So today as I was reading through a particularly poignant student essay, I came across this sentence. I had to read it twice to be sure that I'd read it correctly. I've also cleaned up the spelling for you.
Nowadays many of my friends and family are being murdered for all the wrong reasons.
As I continued reading, I kept waiting for the writer to explain that she has (or has had) friends and family previously murdered for the right reasons. I thought an explanation of the differences between the right and wrong reasons for getting oneself killed would be useful following this sentence. When I think to my own family, I have examples that could be particularly instructive.
I'm not trying to be insensitive here. When I talked to her, I wasn't snarky. I did ask the student to read through the last part of the sentence (several times) to see if what she had written made sense. I finally had to explain to her the potential of readers misunderstanding her intent when she says that loved ones had been murdered for the wrong reasons.
She looked at me blankly, and then said, "Well, there could be real reasons." Pause. "But I guess I get what you're saying."
I'd call that a real breakthrough moment.
"I thought an explanation of the differences between the right and wrong reasons for getting oneself killed would be useful following this sentence. When I think to my own family, I have examples that could be particularly instructive." This might be the funniest thing I've read here in a while.
ReplyDeleteMy guess is that "for all the wrong reasons" is a favorite catchphrase of someone this young lady looks up to: parent/other relative, teacher, mentor, pastor, 12-step group leader, radio show host, whatever. Either that person doesn't use the phrase very precisely him/herself, or the student isn't particularly good at picking up the nuances of language. So she hasn't actually thought about what the phrase literally means, just has a sense that it fits in the context of talking about something bad ("nowadays" also strikes me as a red flag; whatever follows is almost always a cliche, a severe overgeneralization, or both).
ReplyDeleteI once had a somewhat similar conversation with a young man who had written a paper the thesis of which boiled down to "you gotta have heart." While he was sure that "heart" was a good thing -- coaches and others had told him so -- he wasn't able to define it, or offer examples of situations that demonstrated the possession or lack of heart, or in any other way I could suggest get enough perspective on the term to define it for someone for whom the meaning wasn't already clear. It was a very frustrating 15-20 minutes, and we didn't get even as far as you and your student did, so, yes, this does sound like at least a minor breakthrough. If you get a chance for a follow-up, it might be interesting to ask her where she has heard the phrase, and/or to google it with her and look at how it's generally used (I just did that, and it turns out the phrase shows up in several popular songs -- another possible source of her familiarity with it).
It also sounds like a really tough conversation that you handled well (the difficulty of talking about the writing problems in an essay that relates truly painful personal experiences is one of the reasons I stopped assigning personal-experience essays, but personal experience does offer a good source of material for students who may not feel they have much else to draw on). On the one hand, one can understand why someone who has seen a number of family members and friends murdered wouldn't be all that concerned with the nuances of the English language. On the other hand, the ability to write clear, thoughtful prose is one of the things that just might get her, and her descendants, out of a neighborhood that sounds like a war zone, and/or give them the tools to improve the situation. So you're fighting the good fight. Bravo!
And I, too, chuckled at the idea of "particularly instructive" examples from your own family. I think I could cite a few myself (from my family, not yours).
Attribute it to TV. Part of it is how, having seen thousands of simulated murders, the enormity of this vicious crime seemingly goes right over her head. Another part of it of course is the literacy that's been displaced.
ReplyDeleteIn the 60 years since the widespread availability of television, a higher proportion of people worldwide have become literate than at any other time in human history. Not that one is significantly correlated with the other, of course.
ReplyDeleteI think Cassandra's onto something interesting and important here. It might be fun to assign students some kind of "cliche' scavenger hunt," where they collect phrases from song lyrics, TV, sports culture, etc., that appear over and over. Then see if they can define the central terms of teach, and/or what kind of emotional manipulation they're doing to cover lack of content. And make a master list of phrases NOT to use in your own writing.
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