Dear Gentle Reader,

What? Oh wait! Yes, I did watch the ending of Bridgerton, and I am overjoyed that the script focused on the blurry space and often fraught relationship between audience and writer, a communal, quiet and thoughtful void that stresses importance on the humanities and our fundamental rights as thinkers and readers. But I work in the real world of education, and it is here that pedagogical change must happen. I am so tired of the lurid and chronic sing-song voices of incompetence meddling around in my students' writings. Academic work is creative work. If I'm writing a poem, I am sending a rhetorical message. Yes, it qualifies as something creative. If I am writing a paper that questions how nonfiction texts are truly high literary art, I am doing creative work again. In all writings, poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, I am making an argument. If I am making an argument, then I must use the tools of the trade. If I use the tools of the trade, I am using creativity. In fact, the whole process of writing is creative work.

Today I overheard someone new to the art of teaching talk about how one must never use personal pronouns when writing to the state standardized test. This nonsense must stop. The state exemplars are full of plural personal pronouns and singular personal pronouns (I and we). The idea that someone in authority would demand that students write from some abstract and distant voice is completely ridiculous. You can't read an effective argument that positions itself above and beyond its readers to convey its message, no matter how convoluted or abstract the base material or evidence. These types of papers are usually written by scientists for scientific audiences, and we in the world of English composition sometimes pull those out and dust them off just to get a good laugh at the sheer pretentious style in that kind of composing. Pretense fails to adequately communicate anything except attitude and maybe some boring facts.

I am equally sick of fake grammar rules. And I really mean this. People new to the art of teaching and writing will argue all day that you can't start a sentence with the word "because." I hate to bust their bubbles, but "because" is perhaps the most important word in all of rhetoric. If you use the word "because" at the beginning of your well constructed and arguable thesis statement, then you automatically set up a cause and effect pattern of arrangement. In times of stress, especially during an exam, a "because" statement can help you arrange an argument that will win the reader over to your train of thought while demonstrating your ability to write and think. Because so many new English teachers lack basic composition theory classwork, students experience extreme bouts of writer's block, struggle with grammatical construction, and almost never write beyond standard sentence constructions.

Peter Elbow, and other prominent scholars, argue that these fake grammar rules, that spread like fire and gossip, pose a severe problem for beginner writers. Students read stories and essays that are written by professionals. Professionals know these grammar rules are fake. When you read something one way, and then you are forbidden to do it yourself, a confusion lurks under the surface of your consciousness. This confusion becomes a barricade to good writing. Students dawdle around and worry more about breaking silly rules than cranking out good content. They start to write, and then suddenly, they start to think: "Oh Wow, I don't think I can start a sentence with a coordinating conjunction. A coordinating conjunction is only for sentence combining." Dear Gentle Reader, that is bogus rule numero uno. And I know this for a fact...so do you, under the surface of your consciousness.

Splitting an infinitive? Please do. Kicking adjectives for action verbs? Do it every time!

The problem with teaching is that too many spoons are in the soup, and many of these spoons are bent or full of holes. You want a spoon that incorporates all of the good things into one big blob. What you don't want is an essay full of cheesy and superficial, thin transitions. I read papers that are emblazoned with firstly's, and secondly's, and thirdly's. First of all, don't. I see a ton of in-conclusions, to conclude, to sum up, and sometimes, and this really upsets me, I will see a student completely rewrite the thesis statement because they've been told year after year to restate it at the beginning of their conclusion. Restating your thesis in your conclusion is so silly, especially in a short paper. In the kinds of papers that kids are writing, you can usually look up and reread the thesis without even turning the page. Why in the world would you need to restate for your reader? If you're writing a dissertation, well maybe you should restate your thesis, especially if your dissertation is full of fake grammar rules and bores your reader to death. They might have forgotten what they're reading by the end of the 256th page.

The year is just getting started. I know I have a ton of work to do. I hope my writers will believe me when I tell them to use the word "because." Last year I had to make a whole presentation to convince my kids that the word "because" was a widely accepted word that had not done significant jail time. Those coordinating conjunctions suffer the same fate, a misinterpretation of their portability and usage. To boldly go where no man has gone before. Or to go boldly? You decide. I'm going to split.

Happy new academic year! Go Yard Birds!!!!