Hi again, Reader-student. Nice to see you back here.
Are you ready to rumble? (And I don’t mean tumble, nor fumble, nor bumble, nor humbly crumble – hopefully neither to grumble, and certainly never to mumble!)? Well, I am. So put on your reading glasses. Here goes.
I hope you will enjoy reading (skimming definitely allowed – in this essay only!) the following “preparatory” material, here in this opening essay of Stage 3, where I plan to turn your head around, as regards every sentence you write, from now on.
Along the way, I will both teach and urge you to routinely engage your powers of critical thinking. That is, I will not merely join the choir of advocates preaching this need (or bewailing its absence); rather, I will add to this common call the uncommon provision of required tools and techniques — starting this minute!
Emergency! Somebody call BS!
I’ll go first. To help demonstrate the critical thinker’s role I’m extolling, I hereby call bullshit on myself. There. I beat you to it. I have my reasons.
The act of calling BS — in my critical stance, which undergirds my whole system — makes for a fine opening for critical thinking, even dialogue, as I worked out across 415 pages for my doctoral dissertation, An Anatomy of Dialogue in Teaching and Learning, at the University of Colorado. For those into “APA Style” (my second language for nine years of graduate research), that looks like (Zizzi, 2011).
I theorized dialogue to the satisfaction (and some verbalized amazement) of my five-member “doctoral committee,” including three members in my field’s national hall of fame, for their lifetime achievement. Such an assemblage of inducted scholars on one doctoral committee had never happened before (in my field, anyway) and likely won’t happen again.
If your critical thinking brain is operating, you might be thinking, how the hell did the likes of you, get there? Good question. You can read more about that in “About Mike.” I think fate may have played a part, and I know luck did!
How could I have known, 33 years ago, when choosing this house to buy, that just 16 miles down Hwy 93, at the Universioty of Colorado, a world-best faculty in communication would come together and tempt me back to grad school for my doctorate. I call that a lucky geographical break, indeed. Getting into that program, now that part took more than luck.
For now, my point is that I know my dialogue theory. In fact, I wrote my dialogue theory, and it features, as what I consider the “spark” of dialogue, somebody saying (one way or another), “I’m not so sure about that.” Put another way, “I call bullshit.”
Don’t worry, that “discursive move,” in the right company, serves well to open the present topic for discussion, maybe even moving up to the level of dialogue (where we both learn something, while co-creating something new — to us, at least).
See? Calling BS (with due openness and a modicum of courtesy) ignites the possibility for dialogue. So let me level my pressing charges (against myself!) of the BS you might be sniffing in my bold (actually unprecedented!) claim that my writing system can hastily (the rate of change depends mainly on your effort) transform how you write.
Yes, you control the rate of this transformation, and yes, it requires that you have worked, thoughtfully and productively, through the first two stages, which “prepare the soil” for this third sage, to me, the “cash crop.”
You do your part, and my promise will bear abundant fruit. That’s my claim, anyway, and I love pointing out that it’s a claim nobody else will make. I just remind you of that to energize your motivation to learn. Sorry to sound boastful.
Thusly, the BS, called and named
I’m now going to articulate and specify where, why, and on what I am calling BS — on your behalf — both to demonstrate how that works (toward dialogue) and, mostly, to set up what’s coming next, starting with the following essay (Stage 3-b) within this third — and most radical — revelation available in the system I developed — across 30+ years of university instruction and 50,000+ papers and speeches assigned, coached, and filled with feedback (aka “graded“).
Here’s the BS: How dare I, as author, presume that some so-called “system” of “activated writing” (whatever that is — sounds hokey, if you ask me) that I made up, myself, will “transform” how you (or any the reader) writes? After all, it took you your whole life to get where you are with that. How could a few essays on a website transform that?
Here’s some explanation: For one thing, it might seem reasonable to assume that “I know nothing about my reader” (you). Do I really believe that, even though I know nothing about you, the material I am presenting will impact you — noticeably (to others) and significantly (to yourself)? Talk about your “blanket statement“!
I hope you find that I have identified and named this foundational prospective concern fairly and accurately. The opposite occurs when some marketing type offers up “concerns” that are, themselves, BS puffballs: “Yes, but is our product legal? Of course it is, in all 50 states!
In contrast, I’m directly challenging the very validity of my own project-defining claim: this site can (and, if you put in honest effort, will) help you transform your writing and even your thinking.
(I do believe that you will need to practice and obtain informed feedback, to speed up the process. That’s why I encourage you find a friend or even a group, and study this material (all three stages!) together. I estimate that “learning this with a friend” will double or triple the speed of this promised “transformation.”)
Actually, as regards the prospect that I may be “full of it,” I fear even more that you may not have been wondering at all about that prospect. Maybe I’m “unloading” a bunch of BS — but of such fine caliber that you are buying it, uncritically. If you weren’t sniffing some BS in my claim, you should have been. That’s why I’m doing it for you. Somebody must.
