Ethos: writing as if you have the right to enter the conversation

As children we are encouraged to be "seen and not heard." That is a statement about our ethos: our "right" to join in an adult conversation. Children do not have a complete  understanding of adult discourse systems: things like waiting until the other person is finished before you speak (turn-taking), or empathy, or how to present ideas logically. As we grow up, we learn more and more about how to do language in certain circumstances and communities. We learn that we can ask for something one way with friends, but have to adjust our language and voice when talking to teachers or parents. That is learning how to do language rhetorically.

By the time we graduate from high school, (hopefully) we are mature enough as people and as communicators, that we are ready to take on the challenge of learning the discourse systems of other adult communities like college and our areas of study. ENG 101/102 and 104 assume students are ready to learn more about how to effectively convey ideas into the communities they want to join. It's not about just learning how to do language, but how to do language in those communities.

Students are newbies in these new communities. They are not children, because college students have the benefit of what they've already learned about other adult discourses, and are more maturing emotionally and intellectually. But undergrads are new to the various discourses of college and of their disciplines. Freshmen are just starting to learn how those communities do language. The more they learn about how those communities use language -- the expectations, the forms, the ideas and the words that represent those ideas -- the more ethos students have in those communities. Students develop the right to speak up in their communities as they move through college.

Passing ENG 101/102 and then ENG 104 does not guarantee this right to speak up. These courses are designed to help students begin to develop the critical reading and writing skills to diagnosis what counts as discourse in a community. As you learn how to be a better reader and writer, you also learn to figure out how any community that you want to join in the future does language. You learn what counts for knowledge (like academic sources in an academic community). You learn how to develop your own ethos in that community. You develop the right to speak in it.

This past two weeks, as my class has done workshopping of each other's papers, I've noticed the confidence that most of them have developed in doing language in our little classroom community. A year ago, if we had drawn together in a circle and listened as one of their classmates read a paper out loud, the fear and tension would have been thick. Each person would have struggled to give feedback, and most of the time would just muttered said, "I think it's good."

Today, I am confident that any one of my students could go into another writing classroom, writing group, or  informal gathering of students working on papers, and have the ethos to contribute in significant ways to that conversation. I'd like to hear what my students have to say on that subject. After all, they have the right to speak up on college writing now.

Hunting the rare topic sentence

As writers revise projects for the final portfolio submission, we start to look at how your ideas and evidence are being delivered to readers. The basic delivery system for human ideas is language. We use language to get ideas out of our own minds and into the minds of other people. ENG 102 is all about using written American English language to convey ideas that you've researched and developed. Written American English uses standards like paragraphing and sentences to deliver these ideas in ways that readers will find clear and understandable.

Last week one of the tips I gave in class was to circle your topic sentence in each paragraph. Try it. Look at each of the three projects you've selected for your portfolio and circle the topic sentence in each paragraph.

Go ahead...do it now and then come back here. (It's easier to understand if you've got one of your papers in front of you.)

Here's what happened:

• You found a topic sentence: one that explains the main point of your paragraph. It might be the first sentence in a paragraph, sort of like an announcement of what will follow. Or the topic sentence may be at the end: something toward which the others sentences build, sort of a "Ta-da!" You may even find the sentence with the main idea buried in the middle of the paragraph, perhaps wedged between explanations of sub-points and evidence that supports them. Wherever it's located, each paragraph should have a topic sentence.
• Perhaps, you didn't find a topic sentence in some paragraphs. All the ideas might still be connected to each other. They might belong together in the paragraph; however, there is no one thought that connects them. These sub-points just sort of huddle together and try to look like they are a real paragraph. It is your job, as the idea-transformer and writer, to turn them into a real paragraph for your reader. Come up with a topic sentence -- a thread, an overview, a question -- to which all the sub-points connect. It may sound different depending on where you position it in the paragraph, but the topic sentence should be there.
• In some paragraphs, you may find a topic sentence to which a few sub-points are connected, but others are not. In these cases, you can of of the following: revising the topic sentence, move the sub-points that don't fit to other paragraphs where they might fit better, or (if you have a few sub-points that relate to each other but not the rest of the ideas) create a new paragraph.

The point is that your readers expect ideas to be delivered to us using language that is organized into sentences and paragraphs that build upon each other. Use these language tools to show us your ideas, to prove to us that you've done your research, and to convince us to believe you.

For this week's blog, one of the topics you might consider is how your topic sentence hunt turned out. Pick one of your projects and try the exercise, then write about it in your blog.

Works Cited

"Topic Sentence Image." Inter-Cultural Communicative Competence. 11.3 Eastern Mennonite U. Web. 10 Apr 2010.