There are four pages here to help you think about writing. The fourth is about writing.

Writing

Okay, so you’ve read the required articles and thought about them using your new-found critical thinking skills.  You can re-state their main points, and give a nuanced account of their strengths and weakness, and you know why the issues they raise are important. You’ve read the books and watched the movies, and you’ve done a lot of thinking.  You like the fact that we read Pinocchio, because it’s always fun to return to childhood stories, although you were a little shocked by how violent and brutal the real, original story is compared to the Disney version (especially when you discovered that Jiminy Cricket gets smashed to death by a hammer the first time he appears!).  Maybe you’ll work on that.  What’s the most obvious thing to say about Pinocchio?  It’s about a puppet who turns into a boy. No help there—you couldn’t argue that it’s really about a whale who turns into a spaceship! What’s the message Collodi wants to send? Well, he wants to say that bad boys will be punished for everything bad they do, until they learn to be good.  It’s a very conservative and conformist message, definitely one that “supports the dominant ideology.” What about a form-content conflict, an allegory or a subtext?  Well, you do notice that Pinocchio’s behavior when he is a puppet is exaggerated—most kids aren’t quite that bad! But when he turns into a boy he becomes… well, perfect, really. He always does what he is supposed to do, obeys all the rules.  In fact, now that you think about it, he’s artificial, robotic, even.  And when he’s a puppet?  That’s weird.  He behaves like a real boy. In short, Pinocchio is never more like a real boy than when he is a puppet—likewise, he is never more like a puppet than he is at the supposedly “happy” end of the book.

What is that? That, my friends, is the start of an argument. An argument is a claim that goes beyond the obvious, that is supported by persuasive evidence, and whose truth or falsity has important consequences. The number one problem with student essays is that they have no argument.

Let me repeat that: the number one problem with student essays is that they have no argument. An argument is a claim that goes beyond the obvious, that is supported by persuasive evidence, and whose truth or falsity has important consequences. To continue with the Pinocchio example above, I am suggesting that the real message of the novel is quite different than the one Collodi intended, and the one we all have assumed to be true until now.  I now must amass evidence from the text to demonstrate that the story of the novel is essentially that of a real, impulsive human being becoming a rigid puppet to laws, customs and authority. I should show why these examples are effective (appreciation) but always with an eye toward my larger argument. I should continue to apply my critical thinking skills all the while, too:  are children actually influenced by the ideology of children’s literature? I know hardcore atheists who adored the Narnia books as children and devout Christians who enjoyed and admired Phillip Pullman’s Dark Materials books, which are expressly anti-Christian (he actually wrote them as a reply to Lewis' Narnia books). Isn’t Collodi’s goal—getting children to mind the rules and their elders—rather laudable, even if his punishments are somewhat extreme for the poor Pinocchio?  Finally, what is the consequence, the importance of my interpretation? I might write something like this:

Very well—let us agree that Pinocchio is the tragic story of a little boy who becomes a puppet, rigidly and automatically obeying the commands of a paternal authority who commands strict obedience or else terrible consequences that range from being turned into a miserable animal to simply death. What is the effect of this mechanistic and conformist subtext in Pinocchio? First, and most importantly, it reveals an ugly truth about children’s literature.  From Goodnight Moon (go to sleep), or The Little Engine That Could (work hard and you will succeed), to the Narnia novels (in the final book, Susan literally goes to hell for liking boys and wearing makeup), children’s literature has an important and conformist role in teaching children the roles that they are expected to fulfill, the behaviors that they should conform to, and the myths they are expected to believe in. Second, and more hopefully, it suggests that no message is ever perfect. Collodi’s story is pretty heavy handed and even simplistic—Pinocchio misbehaves and suffers, over and over again, until he learns to control his selfish impulses. But even in this apparently straightforward narrative, we find a crack in the ideology, one that warns children away from too-perfect obedience: no one wants to be a puppet.

This has the feel of a conclusion to it, but similar points could be made in the introduction.  I think you can see that it makes two compelling cases for why this issue is important. If you agree that brainwashing children is bad (which you probably do), you’d probably have to admit that this topic is not irrelevant. Great! You’ve got an argument, evidence, and you’ve demonstrated the importance of your topic. You’ve shown an ability to think critically by demonstrating that you appreciate both sides of the argument, and the nuances of the thinking and writing you’re dealing with.

You’re not done.

Is your writing clear? Is it logical? It is concise? Grammatical? Interesting? Let’s talk about these, in order:

Clarity: clear writing conveys its meaning rapidly and easily.  It is easy to understand, because the thinking it is trying to express is organized. Here’s something totally unclear:

Throughout the novel Confessions of Zeno, by Italo Svevo, Zeno writes about his inability to lead a healthy life. Health for Zeno is a mental state that consists of a clear conscience, a motivated will, and a security in his mere existence.  In the section titled “Wife and Lover,” however, Zeno introduces spiritualism to his concept of health. Zeno becomes interested in spiritualism to diminish his fear of death, but Zeno’s attempt fails from his inability to live a life free of guilt.

I have no idea what a “motivated will” is, or “a security in his mere existence” might be.  He “introduces spiritualism to his concept of death”? How do you introduce an abstract noun to a concept? Did they shake hands? How about “Zeno’s attempt fails from his inability”?  Did you ever hear a friend say “I failed the class from lack of attending”?  Or “I failed the final from missing the last problem”?  This is a student who is tone deaf to clear, melodious English—that’s not a moral failing, but it diminishes the clarity of your writing, and you may need to get help at the writing center. If you see a large question mark in the margin, it means I didn’t understand what you were trying to say—at all.

Logic: in a logically written paragraph, every idea flows from what came before it, and leads into what follows. After I read your introductory paragraph, I hope to have a good idea what the basic outline of your paper is. If you see me mark “logic” in the margins, or if I draw an arc between two sentences with a question mark, it means that I don’t see how they are connected; to me, it looks like you just jumped into a new topic.

Concision: Just remove all the fluff, all the filler, all the "throughout history, mankind has struggled with morality." Is your paper much too short now, and it seems like you haven't said much? Then it's insubstantial or superficial, and you need to do more work. I've never marked down a paper that was shorter than the suggested range if that paper was sharp, clear, and concise.

Grammar: I use this as a catch-all phrase for proper grammar, phrasing, usage, spelling, formatting—in short, all of the presentation aspect of your paper. In the working world, you will be fired if you hand in a report with 4 inch margins, set in 12 different colors in a “funny font” like Comic Sans (the ugliest font in the history of the world, by the way), filled with grammatical errors, missing words and misspellings. I am very much aware that "good grammar" and "speaking correctly" are normative tools used to gatekeep "good society" (to the disadvantage of women, the poor and people of color,non-binary and trans folk who continue to struggle with arguments about pronouns, and more). Until such time as our whole society and culture stop doing that, however, my best option as an educator is to help my students acquire the langauge, particularly written language, that will be most advantageous to them, and I will be thrilled to talk about grammar and usage with any student, because I am a giant language nerd.

Interest: I have much less to say here, because this is frankly subjective, but some people write in ways that make it clear that they are excited about the material, and really discovering something — and some people don't. The best way to make me care about what you're saying is if you are excited by it and engaged with it. If you aren't, maybe try to pretend like you are? This, too, is a communicative skill, one that is equally advantageous at a job interview