Don Cudd - Writing Teacher

Things that Give Writers Fits

Don Cudd — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 23:24:47 +0000

As a writing teacher, I’ve seen the same 10 issues plague student papers time and again. They also show up in business letters, things like my own darn wedding invitation, and even in professional writing (especially advertising). Several months ago, I set out to understand just why it is that people have these struggles so commonly. I haven’t figure it out yet (don’t think anyone has). But once I know the psychology behind these problems, I’m confident I can do a better job of helping people overcome them. I’ll keep you posted on my research right here. In the meantime, here’s the list of the problems. It has been my experience that just making people aware of the issues helps, at least a little, in the quest to overcome them. So here they are (listed in order of importance, at least in my opinion) …

To Be a Writer, Ya’ Gotta Be a Reader, Too

Don Cudd — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 22:09:55 +0000

It’s been said that there are more writers in the world than readers. I want to conduct a study someday to see if that’s true. My guess is that it is.

This tip is short and sweet: please do more reading, dang it. Especially if you want to call yourself a writer. You will be surprised at how your writing skills will improve just by osmosis … if you bother to read as much as, or even more than, you write.

Here’s what I do. Have done it for years. I recommend you do the same.

I make sure that I’ve always got a book or magazine with me where ever I go. So, that way, when I’m waiting at the barbershop, I can get 10 minutes of reading in. When things are slow at work, well, I’m never at a loss. While my wife is shopping, I can entertain myself for hours in the parking lot.

Why don’t you consider doing yourself (and anyone who may have to read your writing) a favor? Make a better effort to read more, dang it. I guarantee it won’t hurt you.

How to Make Writing Pleasant and Easy

Don Cudd — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 21:56:00 +0000

Ha. I tricked you.If anyone tells you that writing is pleasant or easy, he or she is either lying or not a good writer.

The fact is, writing is tough. Even for the pros. Keep that in mind as you struggle through your latest project: every decent writer goes through much the same frustration.

Case in point: I’m about to resort a boring cliche that I really know better than to use. But writing is so hard, I can’t come up with anything better. I’ve spent 20 minutes pacing around my apartment trying to come up with just the right, non-cliche, phrase to make my point. Nothing’s coming. So, in the interest of moving on, I’ve decided to cut my losses and go with the cliche, painful as it is. Here goes:

Writing ain’t easy. But, then, nothing worthwhile ever is, right?

Geez. Do you see what I mean? It took me 20 minutes to finally decide to write a silly sentence that you’ve probably heard a thousand times before (except with “writing” replaced by any other gerund). I just hope you take my cliche to heart, even though it is overused and boring.

To do good writing, you have to struggle. That’s just all there is to it. You have to think harder than you probably really want to, and that’s no fun. And the really frustrating part is that — because most people don’t write well and therefore tend to think that writing is much easier than it is — great writing often goes unrecognized and unappreciated.

So, despite my cliche, good writing is not necessarily worthwhile from a financial stand point. But it is always worthwhile from an intellectual, even spiritual, point of view.

The pleasure of good writing comes well after it’s done, when what you’ve said strikes a nerve in one of your readers. The trouble is, you often never hear when this happens. So, it’s usually easy to conclude that all of your frustrating effort has been for nothing. I’m not sure how to help with that, except to point out that it’s society’s problem, not yours.

If your writing is good, it’s in tune to the truth. And that means it is eternally worthwhile. Remembering that is the best way I know to make writing pleasant (at least to some extent). I’m sorry. I don’t know of a way to make it easy.

The Candide Continuum

Marth Cantu — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 23:03:12 +0000

Note from Don: Martha Cantu wrote this as a student in a sophomore level English class at Del Mar College. Her professor gave her an “A” for the paper.

The Candide Continuum

An overzealous Jew and a devout Catholic sharing Lady Cunégonde are both murdered by a politically outcast German named Candide in a fit of passion. Race, Gender, Religion and Politics: Sounds like the lead in story for the Presidential race in 2008; yet these are all the controversial topics Voltaire writes about in his work Candide 250 years ago.

