UWE GEIST
5. PRACTISING IMITATION
Following the reflections above, it is important to handle imitation in a proper way.
I will describe the way I practise imitation in the teaching of writing, in five steps.
5.1 Step One: The Teacher Chooses Texts and Prepares an Analysis
In order to open up for formal observations, I try to build up clusters of 3-4 texts that differ in one or a few dimensions. For example, I have worked with argumentative texts that differ with respect to the dimension of rhetorical appeal: logos – the fac- tual mode of arguing, concentrating on the matter; ethos – the trustworthy mode, concentrating on the image of the sender; and pathos – the emotive mode, concen- trating on the arousal of the receiver’s feelings.
I try to find texts which differ from each other markedly, and where each of them to a high degree and quite consistently and clearly represents one type of appeal.
The texts should not be longer than half a page each. Then I try to find out for my- self how the writers have managed to present the respective types of appeals. This is not always an easy task, but it is necessary, because it is also quite difficult for the students, who are to do the same thing in step two.
It is difficult, because of the way we are trained in textual analysis is not the op- timal way to do this. We are not accustomed to analyzing texts from a productive point of view. We categorize the stylistic phenomena we meet and conclude some- thing quite abstract about the content or the possible effect of the text. But we are not used to working the other way around: starting out from a special effect – e.g., the factual form for arguing – and then showing in detail how the writer works with his language in order to produce this special effect, and showing it in a way that fa- cilitates imitation. In this connection it is important not only to name the phenom-
ena, but to find as many examples of these techniques as possible in the texts and to show them, e.g., on overhead slides.
Beside these model texts, I have to find something that can help the students write their own texts. This for example could be an interesting controversial claim they could argue about.
5.2 Step Two: The Students Analyze the Texts
The first phase of their work is to ‘observe’ the three texts, one by one. The students are asked to describe briefly their impression of the individual text, and then we dis- cuss the various impressions in plenum. After this the students are asked to describe in detail how the different writers have used the language to bring forth these par- ticular impressions. They are asked to give very technical descriptions of three or four different dominating features of the use of language in each text.
It is important not to ask for more features than four, at the most five features, because it is difficult in the writing phase in step three (see below) to control more than a rather limited set of features. Often, in connection with small and quick exer- cises, inexperienced students can only handle two features. It does not really matter that they only work with two or three stylistic features, because the aim is not to imitate the style in another text as a whole. The aim is to become aware of certain stylistic features as technical possibilities and to get a chance to try them out and to become familiar with them. The students are to describe the features as technically and precisely as possible so that the descriptions can be used as instructions, and they, too, are to find examples.
The students work in small groups. When they are finished with a text, we dis- cuss it in plenum and decide which three or four features we will concentrate on.
In our example with argumentative texts, depending on the texts, we will proba- bly end up with the following features:
Logos-appeal:
Ethos-appeal:
Pathos-appeal:
Many sentence connectors, primarily causal, adversative and conditional ones; only the third person is used (he, she, it, they);
often passive voice; a lot of data, names and places.
The first-person is used a lot (I, we); references to the first- person’s experiences, position, considerations and actions (‘I know from my frequent journeys to these islands that ...’); ad- verbs, adverbials and sentences marking the sender’s attitude to what is being told (‘naturally’, ‘to my great relief’, ‘I doubt whether…’).
The second person is used a lot (you); frequent use of questions and exclamations; frequent use of adjectives, adverbs or nouns clearly marking something as positive or negative (‘terrible’, ‘de- lightfully’, ‘scoundrel’).
5.3 Step Three: The Students Write a Text
The students are now asked to write or rewrite an argumentative text, using one of the three sets of features – either logos, ethos or pathos. The teacher decides who writes according to which set. All sets should be used. The text can be written in small groups because writing here is explicitly technically oriented and not existen- tially. My own experience is that the groups have great fun, and the result is often very exaggerated. I have even asked for more exaggeration.
The problem, of course, is that the students use the features in such an exagger- ated way that they can by no means identify with the text and thus emotionally reject the stylistic features in question. When writing in groups and really having fun – a quality in itself – I therefore usually continue with step four in its second variation (see below).
