At the beginning of Seeking Diversity, author Linda Rief recalls sharing an editorial with her students. One of her students wanted to know where he could send his response to the opinion piece. Rief had to tell the young man that he couldn’t send it because the editorial was several years old. As she states, “It was just an exercise to get you to write a persuasive piece.” The student replied that he had never heard of anything so stupid; he wanted the editor to read his response. From then on Rief “concentrated on making the writing [in her class] real—for genuine purposes.

At first, humans just had speech. If you wanted to say "Ugh" to someone, you had to say it out loud. Sure, you could whisper or shout, add facial expressions and gestures, but your main communication option was speaking. In person.

A few thousand years later, the clever folks of Ur developed cuneiform writing. Then people had two options: either say “Ugh” or write “Ugh.” You said it if the person was standing there, and you wrote it if the person wasn’t. The choice was clear.

Over the course of several entries on this blog, I’ve called into question the value of traditional approaches to teaching literature. My objection has been two-fold:

A. In the very act of asking that question, I have imposed two assumptions upon you.