Voltaire highlights the very contentious issue of racial prejudice in his work, which is also a hot topic during the 2008 presidential election. Voltaire writes disparagingly about the Jews. Jews are portrayed as money-mongers. Voltaire illustrates his views, “A Jew was found to whom Candide sold for fifty thousand sequins a diamond worth a hundred thousand, the Jew swearing by Abraham that he could not offer more” (133). The stereotype in these lines is that Jews are accustomed to usury and habitually take advantage of others in money dealings. Racial prejudice in the United States between white Americans and African-Americans is at the forefront of the presidential election. Barack Obama, an African-American candidate, is looking to break the racial barrier that has persisted in

Passive Voice is (usually) Evil

Don Cudd — Mon, 29 Nov 2004 21:50:00 +0000

This is usually the first lesson in any writing class I teach. And it annoys me a little that most teachers overlook this problem entirely.

It’s surprising how many people just don’t see a problem with saying, “The taxes were raised last night.”

Me? Well, I see a huge problem with letting the people who raised the taxes get away with doing so. There’s no doubt that the folks on the city council want you to think that your taxes “were raised” last night by some mysterious, unaccountable, force. But that’s not really what happened.

No, what happened is, you see, the city council members actually raised the taxes.

Did you catch all that? Well, it all happened kind of quickly. So, let’s review:

“The taxes were raised last night.”

“The city council member raised the taxes last night.”

Because I decided to avoid the evil passive voice in the second sentence, you now know that it’s those scoundrels on the city council who actually raised your taxes. Feel free to vote ‘em out of office next time around.

I hope you’re starting see now, why I say that the passive voice is evil: it lets people avoid responsibility. That’s why government and corporate leaders are so fond of it.

But that’s exactly why everyone else should be wary of it.

Any time you find yourself writing about some inanimate object sitting around and passively letting some unknown person do something to it, well, you’re toying around in the Gates of Hell, er, I mean, the passive voice. Get out! Fast! Don’t release the Beasts!

The only time most Godly souls have any need for the passive voice is when they don’t know who is doing a particular thing. If we don’t know who stole a glove, for example, then, well, it’s not evil to say the glove was stolen

I hope this clears it up.

A lot of teachers will tell you that the passive voice is all about the “noun receiving — rather than doing — the action in a sentence.” Well, that is true. But it’s also confusing and boring. So, that’s why most people have no idea what the passive voice really is.
I hope I’ve helped fix that.

Just remember that the passive voice is usually evil. Unless you’re hiding something, you don’t need it.

Education’s Yossarian

Don Cudd — Fri, 12 Mar 2004 01:36:38 +0000

Note: I wrote this piece shortly before formally resigning my teaching job in suburban Washington D.C .

I keep thinking about Captain Yossarian in Catch 22, and I guess I’m lucky. I had an anxiety attack in early February after a typical day teaching classes at Marshall High School in Fairfax County.A few days later I ended up with Yossarian’s elusive prize: a doctor’s note ordering me to stay away from my classroom indefinitely.

This debatably happy ending to my once promising teaching career makes my case less dramatic than Yossarian’s, of course, but a similar theme is at work. My doctors are just more cooperative.

Officially speaking, I am too crazy to teach, I suppose. But, for your kids’ sake, I hope you will indulge this nut for a few more paragraphs. I want to explain the real problem. It’s what led to my demise and, unfortunately, it hardly ever gets a mention in public discussions about education.

Ask any teacher. She’ll tell you. What’s wrong with education in America is that school systems across the country (please do not misinterpret me as singling out Fairfax County Public Schools) have dramatically unrealistic expectations about how much time teachers need to do things other than teach.

Teachers have to, let’s see, plan for classes, consult with colleagues and parents, grade papers, prepare class materials, respond to e-mails, complete paper work, stay current on education issues, learn new technology, tutor troubled students, organize extra curricular

A Course Plan

Don Cudd — Wed, 19 Jun 2002 15:53:06 +0000

Note: The Mass Communication Department faculty at Texas State University adopted this plan for its “Writing for the Mass Media” class beginning in the Fall of 2002.

A plan for MC 1313

Having participated in two semesters, and numerous behind-the-scenes discussions, of MC1313 I present the following plan, for what it’s worth. I believe it will be reasonable to implement this plan in the fall of 2002, and I am willing to work toward that. The plan addresses the key issues which have come up during meetings I have had with faculty members who have a interest in this course, my fellow teaching assistants, and students. Those issues are summarized below in no particular order.

