Formulaic writing assumes that writing is like chemistry. The rationale seems to be that if you put in precise amounts of this and that you will get a great finished product. That obviously not true. Learning to write is like learning to walk. You learn by observation and then just do it. You stumble and fall, but then you walk smoothly and unaided. Put one foot in front of the other and move - it’s just that simple and just that complex. Writing is the same - put the pen to the paper (or hands to the keys) and start writing. It requires a personal effort and, just like walking, outside aid will only get you so far. Another person cannot write for you, just as another person cannot walk for you.

In elementary school, I learned to write a five paragraph essay. Introduction, three body paragraphs, conlclusion. In middle school, I was told that an introductory paragraph should be constructed like an inverse pyramid - starting with generalities and becoming specific, culminating in a thesis statement. A conclusion, I was told, should be like a regular pyramid. The TRIAC method is preferable for a body paragraph:

Topic sentence

Reserach

Interpret

Analyze

Concluding sentence

I don’t take issue with the fact that all of those elements might be useful in a paragraph, but I’ve seen a whole ton of writing that is so formulaic, it sounds inhuman. Writing is too complicated to be formulaic. Students should simply explore until they find a style that works for them. Certain requirements are, of course, necessary, but it shouldn’t be in a formula like this. I write what I think and I keep it as logical as possible. God (I use that metaphorically) forbid I explain a quotation before I actually present it or I start a paragraph with specifics.

It has, however, occured to me that perhaps I do write formulaically, it’s just been internalized with me more than some of my classmates. I was fortunate enough this year for the classes in which I did the most writing - English and U.S. Histroy - to be lead by teachers who did not care what formula (if any) was used, so long as the writing fit the requirements. Below is something I wrote mid-year (for a U.S. History class) and haven’t looked at since, that I’ve decided to share. I received a good grade, but I’m interested to see if anyone thinks it’s formulaic. Our assignment was to discuss what caused the Civil War. I decided to do something more interesting than just slavery (I don’t consider that a primary cause), so I tried a different argument.

Let me know what you think!

Copyright Notice: This is MINE. You may not copy without express permission. It’s summer and I have some free time on my hands; suing someone for copyright infringement might be fun.

Causes of the Civil War (Clever Title, I Know)

The Civil War was fought for hundreds of different reasons against enemies both foreign and domestic. Every man, woman, and child in the United States found themselves in the face of disaster. Some people were fighting over the issue of slavery. Others were fighting over the right to free western expansion. Over time, the southern states had slowly become detached from their northern counterparts – economically, politically, and ideologically. But the differences between the North and South, which stretched from trivial arguments over tariffs to essential issues of morality and ethics, like slavery, all stemmed from a fundamental difference over the role of the federal government. While many factors from the differing economies of the North and South to slavery and sectionalism played a role in starting the Civil War, the true cause was a dispute over the very core of the United States government and if a strong federal government should exist at all.

The increasing power of the federal government was marked by a series of high profile Supreme Court decisions. In 1819, the Supreme Court had to decide which government had supreme authority, that of the federal government or that of the states. Maryland wished to tax its branch of the national bank, which would in effect allow state government to govern federal government operations. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the United States government. Said Chief Justice John Marshall in the case of McCulloch v. Maryland:

“The states have no power, by taxation or otherwise, to retard, impede, burden, or in any manner control the operations of the constitutional laws enacted by Congress.”

A similar case appeared before the high court in 1824 in the form of Gibbons v. Ogden. Two merchants argued over shipping rights on the Hudson River. This was a legal first because the action involved both New York and New Jersey and one state could not pass judgment over the other. Again, the Supreme Court under John Marshall ruled in favor of federal government power. Though the case concerned interstate commerce, the opinion solidifies national government power. John Marshall wrote:

“It is the power to regulate; that is, to prescribe the rule by which commerce is to be governed. This power, like all others vested in Congress, is complete in itself, may be exercised to its utmost extent, and acknowledges no limitations, other than are prescribed in the constitution.”

These decisions signify a strengthened federal government, particularly in the case of McCulloch v. Maryland in which the court not only found the action to be unlawful, but went so far as to say states have “no power…[to] control the operations of the constitutional laws enacted by Congress.” While the Constitution already asserts the supremacy of the federal government, the clause is left open to interpretation. The Supreme Court under John Marshall made it clear that no state is more powerful than the federal government.

