Wednesday, November 27, 2013

A Written Word

Just to remind us of the value of the printed word:


Monday, November 25, 2013

Simplify, Simplify: The Thoreau-ification of Thanksgiving

Everywhere I go, everything I hear, everything I see is telling me to give up time with family and friends Thursday and go "BUY! BUY! You have to buy! Christmas is coming. BUY!"

"Don't think about Thanksgiving," they say.  “Black Friday begins on Thursday!”

Let me answer that absurd statement: "I'm sorry, but no. Your sale begins on Thursday. Friday can only begin on Friday. As powerful as you Big Box retailers are, you do not control the calendar. Stop it."


Besides, Thanksgiving was originally set aside for us Americans to reflect on our blessings of families, friends, and food, not as a kick-off to the Christmas shopping season. Apparently that thought has disappeared from many corporate boardrooms  Values once focused on simple retail sales have morphed into materialistic greed-mongering.
It makes me sad and desperate for reassuring words. 
Today, though, I'm thankful for books. One in particular. Henry David Thoreau's Walden.
I remembered a long-forgotten instructor quoting it as inspiration for readers everywhere: "A written word is the choicest of relics. It is something at once more intimate with us and more universal than any work of art. It is the work of art closest to life itself.” 

It took many years and a Robin Williams movie to actually read the book, however.
In Dead Poets Society, John Keating (Williams) returns to his prep school as an English teacher. As a student he and his friends created a secret fraternity dedicated to reading the works of great poets and philosophers. 
At each meeting they read Thoreau’s words: “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I  could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived …. to suck out all the marrow of life …”
The movie had me scouring the bookstores to find WaldenIn it I found Thoreau espousing some the most profound thoughts ever written. 
In case you are unfamiliar with the book and its origin, in 1847 in an effort to confront the essentials in life, Thoreau retreated to a cabin in the Massachusetts woods, determined to live completely on his own. One can argue that since his experience was short-lived, his observations are inconsequential. 
To an extent, that is a valid criticism, yet the conclusions he reached and shared are still vivid and instructive. Their truth is an example of when the words written are more important than the life of the one who wrote them.
The truth Thoreau discovered is valuable for not only his 19th century, but for today. One observation says much about the human condition: “Why should we live with such hurry and waste of life? … Our life is frittered away by detail.”
A 170 years ago and today.
Instinctively, I believe, the modern world knows this, yet advertising insists on cluttering our lives with the desire for more material, more stress, more detail, more garbage. Unfortunately, the merchandise advertised is not what humans need to survive. At best, it is merely diversion. 
Thoreau found the same thing in his age when writing Walden. He wrote, “Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hinderances to the elevation of mankind.”
He went on to say, “Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end, an end which it was already but too easy to arrive at.”
The fact that the same thing can be said today begs the question: "What the heck is happening?"
Deja vu, maybe?
Observe the ads today. See what the box stores want you to buy. Is there anything that you or the people you buy for really need? Really? The televisions, the computers, the designers clothes, etc., are all fun, cool, and spiffy to have, but are they necessary?
There is always the argument that if you have the money, if you’re rich enough, what’s the harm?
Nothing, in and of itself. 
Unfortunately, today, as in Thoreau's time, too many people purchase not simply from need, but for reasons of conformity, image, and desire. Before they are even aware of the fact, the customers'  possessions and the debt they bring overwhelm and own the unwitting buyers. As Thoreau put it, “… men have come to such a pass that they frequently starve, not for want of necessaries, but for want of luxuries.”
"But I want to be rich," some say. "And if I can't be rich, I at least want to look rich."
Which begs an even bigger question, "What is rich?"
Well, Thoreau had an answer for that, too: “… a man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.” 
This seems like a counter-intuitive concept, but basically he is saying that the less you want, the more you have. I like that idea.
So if we accept Thoreau’s concept, how do we live it? He told us succinctly, and the older I get, the more I believe the man was a genius: “Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand …. Simplify, simplify. Instead of three meals a day, if it be necessary eat but one; instead of a hundred dishes, five; and reduce other things in proportion.”
How do we do that? Eschew the rantings of advertisers and latch firmly onto the essentials of life. Deny those who would take you away from family, friends and food on Thanksgiving. Love others and let go of the commercialism around you. Thoreau-ify your life by getting back to the simple things and giving thanks for them.
One really simple idea? Read a book. Maybe just for fun, write one. But no stress.



Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Plagiarism Denials and Disclaimers: Dumb and Dumberer

When last we talked about the increasing instances of plagiarism, I promised more lessons learned from experiences with the practice. It is important to remember this particular example comes from a high school student who was still developing his writing skills, his self-confidence and his personal moral code. Given his age at the time, his situation, and his handling of the situation, it is easy to forgive him the error of his ways.

Adults, however, particularly thought leaders and politicians, must be held to a higher standard than adolescents, especially when these "pillars of society" exhibit such devious, dishonest, and dim-witted actions as public plagiarism and undeniable denial.

They would be far better off following the example of Dave. (I've changed his name.)


Dave was a likable freshman. Great smile. Engaging. Energetic. 

Also overwhelmed by high school life, as well as his changing body and emotions. 

Academic life plagued Dave. He tried to pay attention during class and to understand. Somehow, however, the point of the lessons always eluded him. Not that he wanted them to. Unfortunately, they skated around his cranium once or twice and then slid out whatever orifice was handy before he could catch them.

And Dave was not alone in his English classroom. Therefore, when the subject turned to Romeo and Juliet, there were certain to be problems. To Dave and his friends' credit, conflicts were few. 

Reluctantly, though respectfully, they muddled through the problematic Shakespearean language, the coma-inducing audio recordings, and the trauma of seeing Olivia Hussy and Leonardo DiCaprio play the main roles. 

Nobody rebelled. 

Nobody vandalized the books. 

Nobody died.

Then we got to the required department-wide paper.

To be honest, as well-intentioned as our instructions were, they set up problems from the beginning. Just what the students were to do was unclear even to us teachers. The assignment was purposely ambiguous to allow the writer to say whatever they wanted in response to the play. Exactly what they were to say was unimportant because the overall purpose was to teach process, organization, and citation.

Some students, however, don't handle freedom well. Doing their own thing is frightening since many are unaware they even have a thing to do.

That sounds dirty. Sorry. Try this:

Few of them know they have any personal abilities.

Yeah. That's it.

With that fear in mind—well, that and the fact that I really liked the Smartboard—I decided to guide the class through the writing process via examples displayed from my computer.

Fancy graphics. Animations. Self-deprecating humor. They all worked. For awhile. 

I had them through the initial steps—brainstorming, thesis composition,  and organization. Even Dave came up with viable ideas.

Then came the rough draft.

With the need to actually commit thoughts to words came an epidemic of brain constipation.  Bodies squirmed. Breaths shortened. Noses twitched. Something had to be done.

Since mental Ex-Lax had yet to be invented and would be surely banned from public school use, I asked if a Smartboard example might help them get started. The class assured me it would. 

Not thinking that such dedicated students could possibly be trying to get out of a day's work on their project, I got up early the next morning and threw together a 5-paragraph  piece of garbage that was purposely bad. At least that's what I told myself and the students.

The point, I told them, was to simply get words on paper and fix it all later. The rough draft is by nature bad.

"You mean it's okay to suck?" asked an impudent blonde-haired girl with a big mouth barely-opened in order to hide her braces.

"At this point, yes. Just write what you think.  You can fix it later."

That was enough for most people. They were off and writing.

Dave was not most people. He still had trouble transferring whatever was in his brain to the keyboard. What came out was a conglomeration of unrelated nouns, verbs, and adjectives interspersed with commas, semi-colons, periods, and self-invented marks that resembled a pimple on the beak of a penguin. 

But through pursed lips and gritted teeth, clumsy thumbs and an overused delete button, he finished his rough draft. "That's good," I thought.

Then came revision. The class loved tearing apart my rough draft. "I was right, Mr. F. That really sucks," Blondie laughed.  Together, the class and I shredded my early-morning musings while laughing and exchanging good-hearted barbs.

