Form & Structure:
using student writing
to teach students to write better
by Joe Napora

The ability to communicate through writing depends on Structure, yet student writers seem to have a very difficult time understanding the importance of structure to writing. I emphasize structure, the organization of the essay, the paragraph, and the sentence, at every opportunity. I am convinced that an awareness of structure simplifies the writing for beginning writers and provides readers with a means to edit their own writing and to analyze writing produced by other students and by professionals.

It is surprising how little is students' awareness of this, the most basic, function of the introduction to any communication. Isn't all communication based on these functions? Animals communicate this way: first interest, then information. Perhaps even microbes communicate this way! I point out the need for Interest and Information as the main and the only function of Introductions every opportunity I get.

Bill Ferguson's essay is so good at illustrating all the main structural elements of the essay form that I'll use it to do just that. Bill's Introduction gives us a short description to get our interest; at the end of his introduction he indicates the information necessary to know that his story is going to be not only about his grandfather but also, more specifically, about his relationship to his grandfather. He gets our interest by providing us with a short description of the scene involving himself and the picture of his grandfather as a young soldier.

Bill Ferguson, a first year writing student of mine from two year's ago (1995), wrote in his self-evaluation essay that "It's all about Form." He was referring not to some amorphous quality of writing, not making an absolute statement that Form was more important that Content; he was stating a principle that he was to illustrate in his essay that for him, for a beginning student of writing, to learn to write better, to learn to evaluate his own writing so that he would not be dependent upon a teacher but could improve on his own, "all about Form" was all about understanding and applying the understanding of the form writing takes upon the page.

Bill learned the most important lesson he could learn from my class: writing is essentially different from speech. Writing, in order to create the CONTEXT that speech establishes with a real speaker talking to a real audience, must utilize FORM, pre-established, predictable, anticipated formal structures. Bill understood this; he illustrated this understanding when he wrote his self-analytical essay that quoted from his previous essays to support what he said about his writing. Bill also demonstrated his understanding about the importance of form when he wrote (re-wrote, since all the essays the students write can be revised as they learn more about the writing process) his narrative essay. And it is this essay I now use in all of my writing classes to demonstrate the importance of theme structure, to demonstrate that, indeed, it is "all about Form."

I begin my writing classes with an assignment for the next class meeting: read Bill Ferguson's story "Thick Sliced Bologna." At the next class meeting we talk about Bill's story. After students have expressed their likes and dislikes, I ask them to evaluate the story, to give it a grade. And students do so, and they do so based upon their likes and dislikes, their opinions. And then I evaluate the paper. But my evaluation is not based upon my opinion, not based upon my likes or dislikes about the content of Bill's story. My evaluation is based upon an objective look at the structure of the essay and how Bill's story adapts itself to that structure. My evaluation is "all about Form."

An essay, arguably every act of communication, consists of three parts: a beginning, middle, end. A mosquito bite as well as the Gettysburg Address has this form. Unlike a mosquito bite, writing has its own specific formal requirements.

The beginning is an Introduction, and an introduction has two requirements:
it must get the reader's attention
and it must inform the reader about what is the main point of the writing.

The middle is the Body of the paper, and it is nothing but details, the essential details.

The end is the Conclusion. The conclusion also has two functions.
It unifies the writing,
and it leaves the reader with an image that will last long in the reader's memory.

With these basic constituents of the Form of writing established (the whole course is an attempt to establish them, here they are only mentioned), I, and the class, can now evaluate Bill's essay. And, importantly, the evaluation is not based on my opinions about the content of Bill's story; our evaluation is based upon established criteria. It is objective. I can evaluate the essay, and the class can evaluate it. And we can agree on our grade because we have agreed upon the criteria used to establish the grade. And all of us do agree. This is an "A" paper because Bill has done an excellent job of meeting all the requirements for writing an effective essay.

The Introduction to Bill's essay (and the title is an essential part of the Introduction) is perfect. He relies upon a tried and true introductory technique: he offers the reader a detailed but succinct description. He describes a photograph of his grandfather as a young proud marine in his dress uniform. The details (the "frayed edges of the photo" and the "buttons, polished to perfection") hold the reader's attention and keep the reader focussed on what the rest of the story is about, something that Bill makes clear at the end of the Introduction: a young man is remembering the best times he had with his grandfather.

And the Body of the paper supplies just that and only that information. The boy goes fishing with his grandfather, and they both eat those thick sliced bologna sandwiches. At the end of the Body of the paper we learn of the grandfather's fatal illness from cancer. But we learn of it in the form of dialogue with the young boy and his grandmother, the most effective way to get this information to the reader, and the best way to end the Body of the paper. Again, the Body: details, nothing but essential details.

And the Conclusion? It does exactly what a good conclusion must do. It Unifies the paper and leaves the reader with a lasting Image. We learn that the boy never did like those thick sliced bologna sandwiches, only eating them to make his grandfather happy.

Given the stated criteria of what makes for a good essay, the students can evaluate it as well as I can. At least they can grade the paper in terms of its structure. That is not the only thing that makes this a good paper, but the adherence to theme structure is necessary. Other qualities of Bill's writing confirm that this paper deserves the highest grade. For instance, I point out his sentence style. Notice how he begins this essay: "The fraying edges and scuffed finish distort the photo, but since I know what to look for, the picture is crystal clear." Several classes will be spent on explaining why this sentence is such a good way, nearly perfect stylistically, to begin this story, a way that allows the reader easy but tentative entry into an emotionally charged but tender account of human relationships. But sentence style comes later, first it is essay structure, and "It's all about Form."