写作与思考2011jseliger.com
保罗·格雷厄姆与《随笔时代》：他本可以更正确
Paul Graham and not being as right as he could be in “The Age of the Essay”
导读
这篇文章回应 Paul Graham 的《The Age of the Essay》，指出 Graham 的判断有其盲点：学生写不出“真正的文章”，未必是能力不足，而是评分制度、命题作文和与生活脱节的话题压制了真实的写作动机。对写作者和教学者都值得一读，因为它把“为什么写、为谁写”重新放回写作训练的中心。
可以直接用的写作要点
- 01
动笔前先问自己：这个题目和我真正关心的问题有关吗？从自己好奇的疑问出发，比从“金钱”“创业”这类抽象大词出发更容易写出深度。
- 02
别让评分或他人评价主导写作决策；一旦目标是“安全过关”，人就会用套话填充，而不是真正思考。
- 03
把“修改论点”当成写作的常规环节：遇到反例就调整自己的主张，而不是硬凑证据去圆场。
- 04
练习在严格字数内写反驳（比如 500 字），逼自己语言精准、克制、切中要害；同时多读操纵性写作的样本，学会识别群体思维和人身攻击。
HN 评论精选
学生写不进去往往是因为话题与生活脱节，不该据此断定他们缺乏深度写作能力。
我没读过 Paul Graham 原文，但对 Seliger 回应中的两点有异议。先说公道话：Seliger 显然认真思考过这个问题，实际经验也比我多，他对学生写作习惯和探索陌生领域能力的描述很真实。但他错在两处：他举的例子（“金钱”“棒球”“PG 的创业观”）都是充满抽象概念、与大多数孩子生活脱节的正规知识领域，学生难以投入并不奇怪；他却由此断定学生缺乏处理真实、无边界知识领域的能力。这是把望远镜拿反了：应该从学生感兴趣的东西出发，而不是硬塞给他们一套“写得好的非虚构文章”。
nkoren查看英文原文
With the caveat that I haven't read Paul Graham's original essay, I have to say that I take issue with a couple of key things in Paul Seliger's response. First though, credit where it is due: Seliger obviously thinks and cares deeply about this, and has much more real-world experience with it than I. (I am not a formally-trained educator; however I'm a good essay-writer when I put my mind to it, and have been drafted into teaching it on a handful of occasions). Furthermore, Seliger's description of the students he encounters -- their default writing habits and innate ability to explore unfamiliar knowledge domains -- rings absolutely true. He clearly knows what he is talking about in this regard. However he goes astray in two key respects. First, he gives examples of formal domains of knowledge ("Money", "Baseball", "Paul Graham's views on Entrepreneurialism") which are both full of abstractions and relatively disconnected from most kids' lives. It should be no surprise that they have difficulty engaging with these subjects in depth or with passion. But Seliger then goes on to conclude that therefore, his students lack the capacity to engage with real-world unbounded knowledge domains. This is wrong, and it comes from looking at the problem through the wrong end of the telescope. Instead of saying "here is an interesting and well-written body of non-fiction essays about [ money | baseball | ... ]; let's see if I can get my students to engage with it," one should say "here is an issue that my students are engaged with; let's see if I can get them to engage with it as writers / essayists". Most kids' lives are richer and more problematic than adults comprehend. This offers plenty of material to unpack and examine, and flex their cognitive muscles in the process. For example: where I live in London, we had a series of major youth riots earlier this year. (Well, major for the UK; having grown up in California, they honestly seemed quite tame to me.) Many highschool students participated in these riots, or had friends who did, or had homes / communities / favourite social spaces which were affected by the riots. Certainly ALL young people in London are now being directly affected by the collective response to the riots, on the part of politicians, police, educators, etc. I frequently hear young people espousing various opinions on the subject at bus stops -- rarely very nuanced opinion, mind you; mostly just expressions of the degree to which something or other is bullshit, but no matter -- and that's a good signal that it is something which is sufficiently part of their lives, and which they feel sufficiently passionate about, that it merits exploration with improved analytical techniques. So if I were teaching essay-writing here in London, I'd start with the riots. I wouldn't even start with the the literary response to the riots -- that's already a bridge too far for most highschoolers -- I'd begin with the television reporting about the riots, and seeing what kind of response can be elicited from that. Having engaged their interest within a relatively familiar medium, I'd then move gradually into the more literary explorations of the domain: first to short opinion pieces written in the daily papers; then to longer analytical essays and parliamentary addresses; finally to the various explicitly literary / artistic means of engaging with the subject, such as the plays about the riots which are now beginning to emerge. In other words: start with the passionately familiar, and figure out how to get from there to the literary. Not the reverse. If you think that your students have nothing that they are passionately familiar with, then look harder. They do. The second place where Seliger goes awry is in ascribing value to the process of conducting literary analysis within an explicitly bounded domain (ie a single essay). I hold the somewhat unfashionable view that this violates the very point of education. In my opinion, the w…
