Write What You Know. And Don't Know.

I had a great conversation with a student as she worked on a piece of writing for class. My assignment asks students to select a media text and explore how it represents America's success or failure at striving towards a key ideal. She decided on Remember The Titans.

Here's what she knows: the film illustrates people separated by ignorance and close-mindedness finding the strength and determination to overcome the things that divide them, ultimately instilling a sense of pride and unity in their community.  That's a pretty great thing to know.

However, here's what she doesn't know: how possible is it to duplicate this success in today's America? To what degree has it been achieved? Are we more divided than we were when the events depicted in Remember The Titans took place? Or less so? And finally, how is she, as a 16 year old with limited life experience, supposed to sift through the complex questions of equality and opportunity in this country in order to propose a final answer to any of these questions.  She was really stuck.

My answer to her was that she cannot answer these questions in any definitive way, because they are questions that defy easy answers for 16 year olds as well as 60 year olds.  But especially for 16 year olds.

So I spent the rest of our conversation assuring her that, as a reader, I did not need "the answer" to feel that my time has been well spent by reading her blog.  At first when I pointed this out, she looked incredulous.  Which is not surprising when I consider what she has been taught throughout most of her educational career: there is an must be an answer!  This includes the way that writing is typically taught. After all, one of the underlying lessons of the 5-paragraph essay format is that every topic can be reduced to 3 parts and an answer is always required.

• Holden Caulfield is a great American character. Fine.
• Boo Radley represents redemption. Sure.
• Huck Finn uncovers the hypocrisy at the heart of our major institutions. Got it.

The problem with these answers is that when a 16 year old writes about them, they oftentimes contain as much passion and surprises as a form letter.  There may be a patina of the writer's underlying personality, but no real sense that the particular question propelling the writing has been internalized.

The upshot of our conversation: I didn't need her to answer the questions outlined above.  In fact, I wouldn't really expect her to.  As a reader, I want to know what she knows.  But, more importantly, I want to know what she wonders about and what she grapples with.  As a reader and a person, this will leave a more indelible mark on me than being told that Lady Macbeth wielded the real power behind the throne.