Suggestions for Essay Writing for Christian Student Entering Junior College

I woke up this morning with some ideas on how to help you in your writing and arguing. Although I certainly do not have time to be typing this all out this morning, the feeling was that this was important and useful, harvestable, so here goes – quickly dashed.

Let's use just three headings: aim/tone, word choice & semantics, and argument/organization. Attention to these, or growth in these, will make you more able in putting forth your point. Certainly writing like this will gain you higher grades. More importantly, making these habits will cause people to listen to you more carefully. Isn't that what you want: to persuade?

Aim/tone

Always keep in mind what your goal is. You goal is to persuade, right? High emotions tend to distract. Thus the aim of the communication sounds like you want to tell people how stupid they are. Or you want to simply vent. Keeping in mind the higher aim of communicating for the benefit of those you are writing or speaking to will make your rhetoric better.

[We say “argumentation” in academia, but that word has a negative connotation outside academia. I just mean declarative communication that attempts to put out a particular perspective on a position, rather than another. In academia we know that we are “playing with ideas;” we know that we have changed out minds many times, and that it is our job to continue to learn, so normally, there is not so much personal feeling and negativity around “argumentation.” However in wider society, people do not have the mindset that their major job is to learn. Similarly, increasingly there is so much anti-authoritarianism, rebellion, or pride, that learning from any other given human seems offensive to them – even, we smile, from the professor in whose class they are. When I say “argumentation” then, I mean it in the academic sense, and not in the strife laden sense of wider society. Rhetoric may be correct, but fewer people use that word.]

If you keep your aim in mind, then your tone will be more correct. Remembering your audience will keep your tone correct. You “speak” differently in a formal academic paper than you do on the street in a slum, of course. Why? Because you want to speak in the tone, the register, in the manner in which your hearers or readers can understand you.

Word Choice

Tone will suggest word choice. Just as you would pick different words and ways of saying things if you were in a sticky situation on a slum street, so would you in academia. Similarly, there are gradations depending on what level of society you are in, what region, what thought community. In cases that are neutral, such as the internet, you are faced with the challenge of writing in a way that will offend the least number and communicate to the highest number. Standard English, slightly lower than academic English is normally the best choice for this sort of forum.

If you choose a register and word choice that is too low, you are not taken seriously. For instance, perhaps when you hear Ebonics, you don't immediately give as much credence to it as when you hear someone speaking – more like your favorite speaker.

Everyone has a set of vocabulary that sounds right to them. College educated people have a higher set. Vocabulary identifies status in the hierarchy, not only in terms of SES, but also of education. Anyone using a limited vocabulary sounds less smart. Smart and educated are NOT the same thing, but in the quick pace of communication, these will inevitably be confused.

Furthermore, anyone using a limited vocabulary, has fewer tools with with to communicate. You can make finer distinctions with more words, better words. Thus your thinking will actually be clearer – as well as clearer to the hearer/reader.

Here are some examples.

I sounded bitchy. Vulgar, low class, and not on target
I now judge that I was in a spirit of strife. On target, but maybe archaic
I apologize for a negative, complaining tone. Everyone can understand

The word “bitch” as you probably know means a female dog. That is not what you mean. By extension it has been used vulgarly to mean a ... a complaining woman. I doubt that you want to sound vulgar, slight women, or talk about dogs. You see how better word choice better conveys your meaning.

These people must be stupid.
These folks must have been grossly uninformed.

The first is harsh, limited, and therefore unpersuasive. The second is much more academic, and therefore more persuasive. (I softened it by the addition of the folksy “folks” I am often charged with mixing tone. I say, I want to communicate most clearly. One watches the emotional impact of one's words. Not merely expressing oneself, but doing one's best to evoke the response one hopes for from the other person. Words are like arrows, or rocks. Watch how it hits others. Does it penetrate, or bounce? Or activate a wall?)

You are wrong.
I believe you might be mistaken.

