Formulaic Writing
Posted in Education, My Writing, Writing
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.