Now you see what I mean about modeling things for you. I just demonstrated one way of (fairly and mindfully) calling bullshit. I’m showing you how to do it. I’m on your side! To wit, I have 1) put my cards on the table (calling BS), so now I must engage in the 2) listening to the attempt (if any comes — and often it doesn’t!) of a rebuttal.
Correct me if I’m wrong
The BS caller might even go so far, in showing openness to other viewpoints, as to preface the coming criticism with “Correct me if I’m wrong, but . . . ” and then truly listen (after voicing the concern) with openness and appreciation.
Things might not “smell so bad,” after all, after you hear the other side. To me, the “sin” to avoid is not the “false accusation” (if made open mindedly); I call the prospective sin here “smelling BS but saying nothing.”
You can call the above an “ethic of criticism.” This ethic, “If you smell it, call it,” rests upon staying attentive in the first place. One person smells gas and saves the day; another person right nearby, never even noticed the noxious fumes.
Reader-student, I urge you to strive to notice any and all “funny smells” emanating from claims and ideas “floated” your way. Be like that first hero, not the oblivious doomed one. See? I’m teaching you “critical thinking,” just as I promised.
My answer to the charge
Actually, I will present two answers to my own charge (yours, too, I hope) of bullshit!
My first answer won’t take but a minute, for now, with the promise of rich and vital elaboration coming later in this third stage of my system. The second answer will take longer, spanning a selection of “credentials” (more like experiences, with an occasional achievement thrown in) that I hope will inspire in you great faith that, together, we can make this happen!
I wish you would at least skim the second part, the “credentialing.” If nothing else, I hope you find it interesting to learn some of the background that has led me to developing what I am presenting and calling revolutionary.
It does take nerve to assert that “I will teach you what you can’t find elsewhere — none of the zillion English teachers (including of ESL) out there know it, and neither does Grammarly nor any other online site. It’s my theory, and, whereas most available “sources of writing help” come from similar backgrounds, my backgroung verily teems with exceptional circumstances and unusual, sometimes unequalled, accomplishments. Go ahead and skim. I hope a few things catch your eye.
If so, maybe even stop and read, here and there. I want you to know where this stuff is coming from. You can read a broader version of my project-relevant life story under the About Mike tab. Here, I mean to focus on answering the one pressing question I’ve, myself, raised: How could I know, without knowing you, how or even whether your writing will transform, from studying and learning what I present in these lessons?
The short answer to “how could I know?”
Here’s how I can know that my system can (with your help — you have to try!) transform your writing, even though I don’t know you, including your present writing skill and style.
I have promised to keep this first answer short, with elaboration made elsewhere, where more important to the teaching of this third, most radical, stage of my system.
Truth be told, I do know you — “scary well.” Scary well, of course, implies “very well,” but it adds a fear factor. The less we understand “the myth of what is,” as I’m about to lay out and address (and weaken!), the greater our vulnerability to those — especially the AI-driven “those,” who really do know a whole lot about you! — who will spew their BS, as they inform us of “what is” as they want us to believe.
This prospect scares me, anyway, because I, too, know you — in the way that matters, regarding what’s to come — because I have spent countless hours (enjoyable hours, if a bit frightening) reading the words of writers, just like you, from every walk of life — yours, included.
Reading vs. scrutinizing
I read a lot, always with my system in mind — in many public spheres, such as journalism, social media, marketing, and more. I know what I’m looking for, and I look for it everywhere.
I say “reading,” but I mean scrutinizing, sometimes even tabulating! Yes, I’m known to grab a pen and make a chart, right where I’m reading (newspaper, especially) — very specific charts — as I evaluate the writing, per my ultra-specific “scale,” which you are about to learn.
I read commentary; I read reported news; I read opinions in print and online; I read posts on Facebook and, especially, Nextdoor; I read articles, galore, from scholarly to popular. (To be honest, I don’t not a lot of nonfiction, unless classic, like Mark Twain).
This bulk includes daily reading, front to back (most days) of the major daily newspaper around here (the Denver Post, where I have, BTW, contributed three full-length “guest columns”), the newspaper that still lands on my driveway every morning. (You? Probably not. See? I do “know you.”) Yes, I read “the paper” every day. It matters. Among other reasons, it’s hard to make charts on a phone screen.
And, despite the bulk and variety of my reading material, I find precious little difference, among writers (in print or online), in the variable I’m scrutinizing and sometimes tabulating.
On rare occasions, the writing shines — as I’m wanting for your writing. But extremely rarely do I encounter writing that “rates” (on my scale) markedly above the typical range that I find. The “writing weakness” I mean to bolster up shows the lifeless face of “what is” everywhere I look. What do you mean, “I don’t know you“? (Okay, I’m the one who proposed that, but still! You have your nerve, ha ha.).
