Red Hunting Dogs

I...once...got a letter from a former student of mine who needed something from me. It was an impassioned plea for a second chance. And unlike the teachers of geography or algebra, I have free rein to judge this friend’s progress in my class by the letter itself, both content and style. I can call it a final project and then evaluate its quality, because of all the subjects, English has more in common with P.E. than any other, both being about Practice makes Perfect. Just as one final 5 minute run can tell a kid’s fitness, so a 500 word letter can tell a kid’s skill at writing. Sure, mom reviewed it, but doesn’t she always? And doesn’t the kid learn from her coaching, especially when there is much at stake?

As writers, we tend to notice the technical mistakes first, the run on sentences, the spelling errors, and we itch to let loose our pens all over the paper like red hunting dogs sniffing out squirrels. The technical errors do need correcting, and that will come, but as writing coaches, we need to notice what the student did right, and help the student pull the paper together and clarify ideas before letting loose the dogs. My kid’s paper (I’ll call him Bill) is full of technical errors, but let’s look at the organization. His introduction tells of an unfulfilled expectation. He expected one thing and got another. He is now embarrassed, frustrated, and afraid of the consequences. So he’s got me right there, this student of mine. He’s hooked me by sentence two and laid out his purpose with an appeal to pathos, the emotional appeal. I heard at our transitional seminar that if you want approval, use logic, but that if you want action, use emotion. Our decisions are sparked by emotion and then fueled by logic. If the emotion is strong enough, it can overwhelm the logic altogether. On the other hand, we can overcome our feelings with reason, given enough time to think. There’s hope. So already I want to help Bill.

Next Bill lays out his logos, his logic, his reasoning. He tells me what will happen if he does not get a second chance, and for him, the consequences are dire. I feel that. He offers to do his part in pulling in the slack. He lays out a defined plan of action. As part of his reasoning, he counters the opponent’s argument by acknowledging past failures and accepting responsibility to change in the future. Finally he lays out his trump card, his appeal to ethos or to authority: he has met with an academic expert who recommends the action he is requesting. Brilliant.

Bill concludes with a reminder of his feelings and a call for action (returning in the conclusion to remarks in the introduction is called framing, an excellent device). I know exactly what he wants me to do in this very impassioned, very persuasive, very effective essay disguised as a letter, and so it’s done. He could have used some paragraphing, reviewed his paper manually for spelling mistakes (the spell checker missed “cam” for “came”), untangled the run-ons, and remembered his training in matching pronouns (“he and me would…”). But the red hunting dogs will have to lie slumbering under a Canadian maple for now while the essay goes about its business, squirreling away a change for my young friend Bill that will serve him next season.

I miss Bill. I miss teaching. My dogs have needed an invigorating run.