Reynolds 1

McEssay: multi-genre essay

It has taken me a decade, but I have perfected my Sunday night ritual: fill a deep

ceramic coffee mug with steaming light roast coffee, snug my ipod headphones into

each ear, cradle my gold Cross pen with blue ink (red ink is so 1950’s) in my right hand,

and select an essay from the stack of College Composition papers on our kitchen table.

Then I get lost in the writing.

For the next few hours, I have the best job in the world, and I am not even at

work. My pen is almost non-stop. “Tell me more” it scrawls in the right margin of one

paper while on another essay it circles an entire paragraph and responds, “Now you’re

showing! Do more of this!” On another essay it weaves over the first paragraph, “Don’t

tell us what you are going to write about, show us!” and later in another, “This would be

more vivid if you used dialogue.” Of course, it often swoops in and notes the wrong use

of “there” or spies a missing comma and advises, “End an introductory adverb clause

with a comma.” But it seeks the potential more than the errors.

In one essay a student recounts the final bitter words she said to her mother as

she left for grade school, only to have her father pluck her out of class later that day and

rush her to the hospital, where her mother would die that night in surgery. Another

Reynolds 2

essay takes me onto the golf course in the hazy heat of late August, where the writer’s

rivalry with his older brother comes down to one final putt. Despite his escalating heart

rate and his brother’s barrage of insults, the writer drains the putt and defeats his

brother.

By now my coffee is cold and my iPod playlist is repeating, but I’m lost in the

work. I am giggling as a student recounts how, as a child, she was fond of discovering

new moles and freckles, which her mother dubbed “Angel Kisses.” One day she

proudly thrust her head in her older sister’s face, displaying the newest peck from

heaven. “That’s not an Angel Kiss, you freak,” her older sister declared. “You’re

growing a third ear!” She believed her sibling, bragging about it at daycare, even

believing she could detect conversations from the house next door. Her mother finally

had to break the news that it was -- alas -- just a mole. In another essay, I hurry

through downtown Minneapolis, dodging traffic, pedestrians, and vendors,

accompanying a student and his father on their trip of a lifetime to see U2 at the Target

Center. Their seats are so close the student can see Bono’s stubble. After that paper, I

spit out a mouthful of icy coffee and scroll through my ipod in search of The Joshua

Tree.

It was not always like this.

In the summer of 1984 my father bought a 160-acre farm ten miles

from town, and to my eternal misery, he moved us, which included my

father, mother, and me, there. Now twenty years later, I have come to an

amusing analogy between a foe I faced on our farm and a threat I currently

face as a composition teacher.

Reynolds 3

The land on the edges of our new farm was fenced off into several

large and painstakingly maintained fields of alfalfa. We cut, raked, baled,

stacked, and, finally, fed the alfalfa hay to my dad’s herd of 500 sheep. The

rest of our farm was withering grass, vast forests of thistles, and countless

craters of striped gopher mounds.

One day in late June, I was helping my dad grease our John Deer "A"

before we began mowing my dad’s beloved alfalfa, when a strange green

truck pulled into our yard. A peculiar little man got out and approached us.

He had a long, white beard that would have reached to his waist had it not

been so windy. Instead it flowed horizontally from his chin. My dad went to

see what he wanted while I quickly finished greasing the tractor.

When I was done, I noticed my dad leaning against the side of the

man's truck with one hand tucked in the lone back pocket of his tattered

Levi's. "Yes," I thought. Dad was in his "visiting" stance. This was

promising. The man too was propped up against the side of the truck. This

had the makings of a real jaw session. As I plotted my escape, I noticed that

the driver's side door had a square yellow plaque on it with "State of MN"

stenciled on it.

Life for a child is an adventure of epic proportions. Life for an adult is a routine of monotonous survival. This sucks.

In a summer long ago, I got up and donned a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, usually either my Han Solo shirt or my "May the Smurf be with you" shirt. I had other shirts, but these two were my staples. It didn't seem at all odd to me then to simply wear the same clothes every single day.

My mother didn't quite see it that way though. Properly attired, the only thing left was to find socks of the same color, slip into my tennis shoes, and fasten the velcro straps. Then I scampered down our uncarpeted wooden stairs, skipping over the fifth step from the top that always cried out when stepped on, tear through the living room, whirl into the kitchen, and leap out the back door.

We arrived.

Reynolds 4

For the second time in my life, I found myself located in a

small, rural town, out in the middle of nowhere. The surrounding

land was a flat and forested, or farming fields that seemed to go on

for miles. It had an unpleasant aroma of manure and mowed grass

that seeped through the windows, and stayed there.

In what felt like the last hour of driving, there was nothing.

There were no cars, no humans, nor any houses, just trees and land.

But finally, traffic increased and businesses appeared over the

horizon. We passed a rectangular, green road sign, and my heart

sank as my eyes overlooked the white, sans-serif font that stated:

Thief River Falls, Population: 8,472.

II.

Reynolds 5

“Okay, who has a topic? Let’s hear one,” I asked my students.

My sophomores averted their eyes. A boy in the front row made for his untied

Doc Martin hoping that would buy him a few seconds. Another boy farther back

fidgeted and dragged his pencil across the spine of his notebook, praying I wouldn’t call

on him. A girl to the left of the fidgeter looked straight ahead but not quite at me,

focused on a point just over my right shoulder on the white board.

Well, this is not how I imagined it. I would love to have been given my choice of

topics to write about when I was in school. Instead I had some ancient professor assign

the topic and, like it or not, I had to write about it.

“Come on now. What do you feel like writing about?”

Let them choose the topic. Allow them to have mastery of the subject matter.

Model how much you enjoy writing. Model the writing process. Show them how they

can master it to produce excellent essays.

So I crept over to a shed on the other side of the truck, feigning that I was

looking for a tube of grease. Had Dad not been so wrapped up in whatever

they were talking about, he would have recognized this ploy and cast me out

to the field to mow. I was in luck. Dad was wholly engrossed in the

conversation. It was going to be a real jaw session indeed, for I was able to

effortlessly slip around the shed and dash toward the house. Within seconds

I was in a T-shirt and cut off jogging pants, lying on my bed with Def Leppard

on the stereo and Stephen King's The Tommyknockers in my hands.

Reynolds 6

Eventually, Dad beckoned me back to work, and we mowed the 60-

acre alfalfa field. Over the clatter of the blades, Dad explained that the

visitor had been the state "weed inspector."

"There's no pot around here!" I shouted over the chugging tractor and

the racing blades slicing down the alfalfa.

"No. He inspects wild weeds like . . . " and my dad began rattling off

names of plants that I had never heard of, like "leafy" something and

something "spurge" or maybe it was "leafy spurge." Dad explained to me

that the "weed" inspector’s real mission had been to warn him about the

thistles.

I encountered the thistles several times on my three wheeler. In fact,

my favorite thing to do when my friends visited was to rev up the three

wheeler, taking them through a thistle patch. Of course I lifted my legs up

onto the front fender, racing through the thick patches. My friends were

caught unaware, screaming as the thistles tore and gouged their legs. They

pounded my back, trying vainly to raise their legs out of the way. However,

that was impossible for they had to lift their legs up and forward, bringing

them even deeper into the thistles scraping by the gas tank, my friend's

legs, and the rear plastic fenders before going under the tires. I roared the

whole time until my sides ached.

Once outside I plopped on the wooden step to our back porch. At first I shivered from the crisp air and the cold metal of the screen door against my back. Yet, I relished the goose bumps. Part of me longed for the warmth of the kitchen where my mom poured ovals of batter, which would later magically solidify into pancakes, into the frying pan. I heard the bacon and eggs spit and hiss, knowing all too well how their greasy venom can easily lash out and strike a poor unsuspecting kid watching his mom make breakfast. The rest of my family struggled to pull free from their sheets. But I forced myself to remain on the step with the damp wood soaking the seat of my pants and the splinters and tiny rusty nails in the step nipping at my backside.