Hefty bottom, fat belly, but skinny top
If you understand statistics, you know that “bell curves” have special shapes, indicating different arrangements of “how the data falls,” whether more “spread out” or more “bunched up.” In this case, the bell curve is relatively “bunched/hunched up” around the mean. The fat part thins out fast, as the curve moves toward “better than average”; alas, it stays fairly beefy as it meanders in the other direction. Said otherwise, the curve — easily tracked per my system — shows a hefty bottom (or low end), a hearty belly (or middle range), but a skinny top (where excellence lives).
That’s where you’re headed, Reader-student: to the skinny top. Believe me, there’s plenty of room.
And that’s the simple way in which I “know you,” without really knowing you, personally.
Now, for the part you may skim
With strong reason, I also know that your confidence in my expertise (for both developing and teaching the following radical approach to writing) will play a key role, in the prospective transformation that’s possible for you right now (with your sturdy base now in place from Stages 1 and 2).
As the sports slogan goes, “Ya gotta believe.” So, as promised, let me share with you some topic-specific reasons to “believe in” what I’m about to teach you, even if Grammarly and all its AI clones remain clueless on this absolutely foundational aspect of how you perceive (and describe, in words) what “is happening” in the world around you.
Plug in, to upgrade operating system
No, I’m not offering a mere “plug-in” – I’m upgrading your very operating system as regards your world, as it translates into words.
So enjoy (that part works better, if you actually read, not just skim!) the following version of “how I came to solve this puzzle – when the entire ‘English Teaching’ world has somehow missed it.” The grammatical basis for my approach has long filled many a book and website. But my “activated” interpretation of these long-existing “rules” and my system’s practical utility (for actually improving your writing) — these, you will find only here.
Allow me to indulge in providing you a look at the unique combination of training and experience that led me to this quest and its present status. I’ll begin with the essential element of “why I, personally, even care and why you should care” – based on a grounding premise that “humanity matters.”
Q: Who wants to be a trillionaire?
A: AI – with your money
Nowadays, we can hardly count all the billionaires, running the digital show, increasingly, every week! – while striving, always, to “numb” the public brain into a mindless submission: “Don’t think – or even write – anything, for yourself. We’ve got your back. It’s just better for everybody if we do the talking.
AI continues, “We can even listen for you. Saves you forever, in time. Didn’t you have more important things to do? C’mon! We’re constantly providing you with new things to do. Who has time to speak or listen? No worries. We’re your “assistant.” We’ve got your back.”
Yes, your devoted “AI assistant” will even think it for you and then write it for you. If you’re hard-up (for a date), AI will gladly stand in as your friend or even lover. Just type in, “Tell me again how much you love me.” AI always will.
AI just overflows with “artificial love” for you, as it valiantly holds out its heart to you the first time you ask. It never plays coy. It loves you (already) for who you “are.” Why those quote marks? We’re getting to that. But I digress. See? AI would have stayed on track.
Best of all, AI just loves to speak for you. Think of the time you’ll save and the mistakes you won’t make! Win-win!”
Who needs to select their own subjects and predicates, sentence by sentence? God, that seems tiresome. Even worse, if you write your own sentences, you might somehow wriggle free of AI’s control of not only “what goes into your head,” but, just as importantly, “what comes out of your mouth.” (Please feel free to quote me on that one. I like how it came out – of my mouth, not AI’s.)
Remember Stages 1 and 2? Your carefully selected/concocted subjects and their predicates comprise the essence of your each and every sentence. We’ve been through all that. Don’t make me repeat it (again!).
Yes, what you tell the world improves dramatically – in clarity, validity, and authenticity – when you choose and/or devise your main clauses (and all sentence parts) with care and precision. But why bother (asks AI), when, in just a few seconds, AI can render a “100%-correct” (mostly) and utterly generic (surely!) version of what you might have meant to say? Please do bother, fellow human. It matters.
AI can offer up the same (or close) set of words and wordings for anyone who would put in your prompt; your message, therefore, will suffer, for lack of case-specific information. The devil will never “be in the details,” because there won’t “be any details,” just lots of “correctly-worded and punctuated” generalities.
Win-win? Really? I call that lose-lose, for those who value our shared humanity.
Dog is my co-pilot
Nowadays, and with growing reason, many people prefer the company of a dog to that of a human. Go ahead and pet the critter, but don’t pat yourself on the back, just because the dog will lick your hand. Dogs are easy. Getting along with people takes skill. Personally, when I am asked whether I’m a “cat person or a dog person,” I gladly clarify that I “identify” as a human person.
Call me crazy. I love pets, but I actually prefer humans. Naturally, therefore, I hate to see our humanity slip down the digital drain. I know that the billionaires “need the money” (or they may never make it to trillionaire), but still.