An educated, powerful person would never say the former. If they wanted to persuade, they would say the latter.. A lawyer talking to a maid and would know better than to do like the former. Firstly, lawyers know that some ideas are wrong, but they have enough education to know that it is not adroit to express it in that way. Secondly, they know how people work, and if they want the person to consider an alternative position, they are not going to harden the first position by the challenge (to the flesh) of the former word choice. You will see that lawyers are suave and measured when they are doing their business. Understatement is powerful to the educated (and alas the media aims for the lowest.)

Semantics are important, if you are communicating. We don't want to be in strifes of words, so we sometimes smooth over an argument that is not really so important by saying “it is just a semantic difference” but that is exactly why we must be more and more skillful with our words, our semantics, so we can come to agreement. We want to allow the other person to come to agreement with us, right?

Furthermore, any scholar knows that he or she has a limited understanding, anyway, and so wants to hold out appropriate humility in case they are the one that needs to learn this time. Perhaps the interlocutor has a point.



Argument clarity and organization.

My students seldom can think clearly. Those who attempt to think at all, are used to sliding from one thought into another based more on feeling than logic. Their arguments show it. If they practiced good word choice, made clear sentences, and outlined their papers, they are much more likely to do well, because they can slow down their thinking enough to attempt to get clear thoughts into a logical argument. When people talk about things that are at all important, and especially when they are talking as opposed to writing, this sloppiness is encouraged and abetted by emotionalism. This makes them all the more agitated and unable to persuade. So now, they are making illogical, unclear, and thus, unpersuasive statements.

Of course, it is important to make claims clearly and then also as exactly well as humanly possible. Our own verbal ability is limited and so our claims are always inexact, and the more we are familiar with them, and the more relaxed we are, the more likely that these claims will come out inexact. However, younger students, often :) do not have all the facts, and they don't yet know it. A person with a doctorate knows very well how much he does not know about other fields precisely because his or her depth of knowledge in one shows how much there is to be known. One learns in upper sophomore level courses, I guess, to always make limited and evidenced claims. “Men tend to taller than women in any given ethnicity” and not “men are taller than women.” But new students say, “Well, he had to be taller than her.” Sounds good, but clearly may be incorrect. The more controversial the subject, the more important to be exact and right. Given inexperience, work harder at this. Undergraduate students end up defaulting to citations: “Brown says this....” And alternative is to put things in the interrogative, “Doesn't it seems to you that....?”

Any lack of rightness, exactness, or logic will be immediately noticed by an interlocutor of opposite opinion. Sometimes their differing perspective is based exactly on the blind spot that the first has. Usually this is the case. Sometimes, however, one has the truth, but only has not communicated it clearly.

Thus, as always taught in writing class, clearly admit the argument of the other person. First this demonstration that you have heard their position, will gain a hearing for yours. Secondly, doing this well, demonstrates the power of your argument. Conversely, what often happens, and particularly I am sad to say with many of the nonacademic teachers you and I enjoy, is that they have not well understood the opponents, or choose not to, and so set up straw men. For instance, I was recently in a lecture against trinitarianism, claiming that they were polytheists. Well, one can argue for monotheism all day long and not convince a trinitarianism of his error, because trinitarians ARE monotheists. The argument was based on a misunderstanding of the academic term “person.” Trinitarians do not mean when they say “the second person of the Trinity” (translation from Greek, and from an archaic, centuries old disputations) that it is a different person (modern parlance). The second person of the Trinity (Jesus) is not asserted by theologians to be a different person from God the Father. That is not what they mean. But if a oneness guy takes them to mean that, and bases his whole argument on that, he will find he is unpersuasive to the trinitarian. Similarly, if a person arguing against the new health care reform bill goes on a long tirade against communism, he will not thereby convince a liberal from the northeast who is looking at all the inefficiencies of our existing system, our deficit, and feeling a duty to help more people have health care. Now the first fellow might have a point, but if the aim is to persuade, then he must first address the concerns of the other up front, and only later set up how his perspective relates. Otherwise he will be discounted as only a madman. So this goes back to aim. Notice, however, how important organization is.

