Shooting a cow instead of a deer my first time hunting was a major rite of passage for me because it taught me responsibility, safety, and humility. I kid you not. A thesis statement! I had not even breathed that word in class. Here it was springing up in a personal essay! While I had abandoned this formula, not all teachers in my building had. As I read through the students essay, I was amazed at the bits and pieces of an incredible narrative butchered into a McEssay. In Minnesota, especially the

northwestern section of the state, deer hunting is a way of life every fall. When a young

Reynolds 38 person shoots his or her first deer, it serves as a rite of passage from childhood to adulthood. From the shreds of narrative, I learned that this young man had not seen any sign of deer all week. The deer season was coming to a close, and in the fading light of the November afternoon, from his stand along a tree line, he saw movement a hundred yards in a pasture. It was obviously a large animal. His nerves got the better of him, and he fired. As his thesis so clumsily stated, instead of a deer, he killed a neighbors Holstein. While reading the paragraph devoted to how shooting the cow taught him humility, I felt my face flush for the student as envisioned how he must have eagerly called for everyone in his hunting party to see the large buck he just shot. Unfortunately, the party, likely comprised of the older males in his immediate family, came upon a dead cow instead. Im sure the poor kid took quite a ribbing from

everyone. Not to mention having to pay the farmer for his dead livestock. I could not deny that this student had a first rate rite of passage that needed to be written. He just chose the worst possible form. Think of the suspense he could have built if he had only structured it as a narrative. What imagery he could have created. Think of the dialogue he could have incorporated. Not to mention his own thoughts and analysis of the event. He took an important experience full of humor, pain, honesty, and learning and wrote it in a form that was none of those, for all of the potential suspense, humor, and tension possible in the essay evaporated when I read the thesis.

Reynolds 39 4o now it is my res!onsibility to cure my students of this blight. I !lan to douse them with the familiarCe7!loratoryC!ersonal essay. $illiam Leiger notes in his re!ort M"he 67!loratory 6ssay@ 6nfranchising the 4!irit of In/uiry in Dollege Dom!osition? that com!osition teachers need to first e7!ose their students to familiar essays that foster ruminative thin#ing and writing. "his introduces students to the in/uiry !rocess of writing, which is often neglected at the high school and university levels. "hen later they can be introduced to the thesisCsu!!ort form. "eachers tend to solely e7!ose their students to the demonstrative or e7!ository !rocess of writing, which involves !roducing thesisCsu!!ort !a!ers. "his severely handica!s students for they are e7!osed to only half of the scientific method. Discourse: Leiger cites (ames 5inneavy%s A Theory of The Aims of Discourse , in which 5inneavy Mtreats these two

!rocesses Hin/uiry and demonstrationI as e/ual !artners? for in/uiry is naturally !rior to demonstration since M%e7!loration leads to a testable hy!othesis which scientific !roof then demonstrates as tenable or not%? E168F. 4tudents are left trying to !rove a thesis when they lac# the s#ills to ade/uately e7amine an issue in order to arrive at a !rovable thesis because they have not been e7!osed to the in/uiry writing !rocess. M;y concentrating almost e7clusively on the thesis-su!!ort e7!osition,? states Leiger, Min college classes, we are im!licitly teaching that the ability to su!!ort an assertion is more im!ortant than the ability to e7amine an issue? E169F.

I never did wonder about such things, however, until I started spending time with my five-yearold niece. She can rattle off a hundred questions before we leave the house. I am amazed at how she will devote an hour to baking sand pastries in her sand box, how she will squeal in pure rapture as I give her an underdog on the swings at the park, how her pupils threaten to burst when I give her a dollar to buy candy, how she will be fascinated watching the squirrels in our yard, or how there is no greater thrill in life than an impromptu trip to the playland at McDonald's.