My eyes soaked up this green, damp world. The grass and the leaves in the trees and in the bushes all seemed so fresh from this perspective. I crossed my arms and keeled over a bit, forcing myself not to shiver, but shivering nonetheless. I noticed the bottom of my shoes, shiny and dark from the dew. While I concentrated on warming up, a parched mosquito quietly perched on my arm and pried into a vein. Suddenly, the sharp prick broke my concentration. Even at the age of five I was accustomed to this menace and an instinctive slap left the pest a red

Reynolds 7

smear on my arm. From then on I alternated between fighting off the cold and scratching the tiny welt. The more I scratched, leaving small white zigzag lines on my dry skin, the more it itched.

Finally, the moment I suffered for arrived. The sun fell on me, banishing the goose bumps and shivers. I soaked up the yellow warmth like a Bounty towel and felt the heat in my tight lungs. Once sufficiently thawed, I became aware of the chattering coming from our Elm tree. When I peered up, I just saw leaves. Then slowly I discerned the small dark, fluttering shapes of sparrows and robins amidst the leaves and branches. Beneath their songs I picked up a constant bass line reverberating from the lilac bushes. At first, the buzzing seemed to be coming from the lilacs themselves. But as I watched carefully, I detected minute movements among the purple flowers. Soon everywhere I looked on the bush I saw the gold and black insects. Normally I would flee in terror, but since the bushes and bees were across the yard, I sensed no immediate peril.

The buck stopped broadside down the trail. I swiftly

pointed my rifle through the cracked window. Cheek on the

stock, I focused on the cross hairs. Making one last

adjustment, I feathered the trigger with confidence. The .308

round cuts the silence and meets its target.

III.

Reynolds 8

It was the fourth week of my second year teaching sophomore English. I had

spent my rookie year just staying a few days ahead of my students, acclimating myself

to the role of teacher, struggling with discipline, and trying to get my sophomores ready

for the Minnesota Basic Skills Test in writing. My students had to write an essay, which

was then sent to the state for scoring. Those who scored above a three passed; those

who did not had to retake the test. I had learned little about the BST in college, so I

devoted the summer to restructuring my curriculum so my sophomores would pass the

writing test and I would not look like a complete failure.

That was exactly how we spent the first part of the following year: writing essays.

The only problem? The majority of my English classes were devoted to literature. Even

the ones devoted to writing focused on teaching me how to write. Only one methods

class actually focused on teaching me how to teach my students how to write, and that

was a semester before I even student taught. Literary Criticism, Shakespeare,

Twentieth Century British Literature, Multi-Cultural Poetry were not going to get 120

sophomores past the BST in writing.

Desperate, I turned to the Minnesota BST Written Composition Handbook. I

found a diagram that demonstrated, using a simple metaphor that my sophomores

could easily comprehend, how to create a passing essay: “the hamburger” method. It

highlighted the three basic parts of an essay. The beginning of the essay was the top

bun, the middle formed the hamburger patty replete with fixings, and the conclusion

served as the bottom bun.

After visiting with a friend who taught writing at our district’s middle school, I

found they used the same diagram for constructing simple paragraphs. This seemed

Reynolds 9

like the perfect segue to take my students to the next step for passing the BST in

writing: the five-paragraph essay.

My students already knew that a topic sentence, three supporting sentences, and

a concluding sentence made a sound paragraph. How hard would it be to take that

format and just expand it, turning their topic sentence into an introductory paragraph

that ended with a thesis statement, expanding their supporting sentences into three

paragraphs that referenced, with clear topic sentences, their thesis, and finally

developing their concluding sentence into a final paragraph that effectively restated their

thesis and wrapped up their essay? Obviously, the handbook encouraged the five part

essay formula because nearly every essay scoring above a three was written according

to that recipe.

Dad said the state inspector warned that if we didn't spray the thistles,

they would storm the entire farm. My dad was not about to buy into any

such type of conspiracy theory. After all, he adamantly believed Lee Harvey

Oswald really shot Kennedy and that Area 51 was actually just a military

base. Plus, there was no way my dad was going to pay the state to fly a

plane over and douse the thistles with weed killer. However, my dad loved

our alfalfa fields like another son; he was not about to allow the thistles to

corrupt them.

Dad informed me that once we finished mowing the alfalfa, we were

going mow the thistles. This, though, was only a temporary solution since

the roots would still be intact and the thistles would simply grow back again

later in the summer, germinate, and then lie dormant over the winter. But

Dad didn't seem concerned.

Reynolds 10

The odd thing now, some 20 years later, is I can't recall leaving. I remember sitting and reveling in the wonder of morning, but other than morning I don't know when it was. It had to be summer, but I don't know what month. I don't know what time it was. It was early, but I don't know how early. I don't really know why I even sat there. I don't know how long I sat on that step. It could have been fifteen minutes. It could have been an hour. I didn't have a watch. Even if I did, I couldn't yet tell time. Time seemed to flow into one great unforgettable state of being: Life.

Whatever happened to my wonder? Somewhere along the way I went and lost my sense of wonder. Our culture, I believe, works to abolish the sense of wonder in adults. The imagination is an endangered specie. Stay focused and determined. No time to day dream or ponder. Amongst jobs, lists, classes, routines, bills, errands, cars, computers, televisions, that sense of awe I had as a kid was lost. Or stolen. Every adult day seemed to become a new exercise in disappointment.

“Shut up, Nancy Drew.”

“I didn't say anything!”

Everyone is sitting in a slight arc hunched over their

desk laughing. That’s the typical start of my conversation

with Mr. Reynolds. First to be a Nancy you simply must be in

his class and contradict everything. For example, I said, “I

think” and was instantly cut off with a sharp, “Shut up, Nancy

Drew” from a smirking Reynolds. He gets quite a lot of

enjoyment from this childish name calling.

As everyone laughs at me, I can't help but join in.That

is the second step: to be able to take his comments and not

go into a depression. Last, but not least, you must be able to

Reynolds 11

simply wear sweatpants. This really irks him and his dress-

up every day motto.

IV.

“Come on. Someone give me a topic.”

Finally an over achiever broke the silence, “Let’s write about our favorite hobby.”

“Good topic,” I said with my back already to the room. My thumb popped the cap

off my Expo marker. Behind me, tablets rustled opened and pencils stood poised.

They know the routine.

“Let’s brainstorm some hobbies now,” I said with one glance over my shoulder.

“Sports,” someone called out only to be met with, “No, we always write about

sports.”

“Reality TV,” someone else yelled.

“Yeah, I have seen every episode of Survivor,” another student added.

My marker flew across the board to keep pace.

“Playing guitar . . . Working on my truck . . . Video games . . . Weight lifting . . .

Work . . . Archery . . . Painting . . .”

Reynolds 12

“Okay. Okay,” I said flexing my aching hand as I backed away from the board

and examined what we had come up with. “Not bad. What should we focus on for our

model essay?”

Model the essays for my students so they see the importance of form and

focusing on a central idea, just like the handbook advises.

The entire middle row, comprised of junior varsity football players, cried, “Video

games!”

The girls let out a collective sigh, but the boys in the front section of the middle

row chanted, “Vid – EO” while – on cue – the boys in the back section of the middle row

chanted, “games!”

“Vid - EO . . . Games! Vid - EO. . . Games!”

“Okay, okay, okay,” I said. “Remember the principal’s room is below us, so let’s

try and keep it to a dull roar.” I grabbed the eraser and carved great swaths of white

through the brainstorming on the board, leaving just the original “video games” in the

middle.

