Elaborate

As I’ve mentioned a few times already, I signed up for a six week online creative writing class a few months ago. Our original instructor quit halfway through (red flag?), and the new instructor was less…well…she was just less. I didn’t actually finish the last few lessons, but as a whole, the course was at least a little instructive. And if nothing else, it stirred up some memories that I’d long suppressed.

Aside from History, English was my other favorite subject in school. I didn’t always enjoy the books we were assigned to read, but the subject matter came easily for me. Except, according to nearly every English teacher whose class I ever took, my writing needed more. When long essays were due, the feedback I got was nearly always the same single word.

Elaborate.

They wanted more detail. Big words. Flowery language. Dress it up a bit. Grab the reader’s attention. For my part, I resisted. I felt like I was just adding filler to an already complete paper. If I could say what I needed to say in fewer words, why was that so wrong? I had some fun conversations with my English teachers about my concise writing style.

Of course, because I wanted to make good grades, I would ultimately relent. Words were added. Feedback improved. Everyone walked away happy.

In college, my ability to be succinct served me well. I tested out of the first semester of English, and the second semester didn’t require a long research paper. Most of my remaining classes in college, if they required any writing, had shorter, more concise assignments than those I’d been required to write in high school. Several of my professors actually took the time to praise my ability to fit a lot of detail into a small space.

Grad school was a mixed bag. All but one of my classes was online, and the professors made up for the lack of face-to-face classroom time with lots of books and lots of writing. I had to write two long research papers (that I struggled with) and way too many book reviews. I don’t like writing book reviews. But again, my professors mostly praised my writing, and I did well in school.

As a high school teacher for a little over two decades, I understand the idea behind word counts and those types of requirements for written assignments. Without them, many students wouldn’t put as much effort into the assignments as they should. It’s also good for the kids to learn to follow detailed instructions to help them to put their thoughts into words. Many of them need the extra guidance.

It just seems to me that sometimes the rigid instructions and/or expectations for academic writing tend to sap a bit of the creativity out of what is undoubtedly a creative action. That has been one of my biggest complaints about College Board AP History Rubrics for years. A student may know a ridiculous amount of history and may be an exceptional writer, but because she didn’t follow the guidelines exactly correctly, she doesn’t get a writing score that reflects her actual ability. That seems to happen too often in education.

I don’t want to leave anyone with the impression that I didn’t like my English teachers. I LOVED my English teachers. That’s why I was comfortable enough to push back on them a bit about my writing. They allowed me the freedom to express myself and then showed me how to be better. They, collectively, are a big part of the reason I was inspired to be a teacher in the first place.

As frustrated as I may have been at the time, even as a teenager I understood that their challenging me was because they cared, and they wanted to see me improve. In my not so humble opinion, they did a great job!