work. Getready to find data that conflicts with what you have come to know about aparticular issu

mind. Of course, you neverapproach research in a vacuum. You probably have ideas about whatever it isthat you’re working on. You probably have thoughts about what the answersare to your research questions, and that is as it should be, but that statement ofbelief should not be where you star

. You won’t initially end up with clean, clear,easy answers, but that is by desig

g. Just as an entrepreneur might inventan as-seen-on-TV product that comes out of months of consumer obser-vations and materials testing, writers invent their ideas through gatheringdata in particular and diverse wa

a genre less about creating knowledge andmore about compiling

The research paper replaced oral exams and public speaking as ameasure of intellec

KHQ DUJXPHQW LV WDXJKW LW·V IUHTXHQWO\connected to the historical practices of Greek and Roman rheto-ric.

The research paper has become a rite of passage where studentsFKRRVH D WRSLF RU DUH DVVLJQHG RQH  DERXW ZKLFK WKH\ SUHVHQW DFODLPDQGWKHQORRNIRUZD\VWRFRQÀUPLWZLWKHYLGHQFHORFDWHGthrough some ambiguous thing or process called research

H EHOLHYH WKDW WKH WLPH FRPHV WR PRYHDZD\ZKHQRQHLVIRFXVLQJRQDSUREOHPWKDWGHÀHVSDWDQVZHUVThat is, when working on a piece of writing that is designed witha purpose beyond simply organizing information by reporting onXQFRQWURYHUVLDOIDFWV HJ ́VPRNLQJLVEDGIRU\RXμ $VVRRQDVDVWXGHQWLVLQDSRVLWLRQWRHQWHUDSURFHVVRILQTXLU\WRH[SORUH DQGSHUKDSVRŲHUVROXWLRQVWR DQLVVXHWKDWPD\SURYRNHPRUHTXHV-WLRQVDQG\LHOGP\ULDGDQVZHUVWKHÀYHSDUDJUDSKIRUPDWVKRXOGbe thrown to the wind

KHDGV 7KH ÀYHSDUDJUDSK HVVD\is that recognizable form. Easy to read, easy to grade, and eas

RUPXODVLQFOXGLQJWHPSODWHVFDQEHHŲHFWLYHDQGDUELWUDU\formulas can be useful under the right circumstances too. They c

e. Like many proponents of the 5PE, he assumesthat the main impediment to expressing an idea is knowing how toorganize it. As he puts it, “Once they have the vessel, so to speak,WKH\FDQVWDUWWKLQNLQJPRUHDERXWZKDWWRÀOOLWZLWK

no magic formula that will help us write well in all situa

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. It’s a dangerous idea that needs to die because ithurts students and frustrates teachers and emplo

You can’t do it, because it can’t be done. There is no such thingas writing in general. Writing is always in particul

ts. Sometimes I compare writing tosports: I am not a naturally talented athlete, but I have trained forand run in dozens of races, from 5Ks to half-marathons. I am arunner. A person may not be naturally strong, but how could theygain strength? Lift weights. Need more flexibility and balance?Practice yog

”), we construct wr

. Social media such as Twitter, Facebook,Instagram, and others offer daily opportunities for reading, creat-ing, and responding to text

, Bruce Horner writes in Students, Authorship, andthe Work of Composition that the genius idea separates us from thereal world. By seeing authors as genius artists only, we removeourselves from the activity of writin

study. Iremember she would set up these wild games involving crazy chases through the house just tomatch a picture to the correct spelling of a wo

story, the over three hundred-page Sorcerer’s Stonewas teased and spoon-fed to me in bite-sized piec

By the time I was in the first grade, I was lugging around books that were almost too heavyfor me to lift

How is it that she could only see junk where I saw my entire life st

But I never again felt the same love of reading and w

could. I read the books my father brought homefrom the pawnshops and secondhand. I read the books I borrowed from the library. I read the backs of cereal boxes. I read the newspaper. I read the bulletinsposted on the walls of the school, the clinic, the tribal offices, the post office. I read junk mail. I read auto-repair manuals. I read magazines. I read anythingthat had words and paragraphs. I read with equal parts joy and desperation. I loved those books, but I also knew that love had only one purpose. I was tr

side. They struggled with basic reading in school but could remember how to singa few dozen powwow song

shops. Our house was filled with books.They were stacked in crazy piles in the bathroom, bedrooms and living r

We gesture, exaggerate our voices, pause for effect. Listeners lean in and compose the scene of our tale in their minds.

from the first moment of listening, squints, stares, smiles, leans forward, or falls asleep, letting the teller know whether to slow down, speed up, elaborate, or just finish.

We remember and recall in stories”

Storytelling is part and parcel of human socialization—a tool for making us known, both to ourselves and to others. In fact, anything we experience that does not get structured narratively does not get remembered