“That’s a start. But what type of video games? Are we talking sports games?

How about Madden? Or quest games, like Zelda? Shooter games? Resident Evil?

How about a classic, like Pong?”

One lone student snickered at my joke.

“Madden! ” A football player called.

“Why?” I urged.

“Each year they make it better. This year there’s the franchise mode where you

can sign free agents and draft players,” a student called out.

Reynolds 13

“Yeah, there are new playbooks too,” another added.

“Okay, so the hobby requires some technical knowledge and skill,” I said as I

jotted that on the board. “What else?”

“It brings us all together,” yet another student began, and I drew an arrow and

wrote that on the board. “Nearly every Saturday we’re over at Ryan’s. Everybody

throws in ten bucks, plus an extra two for pizza, and we draw teams from a hat. You

can only use original players, no modified ones. Last year Matt dominated, but this year

I own him. Last weekend I raked in $60.”

“Yeah, but that’s only because my quarterback got hurt in the second quarter,”

Matt called out from the back, “I was up on you by a touchdown too.”

“All right, we’ve got two things we can develop. But we need a third item,” I said.

“It’s practically a tradition in my family,” Jason stated, and I hurried to record the

idea. “My dad grew up playing Atari, and my older brothers grew up playing Nintendo.

Whenever they’re home from college, we hook up the Playstation to the big screen in

the basement and spend our whole day down there while Mom and my sisters go

shopping. My uncle even comes over and plays sometimes.”

“Great,” I said and stood back from the board and surveyed our pre-writing.

Impressive. Just look at all that thinking on the board. Give them a visual pre-

writing method. Just like the handbook suggested. Very impressive.

“Now given what we have up here in our brainstorm, someone come up with a

thesis.”

They know the routine.

Reynolds 14

Dad and I made one good sweep through the thistles, chopping their

dense battalions down effortlessly. Then something wonderful happened.

The far end of the mower dug into a gopher's mound and snapped the

mower’s drive shaft. Wonderful. It was around six in the evening and both

of our stomachs were growling. The last thing I wanted to do was spend the

entire evening mowing thistles.

As we pulled into the yard, Dad said, "I want you to come with me to

the quonset."

Uh-oh. Things were not wonderful after all. The quonset was my dad's

laboratory, so to speak. From there he hatched all of his crazy ideas to keep

me busy while he was gone.

I miss how time distorts itself to children. I remember practically drying up and turning to dust waiting to see the doctor. Summers were decades. A trip to the mall in Grand Forks, an hour's ride imprisoned in the car, seemed to me a lifetime. The six weeks I had to wear a cast after breaking my ankle seemed to me two lifetimes. The year between my birthdays was a century. A single Sunday church service was a millennium. Christmas Eves, when my parents insisted I wait until morning to open my presents, were an eternity.

How many times as a child did I get up and not even know what day it was? The only day I ever kept track of was Saturday. And that was just because of cartoons. I remember once I must have forgotten it was Saturday and slept right through cartoons. The next morning I got up early, thinking it was Saturday. Instead of "Godzilla," "He-Man," and "Sigmond the Seamonster," I got Jerry Fallwell on one channel, the 700 Club on another, and Meet the Press on yet another. I never lost track of a Saturday again. Now, however, my life is dictated by the days of the week. And there aren't enough hours in any of them. Somehow life went from a crawl to a sprint.

I miss reveling in the mundane. Living in a constant state of shock. Experiencing everything like it was the first time, because it was the first time. How can I forget my first movie, The Empire Strikes Back? Playing with my first race car track? Wailing my first time perched in Santa's lap? Donning my first Halloween costume? Fearing for my life while subjected to my first haircut? These events are etched permanently in my mind. How many movies have I seen in the past year? How many haircuts have I had? Now they all blur together with everything else into one great indistinguishable event: life.

Reynolds 15

“Whoa whoa whoa, you cannot put the hot fudge on before the

strawberries!” I said to my sister. “Don’t you know that if you put

hot fudge on too early that it will melt the ice cream?”

“Well I’m sorrrrry. I didn’t know there were rules to

making a stupid ice cream dessert.”

Stupid? I think not. Usually, I could care less about what

she does with bananas, ice cream, and chocolate. But the day I

tasted the ‘real deal,’ my life was forever changed. Therefore, I

couldn’t let her create it carelessly. Here are the steps to making it

perfect.

V.

Reynolds 16

Finally Matt called out as he surveyed the board, “Madden is one of my favorite

hobbies because . . .” his head bobbed as he followed our clustering, “it is

challenging . . . uh, brings friends together . . . and it is, kinda like a family tradition.”

“Okay, we’ve got a thesis. That’s a start. What do we need next?” I asked.

“An outline,” the middle row responded.

They know the routine indeed. I could practically see the outlines taking form in

their minds.

“Yep. Who wants to time me?”

Have them time me to illustrate how quickly I can devise an outline. Just like the

handbook suggests.

“I’ll do it,” Cheryl said, already looking up at the clock.

“Ready when you are,” I said with my marker poised.

“Go.”

I knew the routine better than anyone. I quickly jotted down an introductory

sentence and a thesis. I organized the three supporting ideas, formulating a topic

sentence for each. Then I added at least three examples for each idea. Finally, I

restated my thesis in the conclusion and ended with a clincher sentence.

“Done,” I said and slammed the marker down.

“Thirty seconds,” Cheryl said on cue.

“Now I’ll turn you loose to work on your own essay. Remember, brainstorm just

like we did up here,” I said cocking a thumb at the whiteboard covered in blue marker,

“until you come up with three good points. Devise a thesis. Create an outline based on

your thesis. Be sure to come up with plenty of examples to support each of your three

Reynolds 17

main ideas. Use details in those supporting paragraphs. The richer you make them,

the clearer they will be to the reader. Use transitions to move the reader from one topic

to the next. And last, but not least, be sure to have a conclusion that restates your main

ideas. I want to see two full pages. Rough draft due tomorrow.”

I trailed him to the quonset in the fake yellow hue of our yard light. Dad

entered the quonset, rummaged around, and emerged. He held what looked

like a wooden stick with some blue, jagged metal at the end.

"What is that?"

"It's an old fashioned sickle.”

Oh no. I could tell right away what he had planned: Kurt vs. the

thistles.

"Dad, I won't be able to get them all. Dad, they'll just regrow. Dad,

why don't we wait until the mower is fixed. Dad, then I'll gladly mow them

down next week. Dad . . ."

Dad wasn't having any of it. So began my battle with the thistles.

I remember going with my mom and grandmother to Grand Forks when I was around six. My mom took me across the street to a large building. It was some thing called a department store. All I remember, or cared about, was that it had the most incredible thing I had ever seen in my six years on this planet: an escalator. I rode up and down those shiny, folding metal stairs all day. I remember trying to storm them in an attempt to beat them to the top and walking backward trying to work my way against the flow. I remember thinking how dreadful it would be to get an errant shoelace caught in the stairs as they collapsed and folded back under and came out the bottom again. A security guard came up to my mother. I remember her saying, "you never could guess that we come from a small town?" When we finally had to go, I begged and begged, tugging with my small arms and planting my tiny feet firmly, for one more ride, just one more as if my entire life depended on one more ride.

A few summers ago I went to the Mall of America. There were escalators there. I know we rode on them. But I can't recall riding on a single one. Too many places to visit. Too many things to buy. Too many things too see. So much for the wonder of the escalator.