Reynolds 40 Now I can see the innocent, wide-eyed amazement in kids all around me. In the super market a month ago, I saw a young pig-tailed girl treating a shopping cart like it was a jungle gym. She was enthralled at how the bottom tier would pop up when she stepped on the front of it, despite the clang it made when she took her foot off. Of course, all the adults were annoyed by the disturbance and twisted their faces into scowls at her. Nevertheless, soon she was on her hands and knees completely beneath the cart examining it close up for herself. Who else would think to do that? When it snowed heavily for the first time in October, I saw a young child trudging through a snow bank like he was hiking through Yellow Stone National Park. He would sink in to his snowmobile suited knees, lift one leg out and plop it back into the knee deep snow again. He didn't give a second glance at the neatly shoveled sidewalk two feet to his left. Again, who else would think to do that?

Finally, girls like it when you keep lots of pictures of them. Show your collection to her, and she will be amazed at how dedicated you are. However, the downside of women is that they are extremely nosey and want to know everything; Why do you have incense candles burning around a giant school picture of me? How did you get a picture of me and my family on our vacation to Utah? or Is that me in the shower?! They can also be very ignorant, I didnt know they made bed sheets with my face on them. What you shouldnt do is show your dreamgirl the doll you have made out of her hair that you have collected over the years. This could possibly result in a restraining order against you, but I have always believed that a piece of paper can never stop true love.

Reynolds 41 XI.

The next day I asked the student, who sheepishly averted his eyes from mine, obviously still embarrassed about the ordeal, why he chose this form. He frowned, then shrugged, and finally said, Thats how we wrote last year. The writer was just clinging to a

form that worked for him in the past. When the five-paragraph format is either taught too early or as the exclusive format, it inflicts serious damage (and believe me, I spent the rest of my second year trying to deprogram my sophomores, even opting to do an I-Search style research paper to get them as far away from the McEssay format as possible). When students are shown a template they can follow and have success with, such as passing a standardized test, they cling to it dearly. In The Essay, Paul Heilker chronicles research done on the negative impact of the five-paragraph format. He cites a study conducted

Reynolds 42 by Russel K. Durst which found that 90 percent of the student texts in his sample were organized this way, students using the thesis/support from to structure literary analysis, autobiographical, informative, and argumentative compositions, and even writing outside of English class (3). Instead of being one option for students to use at their discretion, depending on the assignment, the McEssay often becomes the only option they choose, regardless of the assignment. I do not claim that the personal essay is the only style of writing a student needs. In fact, gasp shock -- gulp, I have actually gone back to teaching it. However, I introduce it to students at the end of the course and make them aware that it is just one of many forms they may employ. I begin my composition courses now emphasizing the personal essay. After all it is the format that my students use most often. I stand just outside my door prior to class and I catch snippets of a dozen narratives as students stroll by. Then I walk in and while I take roll, I eavesdrop and catch bits and pieces of another dozen stories, most going on simultaneously. The personal essay, often referred to as the familiar essay too, is the form most natural to them. Two years ago my composition students had this point illustrated when our school had a lyceum on the growing methamphetamine problem in our area. On stage sat three presenters: our local sheriff, an FBI narcotics officer, and a recovering meth addict. While the sheriff and FBI officer recounted the dangers, consequences, and other statistics related to meth abuse, the students were restless. checked their cell phones, and slunk down in their seats. They chatted,

However, when the

Reynolds 43 recovering meth addict stepped up to the microphone and shared his descent into meth addiction and chronicled all that it cost him, the students were riveted. They were silent, their cell phones remained in their pockets, and they sat on the edges of their seats. When the lyceum was over and we returned to class, I asked the students what they thought. The statistics and information divulged by the sheriff and the FBI agent in the traditional thesis-support form were lost. What remained with the students, though, was the recovering addicts personal narrative. That is the power of narrative, I told them. Whenever possible use that in your writing.

