Put the Body on the Slab: The Anatomy of College Writing

By Haley Stokes

This is the "Anatomy" of college writing for two reasons. It dissects the elements of well crafted essays, examines essential parts, and demonstrates how each functions in relation to the whole. The analogy of the human body is used throughout the guide to show the significance of each element, from building the skeleton of the outline and thesis statement, to fleshing out the development, and finally imbuing the essay with the lifeblood of research. It's both a dissection of college writing and a guide to crafting a solid essay.

In addition to providing basic help for improving essential writing skills outside of English courses, we also envision the book as a supplement to those courses. Much of what is in the book comes directly from Haley's own lectures and classroom experiences as a writing instructor. Students will find helpful examples, anecdotes, and clearly defined instructions.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arch Editing
• Release date: Mar 16, 2011
• ISBN: 9781452497181

Book preview

Put the Body on the Slab:

The Anatomy of College Writing

Haley Stokes

Introduction by

Jasie Stokes

Published by Arch Editing

Copyright 2011 by Haley Stokes

Find more writing resources, quick tips, and assistance at Arch Editing

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Table of Contents

Introduction

First You Put the Body on the Slab: The Beginning and the End

Laying Out the Bones: Structure and Organization

Bone and Skin Two Millers Thin (Will Starve Us All): Developing Paragraphs

The Blood is the Life: Integrating Research

It’s Alive! (Well Almost)

Acknowledgements

I’d like to start by thanking my friends and family for their encouragement while we created this text. Their words of support and advice were invaluable. I’d also like to thank my teachers for instilling a love of the written word and my professors for showing me what to do with it.

Portions of the chapters evolved from my lecture notes, and as a result, I have used sentence examples from two of the texts I teach from: Jean Wyrick’s Steps to Writing Well with Additional Reading Seventh Edition and Lester Faigley’s Writing: A Guide for College and Beyond Second Edition.

Introduction

When I taught my first Introduction to Humanities course, I assumed my students had all taken beginning writing courses and would know how to write the kind of essays I expected. I jumped headlong into the material and the first unit of the course: drama and theater. We moved from Greek tragedy, to medieval mystery plays, to modern, experimental theater. Confident they had the information necessary to watch, read, and discuss theater, I sent them to experience a local production and write a short response.

After reading the first five essays, I panicked. I received summary after summary, lists of incoherent observations, great ideas buried in passive sentences, but no strongly developed essays. What had I done wrong as a teacher? After grading the papers and talking to my students, I realized they understood the elements of drama necessary for the assignment, but didn't know how to talk about them. Most of my class hadn't taken the required university writing course, and those who had still lacked confidence. I provided the vocabulary, but they were unsure of how to use it. I sympathized with their plight, realizing that I was asking them to build a house without explaining how to use all of the tools in the toolbox.

This was a helpful epiphany, except for one thing. My Introduction to Humanities class was not a writing course and I was not a writing instructor. Since I had been reading, writing, grading and editing papers for years up to that point, I could teach them the basics of writing standard essays, but I lacked the time.  Besides, my ability to assess papers did not equate to expressing adequately how to craft them, especially if I wanted to have enough time in class for lectures and discussion about the arts.

So I called in my sister. Haley was working as a writing instructor at the University of Utah and Salt Lake City Community College, and she had had far more training and experience teaching about writing. I rearranged the syllabus and invited her to spend one class period teaching my students how to write an analysis. She used interesting examples and demonstrated how simple the process really is. I could tell she was reaching the students.  However helpful this session was, we  only had time for one guest lecture about writing. 

Bearing this experience in mind, Haley and I designed Put the Body on the Slab: The Anatomy of College Writing primarily as a resource for students taking courses outside of the English department. We understand how frustrating it can be for both instructors and students when they realize tools are missing from the toolbox, but lack the time or means to improve essential writing skills within a single term.

We're calling the book an Anatomy of college writing for two reasons. It dissects the elements of well crafted essays, examining essential parts and demonstrating