Reynolds 18

I look up at the scoreboard and see that there is 12

seconds left on the clock. The score reads 62-62. Nick

throws the ball in to me, and I spin around. My heart is

pounding as I bring the ball up the left sideline. My dad, who

is coaching us, screams, “Jake! Come Here!” I crossover

and take off towards our bench. One of West Fargo’s players

is riding my right hip, forcing me to keep my armbar up and

slowing me down. I finally reach our bench, thinking my dad

will call time out and then draw up a play for the winning

basket.

VI.

After a total of six weeks of producing perfectly assembled hamburgers . . . I

mean essays . . . the students were becoming trained quite effectively. I continued to

model the format, typing up essays and copying them to overheads. This format was so

easy to master that I continued to crank out the essays right along with my students. All

I had to do was just give the command - “write an essay on your favorite relative” or

Reynolds 19

“write an essay about an important lesson you learned” and we mass-produced them,

as if they were McEssays, easily slapped together and readily consumable.

Once their final drafts were submitted, I collected them and applied the state’s

rubric, checking to make sure that the essays were clearly related to the topic, focused

on a well developed central idea, were properly organized, and were relatively free of

mechanical and structural errors.

Soon they had the form mastered. I too began to feel a mastery of writing as I

illustrated the five-paragraph format over and over for my students. Instead of wrestling

with ideas and directions, as I had done so often as an undergraduate, all I had to do

was select a topic, brainstorm some ideas, determine which three could be best

supported, formulate a thesis based on those selections, and begin writing. The essay

practically wrote itself.

Why hadn’t I encountered this form in college? When a paper was looming on

the syllabus, I literally spent weeks holed up in the university library with my sources

stacked around me. I randomly explored one idea, only to abandon it when I couldn’t

fully support it. So I would start after another. After days of writing, I would finally

emerge with some ideas gathered and, hopefully, adequately supported. Then I would

type them into the proper format and submit the thing to my professor. Think of all

those hours wasted!

What a service I was providing my students. They might be bored with cranking

the essays out now, but they would thank me when it came time later in the year to write

their research papers. When they went off to college and saw what writing was like on

that level, they would literally send me “thank you” cards. I couldn’t wait to get the mail.

Reynolds 20

Not long after the mid-term, though, they tired of essays: theirs, mine, and,

especially, the student samples from the state. I decided to show them some real

essays written by professionals, so I rummaged through the outdated magazines in our

school library. I also devised a checklist that called for them to search professional

articles for the elements of an excellent essay (after all, I had ordered a set of posters

chronicling the five essential parts of an excellent essay proudly adorned them on my

walls). I could not wait to illustrate the importance of precise topic sentences, well-

supported paragraphs, and effective conclusions. They would then see how real writers

write.

My foe was a worthy adversary. The thistles had no natural enemies

in our pasture. Our herd of 500 sheep sure didn't eat them. Thus, they grew

unfettered. Some were as tall as a full grown man. Have you ever seen a

thistle? They are armed to the teeth. If Rambo was a plant, he would be a

thistle. Their stalks are thick. Oftentimes I had to hack away at their bases

like a mad lumberjack hacking away at a pine. They had organized

themselves into great, dense battalions around the pasture. Sometimes they

were so tightly hunkered that it was hard for me to cut a path through them.

Did I mention they are covered in razor sharp thorns? Even worse, they

seemed to be eternally in bloom, which meant they were swarming with

bees. If the thistle didn’t sting me, they bees tried.

Despite their best efforts to defend themselves though, it became my

personal mission to drive the invaders from our land. I spent many scorching

July and August afternoons with my walkman stuffed into the back pocket of

my jeans teeing off, literally, with the weed whacker, for it was little more

than a wooden shafted golf club. Instead of a club at the end, though, this

thing had a flimsy row of metal teeth. Part golf club; part saw. But in the

end, they won the war of attrition. They were too dense in number for

Reynolds 21

me to vanquish alone in just a few months. They had me outnumbered, and

they knew it. In fact, by chopping them down when they were ripe and

blooming, I unwittingly helped spread them. Their spores would catch the

rare breezes and float across our land.

Years later, the thistles did indeed storm much of our farm, despite my

tactics. Dad finally capitulated and paid a local crop duster to drop the

herbicide bomb.

Now, what does that experience have to do with teaching English,

specifically teaching composition? Well, a lot actually.

Throughout grade school, I spent winter afternoons sliding down the hill behind our house with my friends. My mom bundled me up in my snowsuit, moon boots, and a damn sissy scarf and sent me out into the cold. Once down the hill I promptly took off the scarf and stashed it in the knot of a tree. Then and only then I hopped on my red plastic sled and roared down the hill for 10 seconds of genuine bliss. Then I grabbed the white rope my dad tied to it and lugged it back up the hill. After what seemed like 10 minutes, I hopped back in my sled and raced down the hill again.

Now I rarely venture outside in the winter. It just feels too cold to my 28-year-old skin. But when I was eight, the worst thing that mom could do to me was quarantine me to the house. I even sacrificed watching afternoon cartoons to go sledding. The last time I went sledding? Nine years ago. It was with my girlfriend at the time and her brothers. I remember having fun but looking forward much more to her and I lying beneath the blankets in front of their fireplace, instead of reveling in the joy of sledding.

But when someone puts effort into something, crafting it

with their own hands and mind – a piece that rustles up emotions

in another individual – that is beauty. One the other hand, the idea

of beauty is in the eye of the beholder holds some truth. One

might not think Faust is good or that Virgin of the Rocks is a

bit dull, but I think they are both pretty substantial pieces of human

expression (pardon the cheese – sometimes you just need a big

slice of bushe de chevre to wash the Savignon down).

Reynolds 22

There are a lot of beautiful things in this world, probably

millions. Maybe even billions, but that’s hasty – most people

don’t realize that a billion is a thousand million, which is a

hell of a number. Yet with all these billions of beautiful things,

none of them are humans. None of them are acts, none of them are

an event, and not a single one has ever involved MTV.

I have a PhD in Truth, and you just got my prescription.

VII.

Reynolds 23

The following Monday I found myself thinking, It doesn’t get any better than this,

as I surveyed my first hour sophomores scattered about my room. This is what

teaching must really look like. My class finally resembled my vision of an ideal

classroom. Mine was not to be the traditional classroom where students sat obediently

in neat rows, scrawling furiously to keep pace with my lectures.

One boy lounged against the wall, a Rolling Stone obscuring his face, his tablet

resting on his chest. Another was lying on his back with his legs arched and feet

tapping idly on the carpet, thumbing through a Sports Illustrated while a stack of

previous issues beneath his head served as a pillow. A cluster of girls was in a corner

trading issues of Teen and Cosmo. Others were in desks or even beneath them.

Periodically, students halted reading and scribbled on their assignment sheets.

Why can’t the principal pop in now? I’d even settle for our department head

strolling by. But no. I alone am here to witness this.

Completing my circuit through the classroom, I returned to my desk. Before

sitting down to get a head start on some correcting, I glanced up and thought once

more, it most certainly doesn’t get any better than this.

Just then Kyle, sitting almost painfully upright in his desk, called out, “Mr.

Reynolds, there is something wrong with this article.”

I was wrong. It just got better. Kyle was quiet, soft-spoken, and keen. Mine

was not going to be a classroom where students had to hoist their arms and wait for me

to call on them.

“What do you mean?” I asked, navigating my way toward his desk.

Reynolds 24

“Well, this article doesn’t really meet any of these requirements,” he declared,

alternating his gaze from the article to the checklist on his desk, before handing me a

Time article on hazing among Marine paratroopers.

“It must have some,” I said, scanning the article, confident I’d locate a clear topic

sentence, several supporting sentences, and ample concluding sentences. There has

to be some. This was a real writer published in a respected magazine.

“And look at that second paragraph,” Kyle added half rising out of his desk and

pointing. “It only has two sentences.”

