Me Against Fish

This is what I wrote to the New York Times. I didn't post it earlier, because I was embarssed about the writing quality (before coffee, remember!)--but then I remembered the rest of what I've written on this blog and thought, why not.

Stanley Fish's create-a-language lesson plan sounds like fun, but he doesn't answer what should be the most important question about it: does it help students become better writers? As a composition instructor, I would guess no, or not much; good writers don't consciously think through the relationships between words in every sentence they write, and that is why writing skills are so difficult to improve. Fish seems to abdicate entirely the frustrating task of helping students learn to write well in English. Ironically, he appears to be teaching nothing but "content," focusing on language as something to be broken down and understood in the abstract, rather than to be used.

In the milling around period before class today I told my students about this, and they thought it sounded crazy too, so I felt vindicated. If you want to be depressed, though, try saying into a room of UCI students, Do any of you guys read the New York Times? And watch the blank stares spread. At least my class, because they're motivated enough to be poetry students, looked a little guilty.