The texts the students have produced can be shown on an overhead, and we can discuss in plenum whether the sets of features that should be imitated are repre- sented in the texts and how.
5.4 Step Four: The Students Rewrite
Further work can be structured in different ways. One version of step four is that the students rewrite the ‘same’ text using another set of stylistic features than those used in step three. The advantage of this version of step four is that the students can ex- perience how other stylistic features will change the text fundamentally, not only on the surface, but in its motives, priorities, function and meaning. Using ‘I’ instead of
‘you’ in argumentative texts, they are also simultaneously forced to look after new arguments that fit into a text where the writer talks a lot about himself. They also have to establish another textual relation to the receiver of the text with conse- quences for other parts and elements of the text than the ones originally in focus as a set of features – only to mention some of the textual consequences of the shift from
“you” in focus to “I” in focus.
The drawback of this version is that the students get tired of writing the ‘same’
text twice. This is especially dangerous when working with imitation. There is no problem in being negative with respect to specific stylistic features – which happens quite often (‘This just isn’t me!’). Here I am not afraid of pushing them and telling them to just try. A negative attitude can be an emotional drive, just as a positive one is.
Rewriting the same text once again with another set of stylistic features is one version of step four. Another version is rewriting the exaggerated text with the same set of stylistic features, but with a lower intensity of their use. The task is to try to use the same set of features as in step three, but now only to use them to a degree and in a form which the student thinks is appropriate and not parodic, and which he can back up and maybe even like. This time each student should write his own text.
It still is not quite the student’s own choice of how to write, but my general experi- ence is that the students now – having the opportunity to minimize and modulate the features according to their own taste – are quite serious about it.
I have used the second form of rewriting (i.e., using the same set of features, but lowering the intensity of their use) especially when teaching people who have cer- tain writing habits they want to change – like people in bureaucratic settings who are used to writing their texts in a very formal manner, and who want to change to a more free and flexible style. In this connection I have used pairs of texts in step two consisting of a text in a bureaucratic, formal style of writing and a text with the same function, but on quite a different stylistic level. Depending on the type of the formal text, the other text could be a recipe from a cookbook or an article from a tabloid newspaper or from a popular science magazine.
I do not have much experience with this variation, but I did practise it in the fol- lowing way. In step two the students find three or four characteristic features in the popular text. In step three they are then asked to use these features in rewriting a formal text of the type they are used to producing themselves. In this connection it is really necessary for the teacher to make sure that the three or four features are fun- damental features, e.g., including a device for the composition of the text. This is necessary because the rewriting should not only consist of superficial changes in the text’s stylistic make-up. I also can recommend encouraging the students to make very strong changes, to overstate, to parody, because they will be very reluctant to change the style in which a great deal of their professional identity is bound up.
Consequently, in the beginning they must have the opportunity to distance them- selves from their new text as something they do not need to take seriously, in order not to offend them, thereby blocking the writing. It is the new text, written using other features than the ones these professionals are used to, that should be laughed at.
Having laughed, they are asked to rewrite the text according to the instructions for step three in its second version: Try to retain as many of the new features as pos- sible, but boil them down to a level where you feel comfortable with the text and can take responsibility for it.
5.6 Step Five: Varying and Recombining Different Sets of Features
As a last variation, the students can be asked to mix some of the stylistic features from different sets derived from different texts. Thus, the stylistic features of logos, ethos and pathos can be mixed – as they usually are mixed in real-life texts. Or – if they have worked with different modes of representing speech in a text – they can be mixed: referring, indirect speech, normalized direct speech, idiomatic direct speech with its hesitations, self-corrections and breakdowns.
Having imitated these single features, the students are asked to combine them in a text in a way they are satisfied with and one they think would work. Here the teacher could also introduce new texts showing different ways of mixing the various features. I did not use these texts as imitation objects in the narrow sense I use in this chapter, with an elaborated analytical step, but only in a broader sense, as examples and inspiration.
5.5 A Variant of Steps Three and Four
Discussing the products, the students have to explain why they chose the dominating feature they did, and what effect mixing it with other features has.