My eyes scanned the page. Well, I had to agree. The article didn’t clearly

address the traditional form. There had to be a topic sentence in here somewhere. I

even brought my index finger up and dragged it across the sentences - a reading

practice I had not employed since elementary school - underscoring every sentence,

hoping to find those essential requirements, which the BST Written Composition

Handbook said had to be in every well constructed essay.

“Plus it has seven paragraphs,” Kyle stated as if we were in biology and he just

pulled a three headed frog from his pocket.

“Whoa. One thing at a time,” I said. “Ah, here’s a topic sentence. Look at the

third paragraph,” I said.

Kyle’s eyes followed my index finger and poured over the paragraph.

Order has been restored.

“Why didn’t she just come out and state her topic right away?”

“Well, you see she is setting the reader up with her first paragraph,” I began,

smiling at his question. “She is giving us some background information by telling us a

Reynolds 25

little narrative about the paratroopers and how they earn their golden wings. She is

trying to hook the reader with that information.”

“Oh,” Kyle said. “I see.” Then he looked me right in the eyes and pondered,

“Then why didn’t she fully support her second paragraph?”

“Well, here the author is briefly summarizing the hazing from the leaked video

that got the military in trouble.”

“Okay,” Kyle said uneasily and jotted down the topic sentence I had pointed out.

Kyle was right, though. That article wasn’t like anything I had my students write.

It didn’t adhere to a strict form. It didn’t bother with a thesis, clear topic sentences, and

tidy supporting information. Nor was there a single paragraph containing five

sentences. Were these all lies I swallowed from the state? Worse yet, I fed them to my

students.

“See what you can find in another magazine,” I said and turned back toward my

desk.

“Mr. Reynolds,” Kyle called.

“Yes?”

“Um, could I, uh, have the magazine back? I really like that article and want to

finish it.”

I looked down at the issue of Time, still clenched in my right hand.

“Oh, yeah. Of course,” I said and handed it to Kyle. By the time I was half way

back to my desk, my initial theory of teaching writing was collapsing.

In composition there is an entity much like the thistle. It can invade,

populate, and choke out all of the good land. It will serve as a nuisance for

Reynolds 26

both the landholder and any one unlucky enough to come across it without

adequate protection. This entity is the five-paragraph theme or otherwise

known as, the thesis/support form.

To stretch this metaphor to greater lengths, I stepped into my first

Communications class with a curriculum that included writing a four-page

research paper. "No big deal," I unwittingly thought. I'm sure that is exactly

what my dad thought when he saw the first thistles sprouting up too.

I decided to begin thesis/support paper right away. Before I knew it,

we were three weeks into the research paper. Later that year, I realized I

was unwittingly spreading the spores across my classroom. Since I focused

on teaching the thesis/support form right away and since it was the only

form of writing my students were exposed to, I had infested my students

with such statements as, "your thesis must have three aspects, and it must

come at the end of your introduction" and "each of your corresponding

supporting paragraphs must have a topic sentence that correlates to an

individual aspect stated in your thesis" and "you must use at least one direct

quote and one paraphrase in each of your supporting paragraphs too" and

"your conclusion should restate your thesis" and "your final page will be your

works cited," and "you must include an outline that corresponds exactly to

the form of your research paper." I thought, egads, that I was teaching my

poor students how to write, just as I thought I was doing some good hacking

away at the thistles 15 years earlier.

Sometimes I would lie in our back yard with tiny shards of grass poking through my T-shirt and dandelions rustling in my ears and just stare at clouds. I heard somewhere that every cloud looks like something. I watched the white fluffy pictures in the sky completely awestruck. The biggest TV set I had ever seen: God's TV, maybe. Images formed and tumbled above me. There was a car, a fire hydrant, an eagle, a beehive, an eraser, a tiger, a bat, and a spoon. I spent hours just lying there.

Now the only time I look at the sky is to pray for shade when I am sweating to death on the asphalt on the highway working road construction or praying for them to go away when we are tubing on the river. When I do see a cloud, it doesn't resemble anything other than a big fluffy

Reynolds 27

cloud. Maybe a big fluffy marshmallow. For the life of me I can no longer see cars, fire hydrants, or anything else. The wonder of clouds has passed me by too.

Great. . . I have to write a 4-6 page paper defining

something.

Talk about vague. So many choices, so many options. How

does one even go about choosing a topic? I suppose I could just

open a dictionary and randomly point to a word. Yeah, that would

work! I don’t see why not.

So, that is exactly what I did. I dug out my dusty old

children’s dictionary- what? I got to make it an easy word! So, I

flipped it open and with-out looking pointed to a spot. Then I slowly peeled my eyes open, almost as if my

eyelashes were doing the wave. I was kind of afraid to look. I had a

hunch that the letter would start with an “H” because the thickness

felt like it could be somewhere around that letter.  My eyes opened,

and I \ slowly revealed the world letter by letter. “H”, insert fist

pump. . . U. . . N. HUN, okay, right now it could be a few things,

hunt, that’s about all I could think of before my impatience

overtook me and I removed my entire hand. . . HUNCH. Being my

weird self the first thing I thought of has the Hunchback of

Notre Dame. Silly me.

Reynolds 28

VIII.

Kyle was right again. All of the essays my students were writing were technically

sound. But they failed to inspire interest; moreover, they lacked style and voice. What

the state provided was a recipe, and it was a standard recipe for average writing. That

writing would get them past the test, but then what? I wanted my students’ writing to be

interesting like that article. I wanted students to read each other’s essays the way Kyle

poured over that Time article. Instead I was teaching them how to formulate neatly

composed drivel, a McEssay.

In college I did spend hours in the library grappling with ideas for my papers.

Now I realize that I was blessed to not have had the thesis-support formula imposed on

me. Through my writing, I was able to explore my thoughts. This was learning through

writing at its most genuine. I intuitively discovered not only what my thoughts really

were but also how to achieve a natural structure for them. Now I have a quote from E.M

Forster stenciled on my board, “How do I know what I think until I see what I say?” Too

often the McEssay makes it appear like the writer has naturally thought these things all

along. It certainly leaves no room for any type of deviation or revelation. It robs the

Reynolds 29

reader of the rich experience of watching the writer’s thinking unfold in a natural

progression.

As I plopped down into my chair and observed Kyle read the article, the most

obvious truth hit me: real writers don’t write five-paragraph themes.

Why was I teaching my students to write them? Real artists don’t paint by

numbers, so would our art instructor ever teach her students to do so? A five-

paragraph essay was just writing by numbers.

Fortuitously, my prep hour was next. I filled the recycling box in the staff room

with the copies of the state BST handbook and its hamburger method of essay writing.

What I didn’t realize all those years ago was that this method of writing was designed to

just get students to pass the test. I wanted to do so much more with the nine weeks

than just pass a test. I wanted them to develop voice and style, to experiment with

form, to analyze and interpret important events from their lives. I wanted them to do

what real writers do.

I haven’t looked back.

Now I can see what the thesis/support paper really is: a rampant,

parasitic life form that, instead of choking off quality pasture land and

invading crops, chokes off a writer's voice and invades genuine writing.

The defeat for my dad with the thistles occurred when we were feeding

the sheep. He was going to break open an alfalfa bail. The bail erupted.

Instead of sprinkling alfalfa leaves into the trough, it spewed thistles in Dad’s

face. The bail, in the guise of alfalfa, secretly housed a thistle. The thistles

had indeed breached Dad’s precious alfalfa fields.

The defeat for me with the thesis/support theme occurred when I sat

down to grade my end of the quarter personal essays. Since we worked on

Reynolds 30

the research paper earlier in the year, I was really looking forward to some

personal essays. I expected some interesting perspectives, genuine

experiences, and maybe even some shocking incidents. Instead their essays

blew up in my face, exposing the five paragraph themes lurking at their

cores. Instead of feeling free to write in some of the other forms we covered,

such as observation, commentary, and narrative, my students were overrun

by the thesis/support form.