I will hac# away at the bac#ward thesis ins!ired demonstrative form of the research !a!er and !lant the o!en and e7!loratory form of the familiar essay. I want to begin my writing classes with the in/uiry !rocess. $e will e7amine issues in various narrative, observatory, commentary, and descri!tive essays. 4tudents will be free to select a variety of forms, such as dialogues, narratives, /uestion and answer, stream of consciousness, to test their ideas in familiar or e7!loratory essays. $ill I be able to totally e7!unge my classroom of the thesisCsu!!ort form> o. Instead I will show my writers how to use the familiar essay to "hen I will teach them how to a!!ly what they have foster in/uiry first.

discovered later to the demonstrative or e7!ository !rocess that has come to cho#e out the e7!loratory !rocess in 6nglish classrooms at both high schools and universities. 'nce my students will be ac/uainted and comfortable with e7!loring ideas and issues, they will be more ready to focuse solely on !roving an argument later in the semester when we tac#le e7!ository, thesis-su!!ort !a!ers for film reviews, character analysis, !ersuasive essays, and finally the research !a!er. "his is how the full scientific method should

Reynolds 44 be addressed in com!osition classes so writers will M#now that the first ste! in writing is e7!loration? and they will Mconsciously begin the writing !rocess not in the middle Has they would if they began a writing course with the thesis-su!!ort formI but at the beginning? ELeiger 169F.

I finally realized something. When I was a child, I couldn't wait to grow up and be important. Now as an adult, all I want to do is revisit my childhood and revel. Is that the irony of life? Well, my solution is this: every day since I discovered the loss of my wonder, I try to recapture it. The inner child has been there all along; he just needed a little dusting off. Now sometimes I take the elevator to my office, just to enjoy the ride. Sometimes I run down the stairs as fast as I can, taking two and three steps at a time, just to see how long it takes me to reach the bottom. At least twice a week I park several blocks away and walk to school. I relish how the morning air assaults my newly scrubbed face, how it tastes in my mouth, and how it stings my still awakening eyes. I even revert to old legends that were scripture to me as a child. I avert stepping on any cracks or seams in the sidewalk. I must have reduced every vertebrae in my poor mother's back to dust over the past twenty years of neglecting such rules. Sometimes I won't even walk on the sidewalk, taking the yard or boulevard less traveled. On my way home every day, I make it a point to notice something new in the homes, the yards, the woods, the lake, the children, the joggers and walkers, the streets, or the squirrels I see on my way home. Then I write them down in my journal.

Last weekend I was down at Lovers Lane when I happened to glance over and see about ten toddlers running around the playground. Each one had a smile on their face and at least half of them were missing their two front teeth. All were wearing either light up Spiderman shoes or Dora the Explorer flip flops. Their hair was windblown, but they could have cared less. I could tell that their parents had lathered on the SPF 75 sunscreen by the looks of their pasty white skin. I could also tell that each one was greatly enjoying

Reynolds 45 themselves as they strategically helped one another across the monkey bars. But more importantly, I knew that this was what the average toddler looked like. There were no fake nails, fake hair, fake teeth or fake tans . . . Just a few kids being kids with no tiara.

XII.

Now we devote the first six weeks to personal essays.

I do not allow my

students to just tell stories. That is really only part of the personal essay. Students must also tackle a variety of complex strategies: use vivid imagery, incorporate

authentic details and dialogue whenever possible, experiment with form and structure, contemplate audience, reflect on and analyze their experiences, and always strive to develop a strong and unique voice. They are, in other words, doing what real writers do.

Reynolds 46 We spend the final three weeks writing in the thesis-support format. I warn them that they will have to focus more on adhering to a precise format and structure than ever before. Students struggle with some of the hallmarks of the thesis-support format:

devising a thesis and focusing strictly on developing it in the body of their essay, refraining from using I, and, of course, documentation and citation. They struggle most with having to filter out the voices they have been encouraged to develop for the first six weeks. However, I would rather have them already have a distinct voice that needs to be stifled than never have developed one at all. I too must be wary when teaching the five-paragraph essay because it is the only time during my composition classes that I honestly feel like I have control over what my students are producing. This might very well be why so many secondary teachers employ it. When my students are writing their narratives, I have to approach each essay and writer differently. Instead of focusing solely on errors, I am focusing on the potential of the text. How do I coax more of the mind, the personality, and the life behind this story out and onto the page? This is often sloppy and maddening. Often all 30 writers are writing about different things in different ways. It entails sitting down with each of those writers and helping them craft their work. consuming and not for the faint of heart. Bruce Pirie observes the inherent sloppiness of this approach in Reshaping High School English, We teach structure by sitting down with students who have something they care about saying, helping them sort out how they might try to say it, and looking at examples of how other writers have structured their work because It takes time, and This approach is time