Despite these decisions favorable to a strong federal government, the Dred Scott v. Sanford decision reduced slaves from enslaved people to property governed by state law. Dred Scott was the slave of Dr. John Emerson of Missouri. When Emerson moved to Illinois, Scott moved with him. However, while slavery was legal in Missouri, it was illegal in Illinois. When John Emerson moved back to Missouri and left Scott behind (Scott was hired out by his master), Scott sued for his freedom, arguing that under the Illinois constitution, he was completely free. The Supreme Court took a different approach and ruled against Scott. Chief Justice Roger B. Taney wrote, “…neither Congress nor a territorial legislature can exclude slavery from any United States Territory.” Apparently, Justice Taney also suffered from a massive, if altogether too common at the time, superiority complex. According to him:

“[African Americans are] beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.”

Taney also wrote that every state has the ability to treat slaves as they like but that no state “can by naturalizing an alien invest him with the rights and privileges secured to a citizen of a State under the Federal Government.” Essentially, the decision made slaves property, recognized by the laws of the slave states and immune to the efforts of the federal government and the free states to indo the slave states’ property laws. The decision instantly angered Abolitionists. There was a fatal disconnect between the reasoning of the North and South in this case. The Northern Abolitionists believed slaves were people, other Northerners were simply indignant at the Southern victory, and Southerners believed slaves were property all along. These major differences in opinion of the rights of slaves paralleled regional views of federal authority. Dred Scott v. Sanford was a victory for the South, but the federal government was still too powerful for the South’s liking.

The State of South Carolina took the lead. On December 24, 1860, South Carolina seceded from the Union. The resolution concluded:

“…the Union heretofore existing between this State and the other States of North America is dissolved and…South Carolina has resumed her position among the nations of the world, as a separate and independent state, with the full power to levy war…”

South Carolina also listed many grievances as reason for their departure. Within the statement, there lies the concept that South Carolina has the power “to levy war.” In the eyes of the Union, South Carolina’s secession was casus belli. South Carolina declared it was their free right to “drop out” of the Union whenever it wished, just as it had joined. The resolution reads:

“We maintain that in every compact between two or more parties, the obligation is mutual; that the failure of one of the contracting parties to perform a material part of the agreement entirely releases the obligation of the other…”

South Carolina’s view was that the relationship between State and Union was a simple contractual one. And South Carolina’s views were representative of the other Confederate states. Soon after South Carolina brazenly published their views, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas also seceded. Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Virginia joined after the first shots had been fired. South Carolina’s philosophy about the federal government was a sort of “opt-in/opt-out” arrangement versus any sort of actual commitment. President Abraham Lincoln held a very different view as he expressed in a special address to Congress in 1860:

“…they [the South] commenced by an insidious debauching of the public mind. They invented an ingenious sophism which, if conceded, was followed by perfectly logical steps, through all the incidents, to the complete destruction of the Union. The sophism itself is that any State of the Union may consistently with the national Constitution, and therefore lawfully and peacefully, withdraw from the Union without the consent of the Union or of any other State.”

In the days to come, he would back his opposition to secession with threats of military force. South Carolina’s resolution of secession shows the Civil War as a war of ideology as much as anything. It was the view of South Carolina, Florida, Mississippi, and others that government was a simple contract, but to Lincoln and the States of the Union, the pact entered into by all states was irrevocable.

The separation of the Union into the United States of America and the Confederate States of America was not precipitated by any one event alone. But there was a certain degree of inevitability from the first Supreme Court cases favoring strong federal government, to the Dred Scott case, to South Carolina’s secession. The problem was chronic, but its acute manifestation was the Civil War. Every cause of the Civil War stemmed from the fundamental ideological difference in the role of government. Can you “drop out” of the federal government? Is the state or federal government more powerful? Those questions tore the nation apart. After years of fighting, however, the United States of America was once again united under a powerful, decisive federal government that has endured for 143 years.

A few weeks a go, I wrote about my middle school graduation. It was a big accomplishment for me - completing my first year at my new school and graduating successfully. My school recognized how important it was and they celebrated our graduation with a nice ceremony, a formal dance, a breakfast, and an appropriate appreciation of my grade’s collective accomplishments.

It never struck me that anybody thought eighth grade graduations being a “big deal” was problematic until I saw this New York Times article.

My interest was piqued when I discovered that the principal of my former school was quoted in the article (towards the end).

