Doing Well by Having Fun

We've spent considerable time kvetching about the shortcomings of our writing students, but we don't want you to get the impression that it's all bad. Indeed, every once in a while, we're treated to something delightful.

During this last round of exams, one of the writing topics students could choose was to discuss the positive or negative elements of a job or a task. Shortly after the exam began, one of our better students asked us if he could ask us how to spell a word. We said sure.

(Digression: We're not one of those teachers that tells students to "look it up." For one thing, if a student is unsure how to spell something, how easy will it be to look it up? For another, what's the fundamental difference between consulting a dictionary and asking a teacher? Either way, you are making effective use of educational resources. EOD)

The word he needed help spelling was "Vatican." We gave him a quizzical look. "As in, the place where the Pope lives?" Yes. We spelled it for him and considered asking what the hell he was writing about, but decided against it.

About an hour later, he came up to our desk. "Mr. S., I'm not sure if you can answer this. . . but I'm worried that I'm not doing the essay right."

We couldn't give much assistance--this being a test and all--but we asked what he meant. "Well, I think my essay is kind of turning into a story." Now, you should understand that, in this writing class, we teach a real paint-by-numbers, fill-in-the-blanks kind of essay writing technique. We focus only on illustration essays--make a statement, provide examples to illustrate that statement. In other words, we don't teach students to write narrative essays, and we try to provide writing prompts that lend themselves to illustrative expository writing.

We explained to the student that it's certainly possible to write an essay in a story format, but we wanted the student to make sure that he had all the "requirements": Does your essay have a thesis statement like we discussed in class? Yes. OK, do you have at least three body paragraphs? Yes. Does each of those body paragraphs have a topic sentence that relates back to your thesis statement? Yes. Do you give details to illustrate those topic sentences? Yes. In that case, we assured him, it should be OK. He went back to his writing.

Later that day, but before we had begun grading the essays, we saw this student in the library. We had to know! What, exactly were you writing about?

"Oh, I was writing about the negative elements of a job."

What job?

"Well, it's OK to make stuff up, right?"

Yes. What job?

"I wrote about a time I had to sneak into Russia to steal a bottle of Holy Vodka for the Pope."

Huh. . . . And, the negative elements?

"Lousy room service at the Vatican, having to fight my way through a bunch of demonic strippers who were protecting the vodka, and then not even being thanked by the Pope. Am I gonna get in trouble for this?"

We reminded the student that the essays were always read by two instructors, and you could never be completely sure how a reader would react. . . . For our money, though, we thought he might just have written the best in-class essay we would ever read.

By the way, he passed with flying colors.