Teaching Life: Letters from a Life in Literature

Chapter 10. Writing

102 Dear Kelly, When Mozart was three years old he first sat down at his sister’s harpsichord in the family house in Salzburg “to find notes that like one another.” That became his life’s work. I enjoy sharing this story because I hear in it a metaphor for the writer—who strives to find words that like one another. We know that for most of our students, writing will not become their profession, but that’s no reason for them to overlook the proper study and practice of it. Although many of them come to our classes well prepared and eager to learn all they can about the craft, many others come from environments in which its importance is all but negligible. Or they have had so many discouraging experiences in school that sometimes “Oh, I hated English!” or “That was my worst subject!” are among their first responses when we announce to them the subject we teach. Because our society has devised so many substitutes for the written word—from telephone to radio to television to film—some say that we risk reaching the point where normal writing ability will be as rare among college graduates as is proficiency in higher mathematics. Ignore the cynics. Your challenge is to make each class a positive and enriching experience regardless of any inner obstacles or negative attitudes or societal trends the students might bring with them. Help them to awaken the dormant excitement that comes from choosing the right words. To fall in love with language, says Aristotle, and to discover our thoughts and then to communicate them convincingly and eloquently—nothing is more satisfying. Encouraging your students begins with your own evident passion for the craft. Never let up, Kelly, in affirming the importance of Writing [ c h a p t e r 1 0 [ 103 w r i t i n g well-written prose. Share with them the unspeakable happiness that you feel in front of your own work. Refuse to compromise on the high standards you have set for yourself. Assure them that you are teaching not from theory but from experience—your own as well as that of other, more seasoned writers. (Don’t hesitate to mention the two books you have published, or the five you have not. Rejection, after all, is an important part of the process.) Remind them often that good writing requires skill, hard work, a keen ear, continued practice, and lots of reading. Tell them the truth. A good way of stepping outside one’s own language and looking at it objectively is to learn a foreign one. It is a fact, paradoxical as it may seem, that studying two languages makes mastery of both easier . Along with French (required in college for my major), I studied Latin in high school one hour a week as a noncredit class because my mother said I should do so. I’ve never regretted it. If your students are going into science or medicine or law, then a study of Latin is essential. If they would like to improve their understanding of logic, then a study of Latin is recommended. Along with the rigors and the subsequent discipline this study incurs, it will take them deep into the English language. “What can we know of English who only English know?” Kingsley Amis asks, famously. A host of English words have Latin roots and disclose their meanings by knowledge of their origins. Knowing about those origins as well as the evolution of the language over time is also a door that opens to new levels of understanding and expression for the writer. So, to the recommendation to study other languages, I would add another: that all students take a course that covers something of the history of the English language. Yes, writing is difficult, but let your students know that they aren’t alone in feeling its rigors. Behind every text there is a living, breathing human being who overcame his or her own challenges to bring the thoughts to paper. In English classes a study of an author’s life is an expected part of the curriculum, but note how rarely our own professors of, say, economics or mathematics or history ever shared with us the lives of the writers behind their chosen texts. (How dull information can be when deprived of personality.) If I were teaching 104 w r...