So I read the article and I’m now sufficiently annoyed at those who say middle school graduations are overblown. The naysayers’ rationale is that completing middle school is not a big enough accomplishment to warrant a big celebration. Even Barack Obama said, “Let’s not go over the top. Let’s not have a huge party. Let’s just give them a handshake. You’re supposed to graduate from eighth grade.” I disagree with you on this, Senator Obama. You are supposed to graduate from eighth grade, just like you’re supposed to live to see your next birthday. Just because it’s expected of you is no reason not to celebrate. The supposition that we will live to see our next birthday does not mean that we won’t have a birthday party when that day rolls around.The fact is that graduation is a big deal. When you accomplish something, it is right to celebrate it.

The Times quotes Dr. Timothy Knowles who is the director of the Uniiversity of Chicago Urban Education Institute as saying, “…if the impression that’s left is that you have croseed the stage, the threshold, rather than, ‘You’ve have made it halfway through the trajectory to college,’ then we risk those kids walking away from the ceremony thinking they have accomplished something — when they haven’t.” I think Dr. Knowles should spend some time in one of the four charter schools he oversees to look at the accomplishments students make everyday. Middle school is a time of transition and celebrating that the transition has been completed seems logical. I do agree with Diane Ravitch, an education scholar, who says, “I don’t think anyone should say, ‘Hey, it’s only eighth grade.’ Lots of parents celebrate their kids’ accomplishments and we don’t say, ‘Hey, it’s only Little League.’ At least we have parents celebrating their children’s educational achievement. It says, ‘There are good rewards to staying in school.’” She’s absolutely right.

What drives me even crazier are the schools (like my former school) that don’t call middle school graduation “graduation,” but instead “moving-up.” Those people need to take a look at a dictionary. Merriam-Webster defines a graduation as “the receiving or conferring of an academic degree or diploma; the ceremony at which degrees are conferred.” Graduates do receive diplomas so call the ceremony what it actually is!

It’s disappointing to see that more than a few schools are trying to diminish the accomplishments of graduates. Some people look back on middle school with fondness, others with hatred, and most with mixed feelings. But it cannot be denied that the eleven-year-old who enters sixth grade is worlds apart from the fourteen-year-old who leaves eighth grade. The pressure of school, both academic and non-academic, at the very least warrants a ceremony. A graduation is a graduation and there should be no effort to diminish its power by changing its name or changing the ceremony. No eighth grade graduate is confused. We know that we celebrate now, then start an uphill climb towards college in September.

But some schools still don’t get it. Ann Edwards, principal of the school I used to attend takes the watering-down of school ceremonies a step further, and is pretty careful to imply that eighth graders are incapable of attending elaborate dinners. Traditionally, graduates were given a formal dinner, but it has since been reduced to a casual lunch. Edwards said of the dinner, “…the kids looked so awkward, it was so age-inappropriate, it was ridiculous.” That’s frankly insulting. Graduates deserve a nice dinner, but quite apart from that, how is such a meal “age-inappropriate” and “ridiculous”? When asked about the parties that parents give to celebrate graduation, Edwards said, “We’re fighting the culture of the communities in which we work.” Yes! How terrible that parents give their children a party! I’m also surprised at the combative nature of the comment that educators are “fighting” the more formal takes on graduation.

I’m glad that my school handled graduation well. It was tastefully done, called by its proper name, but not overdone. As for the schools that don’t handle graduation so well, I’m appalled.

I have the unfortunate habit of calling my teachers by their first names when they’re not around. When I’m in class, a teachers is always Mr./Mrs./Ms. XYZ, but when I’m with anybody other than a teacher, I call them Kyle or Sophie. For a while, I thought there was no harm in calling teachers by their first name when they’re not around. Then I started mixing up the times when I can and can’t use first names. While I’ve never been punished for it, I’ve accidentally called mentioned a teachers first name while in the presence of another teacher. Luckily I haven’t called a teacher by their first name to their face yet, but it’s only a matter of time.

I’ve begun to wonder, though, if calling a teacher by their first name should be allowed. There are so many rules that vary from school to school that deal with cell phones and gum chewing, but the one rule that I’ve discovered to be nearly universal is that all teachers are to be called Mr./Mrs./Ms. XYZ. It’s also one of the few rules that isn’t regularly challenged by students (except me). The reasoning seems to be that it’s a sign of respect and using first names is not formal enough for a student-teacher relationship. I say that’s ridiculous.

I firmly believe that students should be allowed to call teachers by their first names. We show our respect through our words and actions. If a teacher’s respect hinges on being addressed as Mr./Mrs./Ms. XYZ, then that teacher should probably not be teaching. There are obviously exceptions, but I think that allowing teachers and students to be on a first name basis creates an important bond between student and teacher and furthers a student’s education by changing the student-teacher relationship.