用青少年熟悉的网络表达作素材，以“限字数反驳”的游戏训练精准论证，并用操纵性写作的案例教他们识别逻辑谬误。
我不是教育者，也不觉得自己写得好，但环顾四周还算中上，所以斗胆提两个建议。想给青少年找激发兴趣的材料？YouTube 和 IMDb 上满是这个年龄段爱表达的人，观点常幼稚、形式常糟糕，但表达欲是真实的——这正是把粗糙的东西打磨成器的机会。可以做成游戏：模仿论坛帖子、分组，目标是写出 500 字以内的最佳反驳，逼他们在语言上既创新又干净、切题。想让他们远离情绪化、道德说教式的叙述？就让他们接触操纵性写作，看自己如何中招；讲清群体思维、人身攻击这些现象，举现实中的例子说明它如何被用来引导大众——如果不能理性、分析地讨论问题，就会像羊一样被牵着走。没人想当羊，他们自然会谨慎对待自己的论证。
mekoka查看英文原文
I'm not an educator and I don't think of myself as a good writer either, but when I look around, I believe that I'm above average. I'll still permit myself to throw in an idea or two, that may help educators tap into new sources. Are you looking for material to instill interest in your teenage students? Well, Youtube and IMDB are full of opinionated people in that demographic, with things to say. The message is often naive, the form usually bad, but the desire to express oneself is there. This to me is a sign of an opportunity to take something rough and refine it. Make a game out of this. Mimic forum threads, organize teams, with the objective to come up with the best rebuttal in 500 characters. Forcing them to be creative in the language, while staying clean and to the point. You want to steer them away from the emotional and moralizing narratives? Expose them to manipulative writing and show them how they fell victim of it. Explain phenomenon such as groupthink and ad-hominem attacks. Show evidence of it in real life and how it's used to steer the mass. Explain that if they're unable to address issues with rationality and analysis, they are being led like sheeps. Nobody wants to be a sheep. They'll be more careful with their arguments.
在评分制度下，学生理性地选择“低风险、少费力、套话糊弄”，这才是写作教学失效的根源。
我曾是个痛恨英语课的学生，虽然爱读书、写作也还不差，但我和 jseliger 的学生一样，绝不会去碰“自选书籍或题目”那个选项。学校布置作文时，我的优先级是：1 拿到过得去的分数；2 花最少的时间精力；3 享受过程或真正学到东西。直接要求学生把 3 放在 1、2 前面根本行不通。我同意以论点为基础的写作是分析写作的好训练，但为了省力，学生不会去审视证据然后修改论点——用废话糊弄容易得多，老师大多也睁只眼闭只眼。评分是房间里的大象：学生必须考虑它，规避风险非常理性；写有边界、方便糊弄的题目，比学着用写作思考一个主题更省事也更安全。整个讨论让我强烈想起 Lockhart 的《哀歌》，只不过换成写作而非数学：如果整个教育系统多年都在把学生引向歧途，你每周两三个小时的课能否改变什么并不明朗，学生自己也会抵触。
JMStewy查看英文原文
I was a student that bitterly resented English class, despite being an avid reader and (as a result) a not-terrible writer. Yet, just like all of jseliger's students, I would never have touched that "book or subject of your own choosing" option. When assigned an essay for school, my priorities were: 1. Get an acceptable grade 2. Spend as little time/effort as possible 3. Enjoy the process/actually learn something Asking students directly to prioritize 3 rather than 1 and 2 is just not going to work. I actually agree that teaching thesis-based writing is a good training tool for analytical writing. But in the interest of expending little effort, students aren't going to consider evidence and then change their thesis. It's much easier to spackle liberally with bullshit, since teachers mostly let that slide. Grading is the elephant in the room. Students must always take it into account and it's quite rational for them to be very risk-averse. Writing about bounded topics in a bullshit-friendly way is easier and much safer than trying to learn how to think through a subject in writing. This whole discussion reminds me strongly of Lockhart's Lament (http://www.maa.org/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf) except for writing rather than math. If the whole system, years of education, is leading students down a garden path, it's not immediately clear that you can change how you teach your 2.5 hours a week to help. The students themselves will actively resist a single teacher trying to break the mold. That doesn't change the fact that there is a problem, a very big problem. I think trying to fix math education is a harder problem, but unless you can somehow get around grading, English is a tough nut too.
文章列举的学生缺陷，恰恰可以直接转化为课程的教学重点。
这是一篇论证周密的好文章，讲清了写作教学的现实，对学生及其缺失技能的剖析也很清晰。但每读完一条我都忍不住想：作者其实是在为自己的课列一份很好的教学大纲。比如学生爱用人身攻击，这不正说明应该多花时间讲清这个谬误吗？这只是众多例子中的一个。
tux1968查看英文原文
This is a really well thought out and argued essay outlining the realities of teaching writing. There were quite a few lucid appraisals of students and the skills they lack which keep them from writing a "Real Essay". After reading each one however, I couldn't help but think that the author was in fact generating a very good syllabus for what should actually be the focus of his course. If students are prone to Ad Hominem arguments for instance, doesn't that suggest that more time should be spent explaining this fallacy? This was just one of many such examples.
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