Instead a lively narrative on a student's first deer hunt as a rite of

passage, I found a bland introduction concluding with "I learned three

important lessons from my first deer hunt: how to work with others, how to

trust myself, and how to take pride in a job well done" as its thesis. There is

nothing more distressing for a composition teacher (at least a good one) to

expect some lively essays and only to find out that they are ‘themes’ in

disguise. Somehow the thesis/support form had stormed my beloved

composition course.

When I was ten, every bus ride home was an adventure. I sat in a different seat every time delighting in the many perspectives. Every day something new leaped out at me: the huge tree outside a house with weathered planks nailed to the trunk leading up to a tree house, someone's dog chained to their porch, the flag hoisted high and flapping in our school yard with the cord dinging against the pole, the Yoda back pack an older kid had, the songs "Physical," "Billy Jean," and "Jessie's Girl" which the bus driver turned up to drown us out, a pile of orange, brown, yellow, and red leaves in someone else's yard, the painstakingly trimmed shrubs bordering the court house lawn, the elaborate couches and lamps and dressers in the window of Wilcox Furniture Store, the different cars parked along main street. Now I am so wrapped up in planning supper, what I'm going to do for the evening, lesson plans, when I have to send in my bills, or what I'm going to do on the weekend, that I hardly even notice traffic on the way home. It's a miracle I don't get into an accident. I never once wondered what ever happened to the excitement that used to be inherent in the ride home.

Below me I can see big horned sheep roaming the alpine

tree line. The once large pines now look like small Christmas trees.

Reynolds 31

There is no sign of any mosquitoes or flies. Hawks, eagles, and

ravens are among the few birds that actually soar among the

mountain top. Small rodents like the yellow-bellied marmot pop up

unexpectedly between the rugged rocks.

IX.

Now I urge my students to explore the rich, unique experiences of their lives in

the personal essay. I tap into their natural storytelling abilities. I learn more about my

students and their lives in two weeks of narrative essays than I ever did teaching the

McEssay. Students recount the deaths of parents and grandparents (one even read an

essay she wrote in my class at her grandfather’s wake), explore rites of passage and

epiphanies, analyze relationships, divorces, and arguments. In short, their lives have

become the context for my class.

Looking back at the MN BST handbook it is interesting to note that at the very

end of the sample essay portion is the highest scoring essay, the almost mythical six.

These are not McEssays. They have more than five paragraphs. They engage the

reader immediately with dialogue or thoughts. They employ figurative language. They

have voice. The style inherent in these essays is as distinctive as fingerprints. They

Reynolds 32

ooze personality. These are written by genuine writers. In all instances, these are

excellent personal essays.

Somehow these writers forgot all about the hamburger method of writing.

Instead they wrote with voice and passion. The same voice and passion that kept Kyle

reading that Time article nearly a decade ago. The same voice and style that I have

devoted my career to getting my students to breathe into their writing. The same voice

and style that keeps me reading their essays long after my coffee is intolerable and my

ipod has shuffled through my playlist several times.

Every year my sophomores take the MN BST in writing; every year they are

above the state average, never dipping below 93 percent passing. None have yet

reached that elusive six rating, but at least they have spent their time crafting skillful

personal narratives as opposed to manufacturing McEssays.

Proponents of the McEssay, like Kerri Smith, who published the article “In

Defense of the Five-Paragraph Essay” in the March 2006 issue of The English Journal,

argue that the five-paragraph essay offers students a way to organize their thinking, is a

must for standardized tests, ranging from the written BST all the way up to college

entrance essays, is necessary to excel in college, and is the preferred format in the real

world.

I once knew all of these reasons too; however, I had them dispelled with Kyle’s

analysis of a real article. Our lives, memories, and stories cannot be reduced to tidy,

easily supportable theses. Nor do my students walk around with readily formed theses

in their heads. When they enter my room on Monday morning, they do not begin

postulating, “There were three contributing factors behind the football team’s dominating

Reynolds 33

performance Friday night: a punishing ground game, a defense that forced five

turnovers, and a strong punting game that kept the opponent pinned deep in their won

territory the entire night.” Rather, students walk into my room sharing their stories and

versions of what happened at the game. From their stories and experiences, students

derive meaning and give shape to their worlds. Why not start there instead?

It has become my personal mission, if not eradicate, to at least return

the balance to my classroom between the 'theme' papers and the familiar

essays. The task is a daunting one. Just as thistles can creep up and infest

acre upon acre if unchecked, so can the thesis/support form. In The Essay,

Paul Heilker, notes a study done by Russell K. Durst in which Durst

discovered that once students learned the thesis/support paper form "'they

tended to rely on the thesis/support structure almost exclusively in their

English critical writing'" and "Ninety percent of the student texts in his

sample were organized this way, students using the thesis/support form to

structure literary analysis, autobiographical, informative, and argumentative

compositions, and even writing outside of the English class." Furthermore,

"the students in this study 'were almost totally faithful to the thesis/support

[form] in their high school English writing, using it in virtually all of their

[papers] from ninth grade on'" (2-3). If that doesn't reveal the frightening

reality of a full blown infestation problem, I don’t know what else can.

Because children still have their imaginations intact, before teachers or televisions can suck it out, they attempt the impossible. When I was nine my parents left me alone for the weekend with my brother. He left me watching "Wild Kingdom" while he went to his room to lift weights, crank up Deep Purple, and probably smoke a couple of joints. I was enthralled in the show, especially when they showed the flying squirrels. It was at that moment that I decided I was going to fly. So after a quick trip up to my room, I paraded out into our backyard. With my Star Wars bed sheet tightly secured to my ankles and wrists, I scaled the gigantic oak tree at the very back of the yard. Once I reached a limb of adequate height, about fifteen feet off the ground, I did my best flying squirrel imitation. It was at that moment that I decided I was unable to fly. Luckily, the sheet snagged another branch on my maiden flight and kept me from breaking

Reynolds 34

anything. Eventually my grandmother stopped by to check on us and found me hanging there and set me free.

Now everything seems impossible. I talk myself out of half a dozen things a day. When I finished my undergraduate degree, I wanted more than anything to go to grad school. But I told myself it was impossible. It took all of the courage I could muster over four years to eventually apply for grad school. Even then I never thought I would make it. I never stopped to wonder about all the things I was missing out on.

Next, I caked on the baby powder, thinking that the next time I

changed him the pound of powder would help out with the smell.

Finally, I unhooked the straps of the fresh diaper, put on his pants,

and got him up and ready to go. The cutest thing in the world

happened then. As Tanner sprung up in utter excitement he softly

spoke, “Thanks Saner, love you.” At that moment, every disgusting

and horrible event that led up to this cute little boy saying those

heart-touching words vanished. With those words, Tanner touched

me in a huge way. Those cute words, and the way his facial

expressions played.

X.

The curse of the dreaded McEssay, though, reared its ugly head during my third

year teaching. I was reading my way through a batch of sophomore personal essays on

Reynolds 35

rites of passage and came across an essay that ground everything I was doing in class

to a halt. At the end of the student’s first paragraph was a thesis: “Shooting a cow

instead of a deer my first time hunting was a major rite of passage for me because it

taught me responsibility, safety, and humility.” I kid you not.

A thesis statement! I had not even breathed that word in class. Here it was

springing up in a personal essay! While I had abandoned this formula, not all teachers

in my building had.