Reynolds 47 the first results of students own shaping definitely dont look as neat as formulaic essays (78). To say the least, this is a daunting task, and one I was certainly not up to my first year of teaching, which might be one reason I leaned so heavily on the McEssay. When I am teaching the McEssay, I feel a mastery over what we are writing about because I know the exact recipe for the format. I can read a students rough draft and diagnose immediately what is lacking, your second topic sentence does not correlate with your thesis or you need to offer more support for your third paragraph. This is not necessarily true with a personal essay where I might offer a student a variety of suggestions, but, ultimately, the decision resides with the writer. The power is out of the teachers hands.

I will #ee! the thesisCsu!!ort !a!er around because it is a viable writing form. I 3ust want my writers to note that it is not the only writing form available to them. 6ven if I had been able to destroy all of the thistles years ago, I still would have #e!t a few around for variety. would tell you that they are, after all, a viable s!ecies. +nd maybe, 3ust maybe if we hit a lull in my classroom, I can rev u! my three wheeler and ta#e my students screaming on a ride through the thesisCsu!!ort !atch. .aybe that will teach them a lesson. +ny biologist

I try to soak up the splendor in both the sunrise and sunset. The snow is long gone, but it will return next year. I need to get a sled. I wonder if they still make the red brand? I try to attempt the impossible. After I get my MA here, I am going to enroll at Moorhead and work on an MFA in creative nonfiction. I want to try sky diving. What is a parachute but a glorified aerodynamic sheet anyway?

Reynolds 48 Just today I created a new ritual. I went into the lounge here on the third floor of my department building and looked at the sky. It took awhile. I didn't look at my watch, on purpose. I might even stop wearing it. But anyway, I think I saw a muffin, a dragon, and possibly the continent of Africa . . .

Great job honey. Great, great job. We walk up to the dead dear and count the antlers. Its eight pionts. You did great dear. He seems more excited than I am. I become a hunter in a matter of five seconds. After loading the deer into the back of the pickup, we head over to my dads friends house to brag about my big kill.

The inner battle is exhausting. All I can think about is now I am finally that my dad has wanted all along.

XIII.

Once my students have written a few five-paragraph essays (usually a comparison/contrast essay, a film analysis, and a literary analysis), I end the class

Reynolds 49 challenging my students to meld their voice and style into their own a hybrid of the McEssay. I usually do this with the persuasive essay. I encourage them to use their voices in the essay. Some choose to liven up the usual generic introductions (how many times have you read a five-paragraph essay that begins something like, While there are many important issues facing young people today, the one that is impacting many young adults the most is . . .?) by either creating a brief narrative that illustrates for the reader what they are going to focus on or offering personal evidence that illustrates for the reader the issue they are going to discuss in their essay. They are then free to use any means necessary to persuade. I structure my classes this way to offer my students a variety of forms of writing that they can draw upon in the future. In some cases, such as writing for the Advanced Placement test, students will have to employ a very rigid thesis-support format, and they have that in their arsenal. However, they may have to devise an essay for a college application essay, such as this one Mary Jane Reed refers to in her text, Teaching Powerful Personal Narratives, from the University of Pennsylvania, You have just complete your 300-page autobiography. Please submit page 217 (9). There is no McEssay that will work there.

Reynolds 50

Works Cited

Heilker, Paul. The Essay. Urbana: National Council of Teachers of English, 1996. Zeiger, William. "The Exploratory Essay: Enfranchising the Spirit of Inquiry in College Composition." The Harcourt Brace Sourcebook for Teachers of Writing . Ed. Patricia Roberts. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace, 1998. 165-177.