Why Writing Matters

For about ten years, I conducted a little experiment in my freshman composition courses on the first day of the semester. Standing before the wide-eyed group and posturing myself as professorial as possible (I probably even wore a tweed sport coat), I posed this question: Why does writing matter?

I’d waggle a finger in the air and add, “I don’t want you to answer this question - it’s rhetorical. Just think about an answer.” I’d pivot and pace across the front of the room noticing out of the corner of my eye one or two eager beavers reaching for their college-level dictionaries (required) and thumb quickly for “rhetorical.” The others sat slack-jawed and glazy-eyed.

I instructed the students to rip a piece of paper into fourths and write on one the name of a vegetable they couldn’t stomach, on another a movie they hated, on the third a rule or law they thought was inane (probably not the word I used in class), and on the last the word they used for their mother or someone they loved deeply.

“Take the piece of paper in which you have written the name of a vegetable you can’t stand, drop it on the floor, and stamp all over it,” I instructed. Blank stares and a smattering of nervous is-he-serious laughter filled the room. “Go ahead,” I cajoled. “It’s ok.” And they did it, reluctantly at first, but soon with growing enthusiasm as if to say, Hey! College is fun!

They stomped all over the cauliflower and turnips and broccoli. They loosened up and some smiled when they stamped their feet on the movies they hated. Most delighted in their perceived rebellious behavior of trampling out a rule or law they thought was stupid. Then I paused. The brighter students knew what was coming next (they were almost always the ones who had reached for the dictionaries earlier). I asked the students to hold up the piece of paper they had written the name they use for their mother or someone they loved deeply. For theatrics, I sometimes asked students to share those names. Mom, Mommy, Mommy Dearest.

“Ok,” I said. “You know what to do - stomp on those papers!” Almost always the students hesitated, looked up, offered furtive glances around the room, occasionally someone remarked, and then slowly the students dropped the slips of paper onto the floor and half-hearted stepping, not stomping, ensued.

Then we started talking. “Why did it matter?” I asked. “It’s just a word.”

To most of the students (the vast majority over the years, I imagine), my antics put me in the category of loopy English professor, another talking head trying to convince non-believers of the merits of what I did - the teaching of writing. But to some, maybe only one in a class if I was lucky, what I did helped them connect with something that simply made sense in their eighteen-year-old minds.

Words have power. Writing matters. Writing enables us to express our thoughts and ideas, and it helps us understand ourselves, our lives, and our world. Writing allows us to make connections, to organize our thinking and to sort the fact from the fancy. Writing creates a record that lasts. Writing is empowering in that it enables us to communicate with others. If writing didn’t matter, then we might as well be stomping on our mothers.