As I read through the student’s essay, I was amazed at the bits and pieces of an

incredible narrative butchered into a McEssay. In Minnesota, especially the

northwestern section of the state, deer hunting is a way of life every fall. When a young

person shoots his or her first deer, it serves as a rite of passage from childhood to

adulthood.

From the shreds of narrative, I learned that this young man had not seen any

sign of deer all week. The deer season was coming to a close, and in the fading light of

the November afternoon, from his stand along a tree line, he saw movement a hundred

yards in a pasture. It was obviously a large animal. His nerves got the better of him,

and he fired. As his thesis so clumsily stated, instead of a deer, he killed a neighbor’s

Holstein.

While reading the paragraph devoted to how shooting the cow taught him

humility, I felt my face flush for the student as envisioned how he must have eagerly

called for everyone in his hunting party to see the large buck he just shot.

Unfortunately, the party, likely comprised of the older males in his immediate family,

Reynolds 36

came upon a dead cow instead. I’m sure the poor kid took quite a ribbing from

everyone. Not to mention having to pay the farmer for his dead livestock.

I could not deny that this student had a first rate rite of passage that needed to be

written. He just chose the worst possible form. Think of the suspense he could have

built if he had only structured it as a narrative. What imagery he could have created.

Think of the dialogue he could have incorporated. Not to mention his own thoughts and

analysis of the event. He took an important experience full of humor, pain, honesty, and

learning and wrote it in a form that was none of those, for all of the potential suspense,

humor, and tension possible in the essay evaporated when I read the thesis.

So now it is my responsibility to cure my students of this blight. I plan

to douse them with the familiar/exploratory/personal essay. William Zeiger

notes in his report “The Exploratory Essay: Enfranchising the Spirit of Inquiry

in College Composition” that composition teachers need to first expose their

students to familiar essays that foster ruminative thinking and writing. This

introduces students to the inquiry process of writing, which is often

neglected at the high school and university levels. Then later they can be

introduced to the thesis/support form.

Teachers tend to solely expose their students to the demonstrative or

expository process of writing, which involves producing thesis/support

papers. This severely handicaps students for they are exposed to only half

of the scientific method. Zeiger cites James Kinneavy’s A Theory of

Discourse: The Aims of Discourse, in which Kinneavy “treats these two

processes [inquiry and demonstration] as equal partners” for inquiry is

naturally prior to demonstration since “’exploration leads to a testable

hypothesis which scientific proof then demonstrates as tenable or not’”

(168). Students are left trying to prove a thesis when they lack the skills to

adequately examine an issue in order to arrive at a provable thesis because

Reynolds 37

they have not been exposed to the inquiry writing process. “By

concentrating almost exclusively on the thesis-support exposition,” states

Zeiger, “in college classes, we are implicitly teaching that the ability to

support an assertion is more important than the ability to examine an issue”

(169).

I never did wonder about such things, however, until I started spending time with my five-year-old niece. She can rattle off a hundred questions before we leave the house. I am amazed at how she will devote an hour to baking sand pastries in her sand box, how she will squeal in pure rapture as I give her an underdog on the swings at the park, how her pupils threaten to burst when I give her a dollar to buy candy, how she will be fascinated watching the squirrels in our yard, or how there is no greater thrill in life than an impromptu trip to the playland at McDonald's.

Now I can see the innocent, wide-eyed amazement in kids all around me. In the super market a month ago, I saw a young pig-tailed girl treating a shopping cart like it was a jungle gym. She was enthralled at how the bottom tier would pop up when she stepped on the front of it, despite the clang it made when she took her foot off. Of course, all the adults were annoyed by the disturbance and twisted their faces into scowls at her. Nevertheless, soon she was on her hands and knees completely beneath the cart examining it close up for herself. Who else would think to do that? When it snowed heavily for the first time in October, I saw a young child trudging through a snow bank like he was hiking through Yellow Stone National Park. He would sink in to his snowmobile suited knees, lift one leg out and plop it back into the knee deep snow again. He didn't give a second glance at the neatly shoveled sidewalk two feet to his left. Again, who else would think to do that?

Finally, girls like it when you keep lots of pictures of

them. Show your collection to her, and she will be amazed at

how dedicated you are. However, the downside of women is

that they are extremely nosey and want to know everything;

“Why do you have incense candles burning around a giant

school picture of me?” “How did you get a picture of me and

my family on our vacation to Utah?” or “Is that me in the

shower?!” They can also be very ignorant, “I didn’t know they

Reynolds 38

made bed sheets with my face on them.” What you shouldn’t

do is show your dreamgirl the doll you have made out of her

hair that you have collected over the years. This could

possibly result in a restraining order against you, but I have

always believed that a piece of paper can never stop true

love.

XI.

The next day I asked the student, who sheepishly averted his eyes from mine,

obviously still embarrassed about the ordeal, why he chose this form. He frowned, then

shrugged, and finally said, “That’s how we wrote last year.” The writer was just clinging

to a form that worked for him in the past.

When the five-paragraph format is either taught too early or as the exclusive

format, it inflicts serious damage (and believe me, I spent the rest of my second year

trying to deprogram my sophomores, even opting to do an I-Search style research

paper to get them as far away from the McEssay format as possible). When students

are shown a template they can follow and have success with, such as passing a

standardized test, they cling to it dearly. In The Essay, Paul Heilker chronicles research

Reynolds 39

done on the negative impact of the five-paragraph format. He cites a study conducted

by Russel K. Durst which found that “90 percent of the student texts in his sample were

organized this way, students using the thesis/support from to structure literary analysis,

autobiographical, informative, and argumentative compositions, and even writing

outside of English class” (3). Instead of being one option for students to use at their

discretion, depending on the assignment, the McEssay often becomes the only option

they choose, regardless of the assignment.

I do not claim that the personal essay is the only style of writing a student needs.

In fact, gasp – shock -- gulp, I have actually gone back to teaching it. However, I

introduce it to students at the end of the course and make them aware that it is just one

of many forms they may employ.

I begin my composition courses now emphasizing the personal essay. After all it

is the format that my students use most often. I stand just outside my door prior to class

and I catch snippets of a dozen narratives as students stroll by. Then I walk in and

while I take roll, I eavesdrop and catch bits and pieces of another dozen stories, most

going on simultaneously. The personal essay, often referred to as the familiar essay

too, is the form most natural to them.

Two years ago my composition students had this point illustrated when our

school had a lyceum on the growing methamphetamine problem in our area. On stage

sat three presenters: our local sheriff, an FBI narcotics officer, and a recovering meth

addict. While the sheriff and FBI officer recounted the dangers, consequences, and

other statistics related to meth abuse, the students were restless. They chatted,

checked their cell phones, and slunk down in their seats. However, when the

Reynolds 40

recovering meth addict stepped up to the microphone and shared his descent into meth

addiction and chronicled all that it cost him, the students were riveted. They were silent,

their cell phones remained in their pockets, and they sat on the edges of their seats.

When the lyceum was over and we returned to class, I asked the students what

they thought. The statistics and information divulged by the sheriff and the FBI agent in

the traditional thesis-support form were lost. What remained with the students, though,

was the recovering addict’s personal narrative.

“That is the power of narrative,” I told them. “Whenever possible use that in your

writing.”

I will hack away at the backward thesis inspired demonstrative form of

the research paper and plant the open and exploratory form of the familiar

essay. I want to begin my writing classes with the inquiry process. We will

examine issues in various narrative, observatory, commentary, and

descriptive essays. Students will be free to select a variety of forms, such as

dialogues, narratives, question and answer, stream of consciousness, to test

their ideas in familiar or exploratory essays.