Issues addressed

How can this course stress a news-writing perspective and, at the same time, be meaningful to advertising students who have no plans or desire to be news writers? How can this course stress writing for print media as the “father” of all media writing and, at the same time, be meaningful to broadcast students? How can this course promote the idea amongst public relations students that writing for all types of media, especially the print media, will be crucial to their professional lives? How can this course promote an overall interest in journalism and current events? How can this course inspire involvement in the student media? How can this course provide useful, real-world media experience which students can cite in applying for jobs and internships? How can this course promote risk-taking in writers while, at the same time, demand that students adhere to the many “formulaic” standards of journalism writing. My original idea was to explain here precisely how this plan addresses each of those issues. A better plan, however, is to ask the reader to carefully examine the following pages to decide, for himself, if the course adequately addresses the issues. Before the reader proceeds, it should be noted that this course follows the general model of many successful writing courses, including those taught by the course’s textbook author and by professors in the SWT English Department’s creative writing program.

A Study of the Effectiveness of Media Literacy Education

Don Cudd — Mon, 15 Apr 2002 17:00:13 +0000

Note: I wrote this as a graduate student in Mass Communication at Texas State University. This paper was accepted for presentation at the school’s annual Mass Communication Week Conference

Introduction

As American mass communication media become increasingly complex, scholars continue their calls for better attention to media literacy in the nation’s schools. James Potter, for example, points to a story told by Sherwood Schwartz, producer of the television classic Gilligans Island. After the show had aired for its first few weeks in 1964, Schwartz reports, the U.S. Coast Guard began receiving serious complaints from people angry that the agency was unable to rescue the show’s fictional characters who were stranded on a pacific island. (1998)

“Hearing a story like this, we are likely to smile and think that those people must be extremely media illiterate to be so influenced by the media that they could not tell the difference between reality and fantasy. We smugly feel that we don’t have that problem – but remember… we are constantly faced with the challenge of controlling the media’s influence on us, and the difference between us and the viewers who contacted the Coast Guard is only a matter of degree. All of us must continually decide how closely media messages reflect real life. Sometimes these decisions are relatively easy … Other decisions are harder to make accurately.” (Potter, p. 22)

Sissella Bok, carrying forth the same overall theme, points to many studies in which media violence has been found to have at least some negative effect on audiences, particularly children. (1998) Like Potter and dozens (at least) of others, she promotes media literacy education as one way to counteract the negative influences. Media literacy, she says, “views all media as offering scope for participants to learn not to submit passively to whatever comes along, but instead to examine offerings critically.” (p. 141)

The literature of media literacy is, perhaps, overstocked with points such as these. Likewise, there are plenty of suggestions such as those from Hepburn (1999) and Dugald (1999) for ways in which media literacy can be incorporated into all levels of school curriculum. And there are a number of case studies such as that by Manzo (2000) which discuss how media literacy has, indeed, been successful in some American schools.

The success stories are relatively rare, however, and therefore nearly every writer on the topic finds himself, for at least a moment, being frustrated. Media literacy proponents routinely take jabs at an American educational establishment that seems curiously slow in adopting media literacy in its schools. Renowned journalists Walter Cronkite and Hugh Downs have even weighed it, joining dozens of other media experts in bemoaning that “the United States lags behind other countries when it comes to media literacy.” (Magee, 1996) Taken as a whole, media literacy literature seems to scream from the most progressive of mass communication intellectuals “Americans have a problem adequately understanding the media to which they are increasingly being exposed. We know how to fix that problem. Why is it that so few people take us seriously?!”

But in 1999 two of America’s leading media literacy exerts found that media literacy does seem to be taken seriously in American schools — at least on paper. (Kubey & Baker, 1999) In light of a 1998 New York Times report which said that only 12 states at that time had curricular guidelines for media study, the pair took a detailed look at the official curriculum statements in all 50 states. “We have found to our own surprise - and that of all the media educators with whom we’ve spoken - that at least 48 state curricular frameworks now contain one or more elements calling for some form of media education,” they said. (p. 56) In particular, they found that “Texas unquestionably presents the most developed and comprehensive media education framework. Florida’s and North Carolina’s are also impressive. Kansas and Kentucky were the only states we found that did not include nonprint media education, at least in the educational frameworks we were able to locate.” (p. 57)

At first glance, then, the Kubey and Baker study seems to indicate that media literacy proponents have quietly — even unconsciously — won their case. Could it be that media literacy is a significant part of the American education experience after all? This paper investigates that possibility.

The following pages report on a study designed to find out what some Texas college students think and know about some of the media literacy concepts the Kubey and Baker study indicates they should have been exposed to — in one way or another– during their first twelve years of school. Media literacy proponents should not be satisfied with a simple “paper-tiger” showing that schools are teaching media literacy while, in fact, that teaching is largely ineffective. This paper asks if, perhaps, that is just what Kubey and Baker uncovered.