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Andrea M. Edwards

Kraemer, Dr. Donald

English 587- Teaching Basic English

5 November 2012

Revised: Fall 2015

Notes and Presentation on “Teaching Style”

Karen Vaught-Alexander states “working with meaning and style interests my students

more than working with grammar and mechanics. The intentional use of style for emphasis of

ideas, for readability and visual impact, and for conciseness is often a new idea for student

writers who view grammar and mechanics as ‘correctness’” (546). I disagree with her

pedagogical style to a certain degree because I believe that style in writing is valuable to

students, and they want to write interesting papers, but I am a realist, and I acknowledge if a

student does not have the grammar of a language, and the mechanics to write a stylistically

engaging paper, then style in their writing will be the least of their problems.

From personal experience, I will say grammar and mechanics are as important as style

and being able to get a message across. Without grammar and mechanics, a student’s paper can

end up devoid of structure and syntax. This would make the paper might appear sloppy and not

well-produced. Yes, students want their intended reader, or their instructor, to understand the

ideas they have produced in their papers, but they know his or her instructor will be going

through and correcting anything he or she can on his or her paper. They believe (in the student’s

mind) their professor is the only person they are writing for, but they are also writing for other

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instructors who may read their papers for assessment

purposes. They may go back and look at those papers, and

think to themselves, “wait, I used to write like this? What

was I thinking?”

In the passage entitled “Creating Readability and

Emphasis for Your Ideas” (547), Vaught-Alexander

discusses the usage of SVO or Subject-Verb-Object (we all know this one from English 321 or

any other grammar course equivalent), “the Independent Clause (IC) or sentence”. This is known

as the basic structure of our English sentence. This is part of the grammar and mechanics of the

English Language, and this is where I believe that Vaught-Alexander is slightly contradicting

herself because she claimed style and ideas are important. However, I believe she may have

realized, as many of us have, students cannot have a certain style to their writing without first

having learned grammar basics, and having tutored at a middle school, I can attest that having a

grasp on grammar is of upmost importance if a student wishes to succeed in writing. Honestly,

who has not had this grilled into their brain since grammar school? On second thought, student’s

need to constantly review the rules of grammar if they wish to produce comprehensible writing

to their peers and the academic community as a whole.

She also mentions Dependent Clauses (DC), or the part of the sentence that has to be

conjoined with the rest of the sentence in order to make any true sense because if left alone, it

will not be understandable to anyone gazing blankly at it. (For example, a phrase such as: And

they went there. Where did they go?) As a tutor, and as a peer editor for many of my fellow

students in the Cal Poly Pomona English Department, I have seen everything from papers that

are well-written and could be beautifully orchestrated research papers, to papers that are “works

I have clearly had these thoughts as I was reviewing my own writing, and realizing how flawed it was. Re-reading my own papers has forced me to review my writing, and acknowledge I have work to do.

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in progress”. Having tutored college students at ARCHES, tutoring at a middle school, and at an

elementary school, learning how to write a

paper has to start as soon as the student

knows how to write proper sentences. There

are papers where all of the mechanics are

available, including the clear usage of ideas,

to papers in need of tender loving care from

someone who is not willing to use a red ink

pen or marker to rip apart their paper, destroying any hope they have of ever wanting to write for

anyone ever again. I have seen that look of anguish, anxiety, and fear students have on their faces

from getting their papers back, and seeing a horrible grade written on it. I have seen frustrated

students cry, scream, yell, and panic from getting back a paper they thought was their best, only

to find out their paper did not meet their professor’s demands. I had a student at ARCHES who

became extremely frustrated, and I let him vent it out for a couple of minutes, because he thought

he turned in a great paper to his professor, and he worked tirelessly on said paper, but according

to his professor, it still wasn’t good enough. We went back and made as many corrections as we

could, and his professor finally gave him a better grade, but I began to wonder if the professor

and myself needed to change our pedagogical strategies in order to ensure our students produced

better papers, and how we could have gone about making those changes? It could very well have

been the students not understanding their professor’s discourse, or they have not met with their

professor enough times to understand what he/she is asking to see in that student’s writing.

Vaught-Alexander also states on page 549, “experienced and proficient writers have a

‘mature syntax and diction’ in which style reinforces meaning”, and I believe she is right about

I have tried not use the “red pen of doom” to correct a student’s paper, although as a middle school tutor, I realized I was given no other choice at certain moments in my tutoring sessions. I believe the core problem is finding better methods of teaching students how to write that will require educators to use red pens less often out of frustration.

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this, but I also believe that something has to be done to reinforce style before style can reinforce

meaning and/or ideas. When a student, or writer, has good control over grammar and mechanics,

they do develop their own style and their own way of writing which works to their advantage

over time, but again, they need to have that control in order to have style and meaning. She also

goes on to quote one of my favorite author’s, Ursula Le Guin, who “calls this connection

between meaning and style the ‘craft’ of writing”. Without style and meaning, a paper is left

without purpose, but if a student, or writer, does not have all of the parts needed to create a

cohesive and coherent paper, then the style and the meaning are the last parts of the paper the

student will be concerned about. What good is a paper if said paper is missing all or any of its

parts?

(Note: Everyone needs to correct their own undergrad paper, or they need to correct

another person’s undergrad paper with a yellow highlighter, a highlighter of another color of

their choice, and a pen. See page 547 and 548 for the process.)

Now, look at your papers, and notice what is on those papers. What kind of corrections

did you make? Where are you completely honest with your paper? What would you have done

differently?

Do you agree with Vaught-Alexander? Should writing be more about style and meaning

than grammar and mechanics? What key ingredients do students need for a well-produced paper?

What kind of papers can students create if they only focus on style and meaning? What

kind paper do you think you can produce with only the usage of style and meaning?

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Since I have tutored college students at ARCHES, tutored middle school students at San Fernando Institute for Applied Media, and elementary school students at Pacoima Charter School, I can now declare that as important as style is, and I do believe it is; I also believe grammar and mechanics are vital to a student’s survival throughout their academic career. I believe this to be true because I have seen students turn in papers so terrible the only thing I could do was take the student aside and say to said student, “You have to start over again, and this time, we need to do this one sentence as a time.”

For years, I had believed many educators were being facetious or condescending about their students’ writing, and then I became a tutor, and now I realize how difficult and how awful many students’ writing can be, and I feel a great deal of pity for these educators. The majority of them are right when they say grammar and mechanics are important, and if students do not have these skills down when they are in elementary, middle school, and high school, then gaining these skills in college will be a challenge, as I have had to deal with when I had to repeat English 321. If a student masters those skills as soon as they can, then college writing will be far easier for them as they become more proficient in it.