Will I be able to totally expunge my classroom of the thesis/support

form? No. Instead I will show my writers how to use the familiar essay to

foster inquiry first. Then I will teach them how to apply what they have

discovered later to the demonstrative or expository process that has come to

choke out the exploratory process in English classrooms at both high schools

and universities. Once my students will be acquainted and comfortable with

exploring ideas and issues, they will be more ready to focuse solely on

proving an argument later in the semester when we tackle expository,

thesis-support papers for film reviews, character analysis, persuasive essays,

and finally the research paper. This is how the full scientific method should

be addressed in composition classes so writers will “know that the first step

Reynolds 41

in writing is exploration” and they will “consciously begin the writing process

not in the middle [as they would if they began a writing course with the

thesis-support form] but at the beginning” (Zeiger 169).

I finally realized something. When I was a child, I couldn't wait to grow up and be important. Now as an adult, all I want to do is revisit my childhood and revel. Is that the irony of life? Well, my solution is this: every day since I discovered the loss of my wonder, I try to recapture it. The inner child has been there all along; he just needed a little dusting off. Now sometimes I take the elevator to my office, just to enjoy the ride. Sometimes I run down the stairs as fast as I can, taking two and three steps at a time, just to see how long it takes me to reach the bottom. At least twice a week I park several blocks away and walk to school. I relish how the morning air assaults my newly scrubbed face, how it tastes in my mouth, and how it stings my still awakening eyes. I even revert to old legends that were scripture to me as a child. I avert stepping on any cracks or seams in the sidewalk. I must have reduced every vertebrae in my poor mother's back to dust over the past twenty years of neglecting such rules. Sometimes I won't even walk on the sidewalk, taking the yard or boulevard less traveled. On my way home every day, I make it a point to notice something new in the homes, the yards, the woods, the lake, the children, the joggers and walkers, the streets, or the squirrels I see on my way home. Then I write them down in my journal.

Last weekend I was down at Lover’s Lane when I

happened to glance over and see about ten toddlers running

around the playground. Each one had a smile on their face

and at least half of them were missing their two front teeth.

All were wearing either light up Spiderman shoes or Dora the

Explorer flip flops. Their hair was windblown, but they could

have cared less. I could tell that their parents had lathered

on the SPF 75 sunscreen by the looks of their pasty white

skin. I could also tell that each one was greatly enjoying

themselves as they strategically helped one another across

the monkey bars. But more importantly, I knew that this was

Reynolds 42

what the average toddler looked like. There were no fake

nails, fake hair, fake teeth or fake tans . . . Just a few kids

being kids with no tiara.

XII.

Now we devote the first six weeks to personal essays. I do not allow my

students to just tell stories. That is really only part of the personal essay. Students

must also tackle a variety of complex strategies: use vivid imagery, incorporate

authentic details and dialogue whenever possible, experiment with form and structure,

contemplate audience, reflect on and analyze their experiences, and always strive to

develop a strong and unique voice. They are, in other words, doing what real writers

do.

We spend the final three weeks writing in the thesis-support format. I warn them

that they will have to focus more on adhering to a precise format and structure than ever

before. Students struggle with some of the hallmarks of the thesis-support format:

Reynolds 43

devising a thesis and focusing strictly on developing it in the body of their essay,

refraining from using “I”, and, of course, documentation and citation. They struggle

most with having to filter out the voices they have been encouraged to develop for the

first six weeks. However, I would rather have them already have a distinct voice that

needs to be stifled than never have developed one at all.

I too must be wary when teaching the five-paragraph essay because it is the only

time during my composition classes that I honestly feel like I have control over what my

students are producing. This might very well be why so many secondary teachers

employ it. When my students are writing their narratives, I have to approach each

essay and writer differently. Instead of focusing solely on errors, I am focusing on the

potential of the text. How do I coax more of the mind, the personality, and the life

behind this story out and onto the page? This is often sloppy and maddening. Often all

30 writers are writing about different things in different ways. It entails sitting down with

each of those writers and helping them craft their work. This approach is time

consuming and not for the faint of heart.

Bruce Pirie observes the inherent sloppiness of this approach in Reshaping High

School English, “We teach structure by sitting down with students who have something

they care about saying, helping them sort out how they might try to say it, and looking at

examples of how other writers have structured their work” because “It takes time, and

the first results of student’s own shaping definitely don’t look as neat as formulaic

essays” (78). To say the least, this is a daunting task, and one I was certainly not up to

my first year of teaching, which might be one reason I leaned so heavily on the

McEssay.

Reynolds 44

When I am teaching the McEssay, I feel a mastery over what we are writing

about because I know the exact recipe for the format. I can read a student’s rough draft

and diagnose immediately what is lacking, “your second topic sentence does not

correlate with your thesis” or “you need to offer more support for your third paragraph.”

This is not necessarily true with a personal essay where I might offer a student a variety

of suggestions, but, ultimately, the decision resides with the writer. The power is out of

the teacher’s hands.

I will keep the thesis/support paper around because it is a viable

writing form. I just want my writers to note that it is not the only writing

form available to them. Even if I had been able to destroy all of the thistles

years ago, I still would have kept a few around for variety. Any biologist

would tell you that they are, after all, a viable species.

And maybe, just maybe if we hit a lull in my classroom, I can rev up my

three wheeler and take my students screaming on a ride through the

thesis/support patch. Maybe that will teach them a lesson.

I try to soak up the splendor in both the sunrise and sunset. The snow is long gone, but it will return next year. I need to get a sled. I wonder if they still make the red brand? I try to attempt the impossible. After I get my MA here, I am going to enroll at Moorhead and work on an MFA in creative nonfiction. I want to try sky diving. What is a parachute but a glorified aerodynamic sheet anyway?

Just today I created a new ritual. I went into the lounge here on the third floor of my department building and looked at the sky. It took awhile. I didn't look at my watch, on purpose. I might even stop wearing it. But anyway, I think I saw a muffin, a dragon, and possibly the continent of Africa . . .

“Great job honey. Great, great job.”

We walk up to the dead dear and count the antlers.

It’s eight pionts.

Reynolds 45

“You did great dear.”

He seems more excited than I am. I become a hunter

in a matter of five seconds.

After loading the deer into the back of the pickup, we

head over to my dad’s friend’s house to brag about my big

kill.

The inner battle is exhausting. All I can think about is

now I am finally that my dad has wanted all along.

XIII.

Once my students have written a few five-paragraph essays (usually a

comparison/contrast essay, a film analysis, and a literary analysis), I end the class

challenging my students to meld their voice and style into their own a hybrid of the

McEssay. I usually do this with the persuasive essay. I encourage them to use their

voices in the essay. Some choose to liven up the usual generic introductions (how many

times have you read a five-paragraph essay that begins something like, “While there are

many important issues facing young people today, the one that is impacting many

young adults the most is . . .?) by either creating a brief narrative that illustrates for the

reader what they are going to focus on or offering personal evidence that illustrates for

Reynolds 46

the reader the issue they are going to discuss in their essay. They are then free to use

any means necessary to persuade.

I structure my classes this way to offer my students a variety of forms of writing

that they can draw upon in the future. In some cases, such as writing for the Advanced

Placement test, students will have to employ a very rigid thesis-support format, and they

have that in their arsenal. However, they may have to devise an essay for a college

application essay, such as this one Mary Jane Reed refers to in her text, Teaching

Powerful Personal Narratives, from the University of Pennsylvania, “You have just

complete your 300-page autobiography. Please submit page 217” (9). There is no

McEssay that will work there.

Works Cited

Heilker, Paul. The Essay. Urbana: National Council of Teachers of English, 1996.

Zeiger, William. "The Exploratory Essay: Enfranchising the Spirit of Inquiry in

College Composition." The Harcourt Brace Sourcebook for Teachers of Writing.

Reynolds 47

Ed. Patricia Roberts. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace, 1998. 165-177.