Note: The following experiment should have special ironic signficance for practictioners of the psuedoscience know as balanced literacy. Of course, this should not be taken as an endorsement of any competing pseudoscience.
When writing a paragraph, how much of it do you need to know when you begin, and how do you know when you’re done?
Or, when starting an argument, how much of it do you need to know when you begin, and how do you know when you’re done?
1. The point you want to make . . . an assertion. That’s the “topic sentence” style, anyway. Let’s try it.
Life is a dream.
2. Then, something else . . .
Life is a dream. A dream can seem so real that it feels like life. But when we waken, life reminds us that we were only dreaming. Or rather, life forces us to forget the dream, forces us to remember as a dream what we dreamed as life. When we waken, life reminds us that only it is real, because it is impossible to wake up into a dream. Or maybe it happens every night. In my real life, I often forget my dreams. But I forget real life whenever I sleep. My life encompasses my waking life and dreams, like a full day encompasses both day and night. So life is a dream like day is night.
What happened there?
At the beginning, the point you want to make is a catalytic assertion, the force that sets in motion what will eventually become a new assertion. The new assertion is not the equivalent of the catalytic assertion, meaning it is not a comparable statement. It is, rather, an argument, representing the flourishing of the original assertion into some sort of dynamic entity. As a dynamic entity, its ultimate purpose can only be achieved by being more than the sum of its parts.
On one level, this mean no more than to say, “A sentence is different than a paragraph.” However, the conditions of this difference are our object of study, so they will not be taken for granted here. But we might as well use what we already know about this elemental distinction:
A paragraph is composed of sentences and so is, by definition, longer. A paragraph says more than a sentence.
There are different classes of sentences within a paragraph, depending upon the imperatives of the paragraph (as opposed to those of the sentence, alone.) What are those imperatives?
When discussing writing as expression, thought becomes the common currency of the various structural elements of writing. That is only to say that writing can be analyzed as expression of thought. In equating writing with thought we will, of course, pay the price for relying on such a notoriously elusive syllable.
Still, can’t we say that a sentence and a paragraph differ in terms of their relation to the expression of thought? If we can, how so? There is the aforesaid difference in length, and the implication that, insofar as a sentence can express a thought, paragraphs are made up of several thoughts. Conventional wisdom is also that these several thoughts are justified and coordinated by a single controlling thought.
My question is: To what extent can we express the controlling thought of an entire paragraph in a single sentence? If it is possible, what justification is there for the rest of the sentences in any given paragraph? If it is not possible, how would we describe the relationship between the topic sentence (which can no longer be enough, in itself) the other sentences, and the controlling idea (which cannot be the exact same as any of the sentences, alone)?
This is where the topic sentence as the catalytic assertion comes in. It follows from what I am implying that the only thing that can express the thought of a paragraph is a paragraph. But unless we begin writing with an entire paragraph in mind, we begin with an assertion that can be expressed as a sentence, and usually is—usually, at the beginning. This assertion cannot be enough in itself, though it must contain enough energy to eventually produce the paragraph it will become.
Depending on the genre and our experience, frame of mind, etc., we actually do begin writing paragraphs with more or less understanding of what the whole paragraph will look like. A swiftly flowing narrative may pour from us as if we cannot keep up with our full-formed thoughts, as though whole passages leapt unbidden to our minds. Or, our writing may be so formulaic that a single keyword implies not just sentences, not just entire paragraphs, but title, introduction, body, conclusion and copyright.
Then there are times when our assertion is really a catalyst, a small yet defiant motion in the void. In these times, we crawl through our paragraphs like spelunkers or tomb raiders, inching forward in the darkness, waiting for that terrifying moment when the line that connects us with the light is cut and we are left rambling in darkness.
This is, of course, the kind of writing to teach. In this kind of writing, sentences differ from paragraphs not only in number, but in kind and order. Here, there is enough magic between the sentence and the paragraph to make the paragraph worth pursuing. In this kind of writing, the idea that “the topic sentence expresses the main idea of a paragraph” is an insult. If that were true, we’d rather turn in an outline and save our ink for something worth writing.
No comments:
Post a Comment