Miles Myers  (Changing Our Minds) suggests that composition was characterized as science to allow it to compete with the dominant way of thinking in the middle of the twentieth century. Citing David Olson, he proposes,

“This model of the essay was, in fact, a model of the process of empirical science: start with a topic sentence or hypothesis, eliminate the first person, relate this hypothesis to prior knowledge in a novel way, present the implications of this topic sentence or hypothesis, present the tests or evidence supporting these implications, and then present the conclusion, possibly with an alternative hypothesis (Olson, 1994).

Having come of age in the 1960’s I remember the importance of Sputnik, the Soviet challenge to our Space Program, and the National Defense Act, full of incentives for the education of mathematicians and scientists. The entire decade was devoted to the space race and the building of the nuclear arsenal. Because education was conceived as “national defense,” the elevation of science and math was hardly challenged. It was a national priority not unlike the current cry for preserving domestic employment and stemming the flow of money overseas.

I fancied myself a writer in high school, but when I look back at my preserved fragments I am shocked by the pompous and impersonal style that was rewarded by my teachers. In a series of responses to college admissions questions, I pontificated.

Question #1: Why do you want to go to college?

“The most evident purpose of the collegiate experience is to broaden the scope of education while making it especially relevant to a field of study. I sense the crying need to systemize [sic] the great chaotic whirlpool of information into the universal outlook of college training and impending need to study seriously i my chosen field of work.  I expect college to carry me beyond education to the developing of a technique of study.”

One might argue that the first person singular is present in this excerpt, but I refuse to accept that cold, pretentious voice as my own. I want to have compassion on that sixteen-year-old with lofty dreams of college, but I feel completely alienated from that affected style, that pretend academic diction. If I were this kid’s teacher, I would tell him to write about why he loves the New York Yankees or pizza, get him grounded in real language about real experience.  Maybe I could deflate his diction and connect with his passions.

Perhaps the elevation of language was a compensation for being a short kid with glasses. I know it impressed some people. In retrospect, however, I also see it reflecting the reverence we had for science and math, the intellectual icons of the ’60’s. We wrote with a de-personalized and authoritative style that we imagined scientists would sanction.  We wrote mostly to analyze literature and we employed the hypothesis- evidence-conclusion paradigm, because that was how theories were proven. If I used metaphors or irony or satire, it was purely my own idea, and they were diversions from the argument.  I enjoyed those diversions, but I knew the real money was in structure and logic. The college admissions questions represented all that was success and profit. They called forth my deepest proclamations and bombast. That was who I was in the college admissions race.

Composition still carries this flag of the scientific paradigm, and probably that flag deserves some respect. However, all I believe about ownership, voice, content-before-form–all this waves a different banner.  No, it’s not even a banner, it’s fireworks, theme songs, and “moves” that some call dancing.  I have made a career out of exocising the methodical ghosts in students’ writing and feel good about the unpredictable voices that rose up in their stead.  The “science of writing” has become my dragon, and I go out to slay it every day.