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Generating a Provisional Thesis and Because-clauses

Having resolved issues of audience, reader's and writer's questions, and my commitment to this project, I am prepared to begin. My instinctive response to the dean's request is that a competency exam in English is a terrible idea. I'm aware, however, that many people in and out of the profession feel differently, and the dean may be among them, or at least may be depending on such people for his decision. Even though research or the exchange of views might well change my mind, I don't have the time to engage in much reading or discussion. Writing under pressure, I can do only some exploring. Most of the material for this kind of assignment is found in the mind of the writer, not in books, journals, or other people. If this were a research paper, writing under pressure would still involve the skill of knowing what to look for in the available material. My job, then, is to sort out my own views and decide how best to present them to the reader. Generating a provisional thesis gives me the head start I need. I really don't want a competency exam. Committing myself to that position in a thesis enables me to start the writing job honestly and energetically. If I discover other arguments, or convincing opposing views, then the material itself will shape my raw draft. I can write this paper without worrying much about the various pressures because I will actually discover what I believe and why I believe it, and then present the reader with the truth as I see it. Writing, after all, is discovery, a way of finding out what I think and what my experience or learning tells me. My own thinking may include conflicting ideas. But writing under pressure will be somewhat less discovery and somewhat more development: you find the site, and you construct the city. You've settled on a decision, and now you make the most of it. Whatever you discover in the process adds to the power and clarity of the writing product, or has to be acknowledged as something you need to study further. Under pressure, some of that will always have to wait until the next writing project. Here, then, is the start of the thesis which, by the end of the rough draft, will become my full-fledged introduction: A writing competency exam is a bad idea because-- The work of generating because-clauses, which at this point should have a strong element of spontaneity in it, now begins. What follows "because--" forms the foundation for the rest of the process of writing well under pressure. The competency exam is a bad idea. Why? If I had to create a twentyminute oral presentation on the subject, I only would have time for the few best reasons. If I were writing a book on the subject, I would need plenty of reasons, covering a variety of related issues. For this threepage paper, I want to generate ten or twelve ideas as freely as possible, without judging their merits or importance, and then focus on three or four to develop into my position paper.A writing competency exam is a bad idea because--

1.	No one would want to read it.
2.	Who would define "competency"?
3.	How will the exam be useful for students who don't pass?
4.	Who would teach the failing students and help them to pass? Where would we get the money to pay these teachers?
5.	What would it mean for the teaching of writing in general if we tailor it to an exam? Many of our students need to be less afraid of writing, not intimidated by an exam.
6.	What will be the impact on younger teachers? How could we convince them that they will not be judged for promotion based on how many of their students pass the exam, but on how well they accomplish the ideal goal of helping everyone to write with power and clarity, on whatever level, as a lifelong skill?
7.	What will the existence of a writing competency exam do to the relationship between the English department and other departments of the college? Will it create a sense that everything we do is "remedial," and that they themselves don't have to work at helping students write well? (Face it, you never hear: "I have such good writers in my history class, the English department must be doing its job.")
8.	What function would the exam serve? To give peace of mind to some people on the faculty or in the administration because so many people don't write well? It's a national concern, after all. How can you ensure that all students will write well as judged by a single essay, or even a series of essays? You might do this with math, or computer competency, or even with a writing inventory to place people in the appropriate level of writing class, but what is our goal here as teachers of writing? (More on this later.)
9.	I define "competency" in writing as the writer's capacity to say with power and clarity what he or she thinks, whether
	asked by teachers, bosses, prospective employers, or on his or her own initiative. How will this be tested by a competency exam if in fact a student works hard and moves toward that goal in the fourteen weeks of a writing course? If we insist that students repeat writing courses or get help to pass the exam without getting credit for it, then we can throw in the sponge! It's a miracle anyway when students take the idea of writing well seriously, and the more cynical you become about writing, the less you do it. Training people to write in order to pass an exam is one sure way of stopping them from learning how to write with clarity and power as a lifelong habit. People get up for a chemistry exam and never want to look at a chemistry book again. But while you may never need to know the chemistry equations once the exam is over, you will certainly have to write, again and again, throughout your life. (More on this, too.)

"Competency" for what? I keep coming back to this: competency for a test, for writing decent papers in a course, or for a lifelong skill? In some ways, these are mutually exclusive goals if all we have is one semester of required writing--an issue that should be at the heart of this argument anyway.

All right, what do I suggest instead? A year-long required writing course for everyone? A writing staff charged not only with the theoretical (and now machine-correctable) mechanics of writing, but with the task of helping students express themselves, not only in our courses, but throughout their lives as citizens of a society? Because if we don't do this, we will be responsible for permitting the vacuum that is filled not by real, hard thinking and explanation but, instead, by the incessant yapping of advertisers and photogenic newscasters who smile about weather, drought, starvation, parades, and invasions as if the words they speak have no more meaning than the drone of the refrigerator, and the people of whom they speak no more substance than objects without feeling.

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