I grew up with parents who could write. Both my parents were and still are fine writers. My mother is much more of a grammarian (if that's a word, and even if it's not, that's what she is) than is my father. He writes more like me, or rather, I write more like he does. Growing up as an ADHD kid punctuation was never really something at which I excelled (witness....all previous entries). I knew how the words and sentences were to sound when spoken, but getting the same results with written words just seemed beyond me. Sometimes it still does. I always wanted there to be inflection markings, and intonation symbols. Though, it's not like I was able to master the basics, so wishing for advanced tools seems sorta silly. Like a child complaining that his fisher price my first tool kit doesn't have a beveled router.
Elementary school and parts of high school are often consumed, from a writing stand point, with either fanciful essays, poetry, and the like or with essentially technical writing. I've never been much for poetry (always seemed to me the essence was to find a way to imply or hint at something instead of just saying it: "that girl is pretty, if she liked me, I'd be happier."") And fantasy or fiction (either) has never really felt right (though I did a stint in play writing, but that was later). So long story short, most of the means by which writing was evaluated played to someone else's strength. Despite this I found myself in advanced or AP classes throughout. Mainly because if you're smart you can get by force of intellect, rather than through some demonstrated aptitude or talent.
After 4 years of high school english, I liked writing, but still carried the stigma of my inability to correctly place a comma, or prevent Joycian run on sentences. So I refused to take English at Oberlin. I wouldn't do it. I was a freshman, and was terrified that everyone else at Oberlin could write and that I was just not that good.
Freshman year came and went. I was writing a lot. I was writing fairly well. Professors would point out my flaws (lots) but generally seemed supportive. I maintained my no-English policy. I was really just afraid. There is something horrible about failing at something that you were pretty sure you'd fail at ( I know I ended that with a preposition...shut it). Oh, I should point out I was dating an English major by this time (since Dec of Freshman year). I would read her things, they were impeccably punctuated but rarely seemed to say a whole lot. It was like making the concrete to secure a mailbox. She never failed to get everything in the right order, structure and proportions, but it wasn't art. It was assembly.
Junior year rises and I decide to take an English course. I look through the course book and eliminate anything that suggests literary criticism (a subject I've convinced myself I'd not understand) or any "hard" authors. As you might imagine this knocks a more than a few courses out of the running. In fact it leaves English 50. Less than half of English 101. Perfect. I give the course description a cursory glance, "learn to apply grammar...improve technique...hone writing skills." I'm sold. I sign up.
The first day of class I show up, and am the only American in the room. I am, I believe, the only college student (as opposed to Conservatory student) there. The collected talents of that room could have created a mighty symphony, but writers (at least in English) were few and far between. Going around the room, we said our names, and it felt like Ellis Island. Everyone in the room had very good, and pronounced reasons for struggling with the language. I felt like a ringer.
We were asked to answer a few questions on the back of the syllabus and pass them to Professor Cooper. I finished with the assignment in about 15 minutes. I sat and waited. Twenty five minutes passed until the next student finished. I was beginning to think that maybe this wasn't the right class for me.
The next morning I received an email confirming my suspicion. The exact text of which I do not remember. The essence was this: I'm going to have to ask that you drop this course. It's clearly not right for you." I never tried to take another English course. So this may help to explain why I managed to graduate from Oberlin having read, 4 fiction books. Sadly my peers and educators were liberal, but my education was something else (at least vis a vis the hallmark of the liberal arts--english).
No comments:
Post a Comment