Sentences must be clear and exact. They must also be organized in a logical fashion so that the other person, with the opposite viewpoint can follow.

Conclusion

So instead of venting emotion, using lower class word choice, and sounding illogical and crazy to the people we really would wish to persuade, with discipline we can instead, appeal to them through demonstration of our prowess in having thought through the issue and our ability to communicate, and help them see the clarity and rightness of our point, having avoided merely hardening them in their former opinion – and probable prejudice of not only our perspective but of our person as well. Emotion will elicit emotion. Lower word choice will sound lower class. If we sound illogical then we give credence to their original disregard of our position. But our aim is to appeal, to persuade.
College educated people will be prejudiced against the non-college educated. The higher SES against the lower. The smarter against the less. Don't you know everyone thinks people who agree with them are smarter and those whose points they don't see are less smart! Thus especially when one is carrying an idea that is identified with lower educated, less monied, and perhaps even anti-academic viewpoints, and an issue that is volatile, you want to be extremely careful to be as clear, logical, and kind as possible – that you might win some.


Book for Christian high schoolers approaching college is not yet written, but I do have a book written for my community college students on www.lulu.com.

Teachers says parents, not schools, need reform

Their blog
Everytime I turn on the TV, the topic is education. Rarely are there any positive reports. Teachers are portrayed as the enemies who are out to get children, and of course, many people think teachers do not have the brains to really educate children. But are school’s problems really because of teachers? Could the problems stem from something else–something far greater than schools–something that is beyond what schools can control? From birth, parents begin to lay the foundation of a child’s future. Whether or not their future involves an education begins with a child’s home life. I think everyone would agree that a teacher has the power to help shape a child, but do teachers make or break a child’s future or do parents? So the question is who needs reforming–schools or parents?http://concernedteachers.com/2010/11/school-reform/



Yes, some parents have encountered a teacher who seem to be against their students. Every parent has encountered teachers who have a fortress mentality against parents. I think maybe the reader has, too, rather recently.

Statistics indicate that there is no question but what schools need reforming. Schools are doing poorer jobs than ever before. Schools, however, do not equal teachers. Social institutions tend to be stronger than the individual (with rare exceptions). Similarly, society is stronger than the parent (again with rare exceptions).

*Both* parent and teacher have greater challenges than ever before -- just at the time when all indications are that both are doing poorly. (Except that studies consistently show that homeschooled children signficantly outperform children in public school in the United States.)

Blaming the parent is not helpful. Indeed, the limited bifocality of blaming either the teacher or the parent is wrongheaded. I have long said "fix problems, not blame." The question is not who is at fault -- there is more than enough fault to go around. The question is "how can I improve the situation?"

(BTW, parents are parenting as they have been taught -- to the extent that economic change permits them to be in non-employment hours and so parenting, at all. Teachers, not parents, taught the current views on child rearing. So, once again, blaming one half of this dyad won't work.)



How about asking what would make for better teaching -- if you are a teacher? How about asking what would make for better parenting -- if you are a parent? How about asking how parents and teachers could work together? How about asking what help could be extended? How about starting by being the change you wish to see? In any system, when you change yourself, you change the game for everyone else. One never sees the whole game if one refuses to see the position of their own piece.

[I wrote the foregoing last night, but this morning thought of additions that MUST be made, which follow. Perhaps my usual readers will appreciate. Apologies for not typing this sooner.]

Maybe everybody needs reforming. But that has been tried, hasn't it? That is how we got where we are today – reform attempt after reform attempt. Just like Mr. Ross Perot, trying to fix Texas schools, walking away discouraged and dismayed at the intractability of the problem, so exactly people are dismayed at the pervasiveness and extensiveness of the problem. Everybody needs reforming – and education has little to offer parents and parents are divided on how to improve the educational system. We are in perplexity.

