作文课上应该学会写短信

原作者：
来源Teaching to the Text Message
译者jays

I’VE been teaching college freshmen to write the five-paragraph essay and its bully of a cousin, the research paper, for years. But these forms invite font-size manipulation, plagiarism and clichés. We need to set our sights not lower, but shorter.

我在大学里教新生们写作五段式散文和它那讨厌的表兄——研究论文——已经有多年了。不过这些教学方式带来的是字体大小的刻意运用、剽窃以及陈词滥调。我们不应将我们的视野降低，而需要把它放短一些。

I don’t expect all my graduates to go on to Twitter-based careers, but learning how to write concisely, to express one key detail succinctly and eloquently, is an incredibly useful skill, and more in tune with most students’ daily chatter, as well as the world’s conversation. The photo caption has never been more vital.

我并不期望我教的所有本科生都能够得到基于推特的职业，但学习如何简明地写作，如何简洁而有说服力地表达某个关键细节，是一种极其有用的技巧，而且这与大部分学生日常聊天，以及全世界的交流的风格更一致。照片说明从来都是最生动的。

So a few years ago, I started slipping my classes short writing assignments alongside the required papers. Once, I asked them, “Come up with two lines of copy to sell something you’re wearing now on eBay.” The mix of commerce and fashion stirred interest, and despite having 30 students in each class, I could give everyone serious individual attention. For another project, I asked them to describe the essence of the chalkboard in one or two sentences. One student wrote, “A chalkboard is a lot like memory: often jumbled, unorganized and sloppy. Even after it’s erased, there are traces of everything that’s been written on it.”

因此在几年前，我开始在我的课堂中规定的论文以外加入短文写作作业。有一次，我问他们：“写两行字来在易趣上推销你现在穿的衣服。”这其中商业与时尚的融合激起了学生的兴趣，而即便每堂课上有 30 个学生，但我还是能够对每个人都进行认真的关注。在另一项计划中，我请他们用一句或两句话来描述黑板的本质。一个学生写道：“黑板就像记忆：常常乱七八糟、毫无组织，而且潦潦草草。即便擦干净了以后，那些曾写在上面的一切依然会留下一些痕迹。”

This was great, but I want to go shorter. Like many who teach, I keep thinking the perfect syllabus is a semester away — with just a few tweaks, and maybe a total pedagogical overhaul. My ideal composition class would include assignments like “Write coherent and original comments for five YouTube videos, quickly telling us why surprised kittens or unconventional wedding dances resonate with millions,” and “Write Amazon reviews, including a bit of summary, insight and analysis, for three canonical works we read this semester (points off for gratuitous modern argot and emoticons).”

这写得很不错，但我希望能更短。和许多教师一样，我一直在想，也许完美的教学大纲是将整个学期抛开——只要作几个小的改动，也许整个教学就会彻底变化。我理想中的作文课应该包括这样的作业：“给 5 部 YouTube 视频写连贯而原创的评论，很快地告诉我们为什么这些受惊的猫咪或者创新的婚礼舞会引起了上百万人的共鸣”，以及“为我们在本学期阅读的三篇经典作品写几篇亚马逊（Amazon）的评论，包括一点总结、见解与分析（请勿使用不必要的现代用语和表情符号）。”

The longest assignment could be a cover letter, and even that might be streamlined to a networking e-mail. I’d rather my students master skills like these than proper style for citations.

最长的作业也许是一篇附信，而即便是这篇附信也可以简化为一封网络电子邮件。我更希望我的学生掌握这样的技能，而非什么引文的适当风格。

A lot can be said with a little — the mundane and the extraordinary. Philosophers like Confucius (“Learning without thought is labor lost. Thought without learning is perilous.”) and Nietzsche were kings of the aphorism.

只言片语也能传达大量信息——无论是平庸还是非凡。像孔子（“学而不思则罔。思而不学则殆。”）和尼采这样的哲学家们是警句之王。

And short isn’t necessarily a shortcut. When you have only a sentence or two, there’s nowhere to hide. I’m not suggesting that colleges eliminate long writing projects from English courses, but maybe we should save them for the second semester. Rewarding concision first will encourage students to be economical and innovative with language. Who knows, we might even start to leave behind text messages and comment threads that our civilization can be proud of.

而短并不一定是捷径。当你只能说一两句话的时候，就很难话里藏刀了。我并不是建议大学从英语课程中取消长作文写作项目，但也许我们应该把它们留在第二学期。首先以简洁为荣能够鼓励学生经济而创新地利用语言。谁知道呢，我们也许甚至会开始遗忘那些我们的文明本来以之为荣的短信息和评论。

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