cac.ophony.org

Our culture values the best, and when it comes to writing, the best is no exception.  The Houghton Mifflin Company publishes a “Best American Series,” which promises to bring the reader a portmanteau of the best of the best, lest busy readers miss out on the creme de la creme of what they should be, but do not have time to read.  (FYI: The Best American Poetry series is published by Scribner–this is a distinction that I have often felt strongly about for no particular reason other than my acute concern for trivial details that everyone else seems to overlook.)

What is missing in all of this best! writing are academic essays.   We want our students to write well; we want them to write better; we want them to write best!, but we don’t provide any models for them to emulate.  When I was studying poetry, I learned more from trying to emulate poets than I did from reading criticism; similarly, during my undergraduate years, when I couldn’t break out of my A- philosophy paper slump–you see, I wanted to write the best! philosophy papers–I very shyly, but slyly, asked a classmate who was getting As if I could see her papers.  The A’s started pouring in for me.

Without best! models to work from, I really don’t know how we expect our students to write.  After all, the writing that they are reading isn’t the type of writing we want them to write.  This is very confusing.  Calculus students have examples in their textbooks that guide them to problem solve; writing students don’t have this step-by-step guidance.  Even in a class where personal essays are read, we don’t want for students to write in this essayistic mode.  (We occlude the true meaning of essay when we talk about essays.)  I’ve never assigned reading in a composition course that looked anything like the writing I needed for my students to write.  I say “needed” because what my department wanted and what I would have liked to have read were, unfortunately, two very different things.

Whenever I get a particularly creative or top-notch piece of student writing, I always ask the student for a “clean” copy of the piece for my “brag file.”  The student is always flattered and always happy to comply.  When showing these works to future students, I just black out (or, if you prefer, white out) the names of the students.  After a few semesters, you will have enough best! student writing to compile your very own Best Academic Essays.  You could, if you wanted, have these writings made into a course packet each year instead of making photocopies yourself.

I often find that it is best! to go over these best! essays in class.  That way, your students will know what you value and what they should too.   I can’t promise that you’ll get the best! essays with this method, but you will get better essays; I do believe that better is better than what you would have gotten had you not given your students best! models from which to work.