What about those exceptions? People of Spirit, who have made major differences. Jesus, Paul. Perhaps Gandhi, but some of my Indian friends argue about that. Anyway some of Gandhi's ideas he got from Jesus. What power is there in the universe that can raise the dead? Isn't that the kind of miraculous power we need now? Who has that today?

Oh, we disciples of Jesus are supposed to.

Who has today a sure, centuries tried principled path, with enough creative flexibility? Oh, we descendants of Covenant, grafted in by grace!

Who has the mandate to offer help and thus leadership? Yes, indeed. And when He comes, we shall be like Him. He, Jesus, went about doing good, healing and delivering. And He told us, as you have received, so freely give. What the world needs now is Love – and beloved, we've got it! Go share it!

Some soaps are toxic

http://www.thecrunchychicken.com/2010/11/organics-and-leaving-sanctuary.html
Thanks, Crunchy chicken for reminding us.
Of course I get natural soaps at home when I think about it. But out, I never think about it. Of course, when I was a director of a preschool, I tried to move the school toward less toxic cleaning agents. I did not like seeing my staff choke as they sprayed down the tables. But what is going on in most schools? Most public restrooms?

Similarly, air fresheners. Why the chemicals when good air flow or filtration would do the job better?

Also came up today:DailyParentTip Toxic Metals Found in Superhero Glasses -> http://
ow.ly/3dEps (@foxnews) #parenting
11 minutes ago via HootSuite

Cyberbullying

Dr. Borba gives us a list of symptoms for cyberbullying and her suggestions of what to say to a daugther who is being bullied. She is right that this is something we now have to educate ourselves on. Young people are increasingly in the virtual world for their sociality. We need to gear up to understand the dynamics, figure out how to keep them safe, and teach them safety measures.

What are your thoughts on this? What have you learned? What do you watch for? What about boys?

What about also watching for your child being a bully? Some of these signs (hiding/clearing the screen) may be a signal for that. Too often I see parents excusing or even being proud of their children's aggressive behavior. You know, this kind of behavior will not work for that child's well being either. They too will tend to be less happy, and eventually less healthy and have less good friendships.

Cultivating Responsibility

I like this. Too often, the most well meaning parents do too much (work the children should do). Many others, busy with their own duties, do too little teaching. Unfortunately, this is a teaching seldom found anywhere. Psychology cultivates a "not responsible" attitude within it's own professionals, and a "don't be hard on yourself" in its counselees, so this idea is often overlooked. Church leaders often have a hard time to get the balance just right for the individual, what with so much to teach and given that teaching is mostly to groups. Senior pastors normally are taken up with too much else to do much family counseling, and in larger churches the staff is usually divided between hospital visitation on the one hand and children's ministers on the other. Let's focus on teach children a bit more. Thanks for a good word from a psychologist.

Teach 2nd language!

OttawaCitizen Bilingualism delays onset of Alzheimer's: Study:
Speaking two languages can help delay the onset of Alzheimer's ... http://bit.ly/bOwkHZ

Other benefits to learning other languages early:
ability to "look at" things in 2 ways
ability to meet more people
ability to help more people
ability to learn other languages later easier, if they are similar
ability to grasp grammar and vocabulary more easily
abiliyt to get through one more degree requirment more easily
ability to look especially smart and cute
ability to learn the language correctly and exactly

Teaching other languages to young children should be on everyone's agenda. One way of doing this is hiring a babysitter or maid or nanny who speaks another language. The younger a child is, the more easily and more fun it is for them to learn the language. They don't need a class.

I learned Spanish by studying a record with my father. He was learning it for his work, and I was 5 and just thought it was fun saying the phrases with him and the record.

Toxic toys

Washington state requires strict new reporting on tocix chemicals from toy manufacturers and sellers. Why so strict? Why not set health bars -- to insure toys are made safely? Why don't toy manufacturers and distributers do this anyway?
Will this new law help? Or simply make toys more expensive?
Already many families can't afford them.
Of course we want them non-toxic - here and everywhere else too.