NAIS - From the Editor: Beware of Teaching Models

I want to play devil’s advocate here and talk about the downside of using models to teach writing. I think it is fair to say that most teachers are locked into the idea of using models to teach their subject material. Their goal is to show their students “how to”: how to write an essay, solve a quadratic equation, write a research paper, etc. Sometimes there is just one “right way” or “best way” to do something, but usually teachers present options from which their students may choose. The problem is that, whether there is one model or many, these methods or procedures become the paradigm fixed in the student’s mind. And these standards usually form the criteria on which the students are evaluated and, of course, students know this. As a result, students are persuaded, implicitly or explicitly, to live in the past, to do things the way their predecessors did them, to write and solve problems as their teachers want them to. There isn’t much room for a student to move forward in his or her own way, despite the fact that we all know that progress in the world comes from innovation.

I just read a fascinating essay about Ralph Waldo Emerson in Adam Phillips’ latest book, In Writing. In “Emerson and the Impossibilities of Style,” Phillips talks about Emerson’s ideas about writing. Emerson doesn’t say exactly what his kind of writing is, but he does say that it definitely isn’t “imitation.” According to Phillips, “’Imitation is fear of the future’; as Emerson puts it, ‘Imitation cannot go above its model,’ and our models are there to go above and beyond.” Emerson believes that each person’s uniqueness can drive his or her accomplishments, if that person is not mired down in following the old ways. According to Emerson, “the power which resides in [one] is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried.”¹

For teachers and teaching, the implications of Emerson’s ideas are enormous. If each person’s power is “new in nature,” it can’t be taught. Yet, too often, in classrooms, a model presented is intended to be the final destination instead of the starting point. Instead of copying the past, teachers need to work to provoke—or unleash—each person’s “new in nature” power. As Phillips puts it, “Truly speaking we can only become who we are through provocation. Instruction makes us followers, provocation stirs our unsuspected (and unsuspecting) selves, which may or may not be leaders, but will have the significant contributions to make.”

In his essay, Phillips has a lot to say about what Emerson thinks of style.

Your style, which is the voice of your individual nature, is you but not as you know you, or perhaps want, yourself to be (it is ‘only in part under his control’). For Emerson, a person’s style was the voice in themselves that they had to yield to, to accede to, without waylaying it (style is the voice in you [that] you must resist your resistance to).

In other words, teachers need to help students find their authentic, unique voices. One way for teachers to do this is to avoid imposing too many strictures on how a paper is written. Less noise from outside will help students hear their inner voice, their real voice.

How might a high school English or history teacher put Emerson’s (and Phillips’) ideas into practice—provoke instead of instruct? Here are a few ideas:

Create writing assignments with fewer restrictions. Let students determine the topic, length, style, etc.
Allow revisions and peer review before assigning a final grade.
Assign some readings by imaginative and experimental authors so that students get to see what kind of writing is possible.
Emphasize that the goal in writing is to get to the point where each paper is unique to its author.

There is no question that young writers need to see many different models of good writing as they begin their own writing life. And it is also true that as they learn to write, they will imitate much of what they have read. That’s as it should be. But this should be the crawling-before-walking stage. Students need to know from the outset that the goal is for each person, at some point, to create her own unique style. And that that style probably won’t be static but will change over time.

This more wide-open way of teaching writing has many benefits. First and foremost, students will be encouraged to better develop their sense of self by moving beyond imitation and digging deeper into themselves and figuring out who they are as they write.

Teachers will have to be patient and more open-minded if they follow the advice of Emerson and Phillips; it is certainly easier to imitate others than to look within to find true meaning. But the results—more fully realized, self-possessed people and confident young writers—will be worth the effort. In the internet age, the real goal of education is not accumulating factual information that can so easily be looked up but helping students become self-aware, confident individuals.

Stan Izen, Editor of Independent Teacher

1. Adam Phillips, In Writing (New York: Penguin, 2017). All quotations are from Phillips’ essay, “Emerson and the Impossibilities of Style.”

Independent School Magazine