You Have to Have Something to Say
One morning when I was four, I scribbled furiously on my paper, then took it to show Mom. “Is it writing?” I asked. “No, not yet,” she answered, meaning, I suppose, that I didn’t yet know how to write or was not yet ready to learn. But I went busily back to scribbling with my stubby pencil in just the same way, it seemed to me, grownup writers did, hopeful that the next time I showed Mom, the lead on the paper would have been transmuted into fine words.
My scribbled materpiece was a lot like the written work of some students: full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Lazy Writers
When I was a college student and when I was an English teacher, I often ran into the student who takes the short cut in the writing process when he writes his research papers. He does not read or better yet study the words of greater minds, the experts in the field, before writing.
Instead he spends his time skimming through the library, pilfering nuggets of thought with which to decorate the opinions he already had when he entered the library. As long as he has properly footnoted the concoction, he does not care that he has misread, taken out of context, or imprecisely understood what the author has said. To call this a research paper is to be too generous. And since that student is also literarily deprived (literature-challenged?) having never read any more than T.V. Guide before beginning his college career, he is unlikely to ever produce any written work of worth.
As one of my professors at SIUE said on the topic of ignorance, “There’s a lot of it going around.”
But even the self-motivated reader will profit by having good teachers to guide his learning, and that is what a college education is all about. Most of us are not as bright or as motivated as Abraham Lincoln, that self-taught super hero. For most of us, it's too difficult to piece together on our own all the blocks of learning into a meaningful pattern. After all, even Henry Adams, one of the most brilliant and best educated scholars of his day “writhed and cursed at his ignorance.” He understood that “inert facts” and “knowledge counted for nothing until some teacher should show how to apply it.” Adams never felt like he could grasp the whole picture, and I comfort myself that with him I am is good company.
Hungry Writers
Even after my years of study I feel like I am only just smart enough to realize how stupid I am. But a hunger and thirst for knowledge is at least the proper beginning for a good writer. Such a student will not be content until he has content in his writing. And this comes with never-ending reading, thinking, and learning.
I’ve learned a few things, since I was four, about the rigors of the writing. My early fortitude was commendable, for it takes courage and stamina for the work—and it is work. But good intentions aren’t enough. The first prerequisite for good writing is having something worth saying. And this is the natural product of a good education which includes a wide reading background and a few good teachers.
As always, I encourage your comments. Do you have examples of this kind of "scholarship?" Do you or did you have teachers who helped you connect the dots?
