Dr. Frank's What's-it

Maybe the problem is that Stanley's course is mistitled. It's not "english composition," but something else altogether, and it sounds kind of fun. Anyway, it seems at least possible that some of the tools that his students learn would be useful when they actually get around to, you know, composing english.

I'd have been really grateful if my 6th grade english teachers actually spent some time doing this sort of thing in lieu of trying to cram "A Separate Peace" into my head.

Professor Fish's essay is kind of a cliffhanger. Or rather, it has a surprise ending.

You think it's going to go: (a) students can't write well because they don't understand grammar; (b) I've learned that the best way to teach them to understand grammar is to have them make up their own languages; (c) and it turns out, once they have invented their own languages, they do understand grammar much better and their writing improves tremendously. Except, he leaves out (c). We never find out whether or not the students end up being able to write better essays because of having participated in this exercise. Instead, Fish leaves the impression that what he's really excited about is the whimsical (and eminently "postmodern") feat of presenting a fourteen week university course that does not treat of its own subject and is thoroughly devoid of content.

Come to think of it, that's not a bad iteration of the whole post-modern project...

"Are There Students in this Class?"

We never find out whether his students are the better for his exercise because that's not the most important point of the essay. The most important point of the essay is demonstrating how clever Stanley Fish is. And isn't that - at least in part - what pomo studies are all about?

Any professor who can categorically state that his students "become completely absorbed in" his pet project can't be taken entirely seriously.

That being said, I think a course like this could actually work, cliffhanger and all, because it's more than likely that the next semester's course will be filled with "the temptation of content". So perhaps the Fish course could be an important part of a well balanced academic diet. Hold the smugness, though.

Hey Paul,

I studied literature in college and did a couple of years of grad school in English in the early 90s. Demonstrating how clever you are is what ALL of literary studies of any stripe -- New Criticism, New Historicism, Decontruction -- boils down to. Fish is really a reductio ad absurdum of the whole enterprise -- sort of the Andy Warhol of literary studies.

"In the future, everyone will speak their own language."