"Thanks," I said after we finished. "Now let's fix it." So we did. The longer we worked together, the less garbage-y my pile of garbage became.

Lights flashed on the faces across the room. As a clean, expressive final draft emerged, one could see ideas bubbling within every student in the room.

Every student except Dave. He could have as easily been solving the meaning of life as revising his paper.

"You okay, Dave?" I asked after class.

"Huh? Oh, yeah. I was just thinkin'."

"Do you need some help?"

"Oh, no. I got this. I'm fine."

"You sure you can finish this over the weekend and turn it in Monday?"

"Yep. Yep. I'll be done."

And he was. 

When the final bell rang Monday morning, there was Dave's freshly-printed final paper, his massacred rough draft, his "kinda" outline, thesis ideas, brainstorming lists ... everything I required him to submit.

When I started correcting his project, there was one minor problem. His final paper and his rough draft bore little resemblance to each other. In addition, the final seemed  more than a little familiar.

There was a reason for that. Even though the heading bore his name, IT WAS MY PAPER! The one I had displayed on the Smarboard. The one we had revised as a class.

Dave had faithfully applied the class's revisions , retyped them and submitted the paper as his own.

After a few exasperated moments fuming about this betrayal of my trust, mentally composing a nasty letter to his parents, and contemplating chewing his arm off, I took a walk up and down the stairs to clear my mind. 

I sat down, looked at the paper again and remembered the Dave I knew. A moment of clarity struck me.

I knew why Dave had plagiarized. He had no idea what he wanted to say. The time constraints had overwhelmed him. He needed assistance and was too embarrassed to ask. When I talked to him the next day, I realized that given his difficulties, his confession, and his desire to correct the situation, anger was not the correct response. 

Instead of me ranting at him and making  his life more of hell, we talked. Rather than punishment, we worked together to produce an original paper, one that he could be proud of, one that was his. We learned a lot about and from each other from that incident.

Dave's example teaches all of us three important lessons. First, when help is available, take it. Second, true confession is always preferable to false denial. Third, and most importantly, when you screw up, FIX IT! People will still like you. What's more, they will respect you. More than they will if you hide behind dippy disclaimers.

Thought leaders and politicians, learn from Dave. I did.

Friday, November 8, 2013

The Crabby Curmudgeon: Rules, Rigor, and Rebellion

We're taking a break from our regularly scheduled post today to bring you a message about those pesky writing conventions that either annoy us so badly we want to drink house paint or make us stick our fingers in our ears while sing "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall." Today, we hear from the Crabby Curmudgeon. The transcript follows below.






Video Transcript

Hi. This is the Write Wind and I’m Mike Frickstad: Writer, retired teacher/speech coach, and today coming to you as THE CRABBY CURMUDGEON.

Hi. You know, one of the joys of teaching English—and I say this totally facetiously—was explaining “the rules.” Spelling rules, usage rules, capitalization rules, poetry rules … Now, what made teaching them so much fun was the glazed looks, the smudged papers from sweaty palms, and the complaints.

“Oh, man! I hate rules!”

“English is too hard. When does the bell ring?”

“Whatta we need to learn rules for? We already talk good.”

(That one is my favorite.)

“Here’s the deal,” I’d tell them. “Even if you talk and write gooder than you think you need to, you need to make sure you can be understood by anybody with even a smattering of English ability. Rules give you a solid foundation that eliminates misinterpretation. If everybody has the same foundation, there will be less confusion and less conflict. Life will be wonderful.”

That would keep the little buggers satisfied for all of about five minutes, just long enough for them to begin their assignment. Oh, every new rule revived their discontent, but they eventually got sick of “Foundation. Foundation. Foundation,” and they’d shut up.

Until we got to literature. Then all heck would break loose.

We would a read a story by Ray Bradbury …

“Hey, these ain’t sentences. There ain't no verbs.”

We would read Emily Dickinson …

“What the …? Those words don’t rhyme. And there are too many syllables in the second line. And what’s with all those dashes and crap? That ain’t a poem!”

