Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

We hates it. We haaaates it.

Some bloke named Jeffrey gave this monument of shite four friggin stars. Look for us to oil wrestle soon on cable.

Why can't I give this book negative stars? I want to take away the stars anyone else gave this book. That's right, Jeffrey, I'm vetoing your stars. Like I'm China.

Show of hands -- who here actually begins writing anything by first clustering? Eh? Who counts the sentences in their paragraphs to make sure there are between five and twelve sentences? You? Who stops after drafting a paragraph to notate each sentence as "more specific" or "more general" and then rearrange them into a more "logical" order?

The answer is that no one does. Actually, two people do, but no one likes them very much, and they're both stuck trying to find new superlatives for the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit special.

The fact of the matter is that concepts like "coherence through inductive order" and "parallelism in number and person" only make sense in retrospect, after you have firm working experience with those tools. Spanking a 100-level composition student with this crap is like expecting someone to understand Sartre before they've had their own existential crisis. And let's be honest here -- this is the same bullshit students were fed for four years throughout high school. If it didn't take then, what on earth makes you think what they really need is a rehash of the same? Brilliant. Clearly, when these students didn't sponge up their sophomore lesson that a "topic sentence is a topic plus a controlling idea," the only reason for that failure is because they were too preoccupied with prom/puberty/the Olson Twins, those lazy bastards. Let's beat them with the same switch again.

I'd like to suggest a (not really) radical idea -- that these students are stuck in a 100-level "remedial" composition course precisely because of the disgusting, patronizing pedagogy exhibited in Fawcett's Evergreen. I'd like to suggest, moreover, that students learn to write, not by placing their boots carefully in the footprints of people who have gone before and just now noticed their own path, but rather by writing, and they learn to write better by reading.

Noooo, no no. That's absurd. Instead, let's follow the little gems of uber-writing wisdom from Ms. Fawcett: "Consider adding a good quotation to emphasize one of your key points. You can begin by looking through...an online version of Bartlett's Quotations." Please, do. Also, why don't you draw jazzhands in the margin? Just to spice things up. I'm sure it will perfectly offset Mark Twain's insights into birth control and HIV in subcontinental India. "Suggested topics for persuasive paragraphs: (1) Occasional arguments are good for friendships. (2) ________ (writer, singer, or actor) has a message that more people need to hear. (3) People should laugh more because laughter heals." Fantastic. Thank you for that insightful bit of writing, Gidget. I'll be sure to keep that in mind when I have testicular cancer.

Perhaps, when you feed students purile, infantilizing bullshit, they give you only purile, infantile bullshit in return. Perhaps, instead of secretly believing that all 100-level students are utter morons who are "slow" in developing their language skills and who just need more of the same crap that didn't work the first time around -- perhaps, instead, if you believe they're secretly brilliant and already fluent in a multitude of discourses, they'll grow into that picture of themselves that you present them with.

The day I am granted tenure? That is the day I shred this book for the green manure that it really is.