Response to TSW 194-229

Jessica Sumpter

English 484

March 6, 2008

TSW 194-229

Within the beginning paragraph of the chapter is the most comprehensible definition of style that I have ever come across. “Besides an understanding of structure – the ways of organizing their ideas – our students need to learn something about style, the ways of expressing their ideas” (194). Combined with another piece of definition on the next page, “content provides a passage with it explicit or denotative meaning; style, the way the content is expressed, provides the implicit or connotative meaning” (195). Together, the two excerpts create a workable definition of style, which I have never really understood before. I really feel like I understand what style is much better now.

The discussion on audience is pretty good, but not complete. For example, if I were to write two letters about the same subject, say the condition of the roads; one to the mayor of Port Clinton, and one to a friend of mine. The two audiences of the letters are very different, and the content and language of the two letters would differ just as much. In other words, there will be real and quantifiable differences in my letters based on who my audience is. There is no discussion in the book about such differences, and how using these differences can help students see why thinking about a target audience is important.

One exercise I think would be particularly useful in the classroom would involve picking a topic about school, like how long the breaks between classes are. Then, as a class, we would write all the different reasons they have for changing the length of breaks between classes. Then , we would be able to separate them into two different papers; one to convince other students that longer breaks between classes are better, one to convince the school board that longer breaks between classes would work better. Students and administrators would need very different reasons to convince them that longer breaks are better. Students wouldn’t care about how much it costs, and administrators wouldn’t care about socializing time. A discussion about why one reason works for one audience but not another would make sense to students who want to know why audience matters.

Of course, I’m all for providing a real audience for student papers whenever possible. Take the exercise in the preceding paragraph. If I were to use that exercise as the basis for a paper I would see if I could find a school board member, or members, that would take some time to read the papers and make a few comments. If they wrote to convince other students then I would see if there was another English class that could look at them.

Denotative meaning and connotative meaning are, I believe, very important in student writing. It’s important for students to be aware of connotative meanings that don’t agree with the denotative meanings. For example, the word “shrewd” has a negative connotative meaning to some Jewish people. The image of a white dove has a powerful connotative meaning as a symbol of peace. And it just goes on. An exercise examining the slang that students use would be a good one for teaching students about connotative meaning.

One of the things I don’t like about this book is the word rhetoric. I was never taught rhetoric in school. I was taught how to write persuasively, to write an essay, to write an argument of fact, and so forth. I am really big on using words accurately, and when I think of rhetoric I think of Greek sophists, most of whom couldn’t be trusted. Again, this is something I’ve come across a lot this semester. If I am teaching my students how to write a persuasive essay, then I should be taught how to teach a persuasive essay, not a rhetoric. It causes a disconnect between what I think it means when I look at it, and what it actually means. I just want some consistency, I suppose. Just like, to me, a genre has to do with content, not form. We need to be using the same language in all our classrooms. This way, not only do I have to learn how to teach effectively, I have to learn an entirely new vocabulary, one that doesn’t agree with my current vocabulary at that.