We would attempt e e cummings …

“WHAT?!?! No capitals? No punctuation? Letters and words scattered all over the page? Din’t that guy learn nothing in ninth grade? He’s nuts! Hey, if these famous guys don’t know the rules, why do we gotta?” 

Here’s why.

Read more of these people. They knew the rules. They just chose to break them for very specific and valid reasons.

Bradbury used fragments to create mood, tension, or  rapid snapshots of action. Kinda like that Instagram ... whatever that is

Dickinson used extra syllables to make sure we’re paying attention. And the line endings don’t rhyme so we’re overwhelmed by the right word, not the “right sound.” Her punctuation has more to do with pace than with grammar.

cummings … cummings ... Okay, he was nuts, but his earlier poems were purely traditional. His later poems, pure genius. Why? Because he rebelled against the rules. ON PURPOSE! Punctuation, capitalization, structure? Too confining. They force a single meaning on the reader. Instead, cummings forced us readers to find our own meaning. His way, the shortest poem—or part of a poem—can have a myriad of interpretations. Every time we read it, more and more meanings.

“Yeah? So?”

Hey! Do it my way, okay? Learn the rules. Every one of them. Use them over and over until you don’t even have to think about them. They’re just part of who you are. Then break them! Go ahead. Break them. As long as you have a GOOD reason.

“And if we don’t?”

That’s when I developed the look. You know the one I mean. Every English teacher has one. That look that wordlessly sends students back to their texts and notebooks muttering vague obscenities.

Okay. Just let me recap that advice for you writers: Learn the rules. Rigorously and repeatedly use them until they’re second nature. Then wreck ‘em! Stomp the heck out ‘em and develop your own. It’s fun.


Okay. That’s it. I’m the Crabby Curmudgeon for Mike Frickstad and the Write Wind. I’ll be back later. Until then, use the comment box. I’ll get back to you.

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Plagiarism: Bogus Bits, Bites, and Big Blue Bins

When I retired from teaching, I thought the days of worrying about plagiarism were long gone. 

I was wrong.

Recent news reports make it clear that not only does the problem still exist, some people—some very intelligent and influential people—don't even have a clue what it is. And that they're guilty of it.

Pardon me for being disheartened.

With recent events in mind and our relative proximity to Halloween, I've decided to examine plagiarism, what it is, where does it come from, and look at some personal and noted stories about its abuses. The stories, to be illustrative, will take awhile, so this subject will be a multipart series. 

Plagiarism Defined:

Just so we're all on the same page, let's establish that plagiarism is not a citation problem. An MLA or APA manual entry on how to list your sources will be about as helpful avoiding plagiarism as owning The Joy of Cooking will help you avoid whiplash. The issue is not acknowledging that the words you are using are somebody else's AS YOU SAY/WRITE THEM.

According to my handy-dandy Apple dictionary, plagiarism is "The practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own." The school at which I worked—staff and students alike—called the offense cheating. In the English department, we had another word for it: stealing.

Some people, particularly offenders and their parents, considered our term harsh and offensive. Again, I refer to the Apple dictionary: "dishonestly pass off (another person's ideas) as one's own." The two definitions seem remarkably similar, don't you think?

For whatever reason, the similarities never quite sunk in. "Well, it's not cheating!" offenders said. When asked how it wasn't, the excuse centered on the idea that information found publicly was to be used publicly with or without attribution. "If it's in the encyclopedia, it's fair game," they explained.

That was the beginning of my misshapen forehead as palm plants became prevalent.

The Cyber-Outburst

Back in the olden days of hard-copy everything—notecards, outlines, rough drafts, final drafts, and work cited pages—teachers and parents could easily monitor a student's research. Then came the proliferation of computers. 

Word processing quickly replaced typing, abrasive erasers, and correction tape. At first, it was a revolution, a release for the creative juices. Editing became painless. Words, paragraphs, whole pages could easily be moved. Additions/deletions could be applied at will. Drafts which used to take hours or days could be generated and printed in mere minutes. What had been drudgery became simply distracting.

And then Al Gore invented the Internet. 

Or somebody did. 