The one big restriction on usage of a teacher’s first name is this: I think that the right to use a teacher’s first name should only be extended to middle and high schoolers. For the first several years of education, the in-class relationship is much different than it is in middle and high school. In the lower grades, the teacher tends to be a clear leader in the class and the type of teaching is more of the teacher-talks-student-listens variety. As I get older, however, classes are focused much more on group discussions and learning from each other. I’ve noticed that the role of a teacher shifts from Master and Commander to facilitator. I certainly do not mean to minimize the job of a teacher; I don’t think the job gets any easier as the role of a teacher in a classroom changes, but in class discussions, it’s important for everyone to operate on the same level and have the teacher be less of an absolute authority figure.

The change in names may seem only symbolic, but I believe it has the potential to actually change the way people learn. While schools will always have a hierarchical arrangement of power, striving to create a learning community rather than a learning command structure is infinitely more beneficial. I doubt that educational traditionalists are big fans of a world where teachers can learn from students as much as students can learn from teachers, but schools shouldn’t be afraid to embrace a new kind of learning that doesn’t stop with the names students are allowed to use for teachers.

This post is part of a two-part, non-consecutive series on education.

The majority of my education thus far has taken place in public school. The eight years of my life from Kindergarten to eighth grade marks a big chunk of time I will never get back. Some of those years were good (I don’t think finger painting or whatever people do in Kindergarten is objectionable) and some of those years were bad. I left for a whole bunch of reasons, but one of the biggest was standardized testing.

The No Child Left Behind Act was signed in 2002, but I don’t think the effects were really felt until a few years later. I was in the second grade at the time, so I remember very little of the debate that took place at the time, but I realized very quickly that tests were becoming a bigger part of school. In 4th grade, in just the course of a year, my grade took the New York State English Language Arts Exam, the New York State Math Exam, and the New York State Science Exam. And the school felt that the information that they received from those tests was not valuable (when the scores come, they provide very little information), so they made us take the CTP IVs as well. This trend continued on until I finally decided to leave.

There are a lot of arguments for and against NCLB. Proponents will say that it’s increased math and reading scores, critcs will tell you that trend had been going on before NCLB was even signed. Proponents will show more evidence of improved scores and critics will show you evidence that those improved scores are the result of lowered standards. You can read about the statistics in another place, this is about what I saw happening.

The idea that tests are the way to teach kids is not only insulting, it’s wrong. Standardized tests are misinterpreted over and over again. Experts will say over and over again that you can’t use one test to measure a student. But it’s too tempting. It’s so easy for school districts and even our own government to look at a score and decide based on a simple number. It’s cheap, it’s quick, but it’s immoral, damaging, and destructive.

But even that’s not the part that annoys me the most. The worst part is that standardized testing encourages thinking about averages. It encourages teachers to not care about bringing an A student up to an A+. Bringing a C student up to a B looks better on the test. It encourages teaching to the lowest common denominator. School should be about raising the lowest common denominator in whatever way possible, not meeting it. (Stole that from the West Wing). As a pretty gifted student, I was always found myself being parts of classes that seemed like they were put together so that the class average would be palatable when viewed mathematically. Put a few good students in a class with bad students and some average students and it looks decent on paper. Gifted students were left out and talent went to waste.

And it took a toll on the teacher too. Teachers were being reduced to baby sitters and they were slaves to the “curriculum.” They weren’t free to have class discussions because everything centered around the “test.” In making these new guidelines, the Bush Administration seems to have forgotten that teachers are professionals and can create classes that will prepare students well.

There are ways to make standardized testing better. The only way to do it is to make sure that standardized tests are a very small part of testing. These tests are sources of stress for teachers and students. They don’t help. They don’t measure standards effectively. The standards are low. Teachers are forced to teach to a test. Gifted students are left out. Teachers can’t come up with creative ways to engage a class.

It’s a sad state of affairs, but standardized tests are the worst thing that has happened to education from a student’s perspective. Public school students learn less at a higher stress level. They’re taught to memorize, not to think.

NCLB is up for re-authorization this year. When considering the new options, I hope Congress realizes that the purpose of school is to prepare students for life. They need to create an education plan that works. Maybe instead of spending $341.4 million a day in Iraq, we could spend $341.4 million building the best schools in the world. Congress needs to realize that they are dealing with real students and real teachers.

So for various reasons, including standardized testing and my school’s desire to do things that are cheap and not necessarily good, I left. I am now a happy private school student, free from standardized tests (except once a year).

Let me know what you think.