After that came the World Wide Web and all Sheol showed up. Library stacks rapidly became obsolete. All the research a normal person needed to do could be done at a single monitor rather than having to prowl through the numerous volumes of Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature, list article after article that may or may not be in the archives, and transfer information to 3X5 notecards.

Netscape and Google became more important than Encyclopedia Britannica. Magazine and newspapers appeared online. The blogosphere exploded. Information that once took weeks to find now took seconds.

It was great for teaching writing and research.

And then it wasn't.

At the same time writing became simpler, so did cheating. Particularly plagiarism. In fact, with the advent of the computer and the Internet, plagiarism became as commonplace as flatulence in a chili shop, the difference being that plagiarism is more accepted.

The culprit? Copy-paste.

One of the best tools of word processing became the most abused by writers in a hurry, especially the dilatory student hamstrung by shrinking deadlines. It was now too easy to find a source or complete paper, highlight the pertinent information, copy it, and plop it into your paper.

And it was "your paper." It had your name at the top. That's all that mattered. You knew it was good information. After all, it was on the Internet. No need to edit. Just plop it, print it, present it. NEXT!

Assuredly, "copy-paste" is a wonderful tool for dealing with quoted material. I don't mean to discredit it, and I surely don't want to give it up. But its ease of use is not a license to plagiarize. The information that can be easily quoted still needs to be attributed. It seems, though, that adding a simple According to ... prior to or immediately after such a quotation is too much work for some people. Hence, the rise in plagiaristic practices.

Sigh.

That brings me to the first of three horror stories that haunt me from my teaching days. Each is illustrative of the mindset of the plagiarist, indicative of the apparent futility of combating it, and instructive of the ignorance of the ethics of writing.

The Procrastinator

The assignment was simple. "Write a review of something artistic—painting, music, sculpture, movie, book—whatever interests you." The opinion expressed could be positive, negative, praising, scathing, humorous, or serious. Time was given to search material, organize thoughts, write a rough draft, revise it, and finish the final draft. Each class had its allotted computer lab time. The teacher was at the students' beck and call for assistance and direction.

As normal, some students used their time and resources wisely; some not so much; still others became quite adept at circumventing the school's firewalls preventing access to Facebook and YouTube. One particular young man managed to accomplish nothing in nearly five days in the lab, save inhaling and exhaling his appropriate share of oxygen and carbon dioxide.

No outline. Not even a Roman numeral.

No rough draft. Not even a title.

Heck, he didn't have a SUBJECT!

But he did keep the keyboard clear of fingerprints.

Then, on Friday, miraculously, a fully-formatted, albeit citation-deficient, movie review with his name attached appeared in my collection folder.

Confused by this apparent time warp/wondrous manifestation, I asked him, "Where did this come from?"

He stammered, shuffled, and muttered, "I ... uh ... I've been working at home." Then the bell rang. He slid amongst the exiting horde and disappeared out the door.

Just for fun and since it was my lunch hour, I typed the first five words of the boy's paper into Google. Strangely, the student's paper appeared on screen complete with still photos from the movie, a cast list, and a picture of somebody closely resembling Roger Ebert.

I printed the Google article and took it, along with the student's paper to the cafeteria. I found the boy with his friends and asked to talk to him privately. Before I could even ask the student anything, the boy blurted out, "I didn't cheat. I did that all myself!"

I paused a moment, then held up the two articles side by side.

Nervously sucking on his lower lip, the student leaned forward and quickly examined the papers. He straightened, put on his best befuddled look, and said, "I don't know how that happened."

I answered, "It's called plagiarism."

The boy' face twisted and in all seriousness asked, "Plagiarism? Is that another word for cheating, 'cause I didn't cheat. I printed that off myself."

So evidently, if you have command of keyboard shortcuts Command-C (copy), Command-V (paste), and Command-P (print), whatever emerges from the printer is yours, whether you composed the words yourself.

Unfortunately, the practice is not confined to high school sophomores; it has found its way into all areas of writing––professional, political, and personal. Here's hoping that audiences, voters, and romantic partners will react similarly to me in this story: Expand the supply of recyclable materials in the big blue bin at the end of the hall.