I don’t need your money – just your attention and learning attitude. The riches I seek do mean the world to me, and, in my world, fellow human, you can write and speak for yourself.
Keep the dog, for unconditional love; keep AI, for research. But speak . . . for yourself!
Grounds for debate?
I love learners of all “stripes,” including non-trads. In fact, a great deal of my own teaching experience (hence, my teaching experimentation) unfolded at exactly such an “open enrollment” type of university program – in my case, the adult program at Regis University.
So I developed my craft working mostly with “leathery” adults, not delicate tenderfoots! (Tenderfeet?). The youngsters (trad-aged) came later, filling up the final third of my career. For the first two-thirds of my career, the lion’s share, I worked mostly with adult learners.
But I did (let the record show) teach a handful of traditional classes, too, at Regis (while mainly teaching adults there) – and even directed the debate team for the “kids” for one amazing year (1998-99), as the fill-in Director of Forensics for Regis University.
What? Why Who? How? It’s too weird to believe (almost), but Regis’ former coach (aka “director of forensics”) had blatantly ditched her team, leaving with almost no notice to join the school’s main rival. She pulled this move just a few weeks (not months, as would be expected) before the new season.
Thusly, she left her former championship squad high and dry (the champions having just graduated, with all newbies coming in), without a coach/director, far past the recruiting period within the academic hiring cycle. This could only help her in her new role with her new school: “I won’t have to worry about Regis for a year or two.”
So I became the long-shot fill-in, while they searched for a “real” coach, for the following year. I had taught a couple classes in public speaking for Regis’ tradition program (while teaching mostly adults there, so the dean, who now had to find a new forensics director fast, caught wind of me.
I told him, “I have no experience with college debate — or even in high school.” He answered, “Please. It’s just for one year. We have nobody else to ask. You’ll be getting all new kids, some coming in on scholarships. We can’t just forfeit the year.”
Man, we got our butts annihilated for the first couple months, as I learned about “parliamentary debate” at the collegiate level (along with “individual events,” which are competitive speeches, not debate).
Hastily, I learned how to coach debate and also to judge debates, including writing up “ballots” articulating my decision as to which team had won and why.
All the other directors and coaches knew I was new at all this, and very quickly, I gained a lot of peer respect and even kinship/friendship among the other coaches — and many of their kids, too. People can tell when you’re pulling for their students, as we all would like in return. I liked all the kids, regardless of school. That met unexpected appreciation.
By November, we were starting to win rounds and to make it (finally!) to the playoff rounds. By December, we won our first major tournament, at Arizona State, in Tempe. Then came the winter break, after which, the forensics year continues. Long story short, boy, did I love knocking out my “rival” (our departed coach) from our “sport’s” Big Dance, the national championship tournament. So sorry. I guess you had to “worry about Regis,” after all.
And the winner is . . .
Surely enough, my all-“novice” (i.e. all-freshman) team – led by a novice coach! – finished tied for 20th in the national rankings (despite our terrible start, which did count against us). You could look it up, under final standings, National Parliamentary Debate Association (NPDA), 1998-99. There we are, with yours truly noted as “Director of Forensics.” My big year!
Yes, my tiny Regis team finished the year in the national Top 20 (okay, barely). Best of all, at the quite-significant and season-ending “Novice Nationals” tournament (freshmen only) that concluded our long, two-semester “season,” we not only won the national championship, but, in the semifinals, not one, but two of the tournament’s “final four” debate teams came from our tiny, six-person “squad.” (A school’s debate “squad” is made up of any number of two-person debate “teams.”)
Yeppers. I brought my whole squad (just six kids, on three teams!) to the Novice Nationals (featuring about 150 teams). Although we started out the season losing every debate round at every tournament, at season’s end, two of my teams made the “final four” – and one of them took the “Novice Nationals” crown. That was my one year in collegiate forensics.
Since I know you’re wondering . . . in the championship round, tiny Regis (student body = 1250) beat the mighty University of Nebraska (student body = 30,000+) on a 4-1 vote by the five judges. Please decide, for yourself, what that might mean, as you work your way, with your eyeballs and your brain, through the writing system I’m about to finish up for you.
Taught quite a bit, too
As you can read in excruciating detail over in About Mike, yours truly holds the record, by a mile, for most university classes taught, across Colorado, going back 150+ years. That’s for all disciplines (all majors) at all universities in my state’s history.
Warning: Sometimes, “doing more of it than anyone” comes with cutting corners all over the place, to keep up with the workload. Maybe I was so busy, the teaching suffered.
Well, right on the front page of this site, I invited you to peek at my reviews, right where almost no college professor wants you looking. I refer to the generally brutal reviews that students offer up, voluntarily, on the website ratemyprofessors.com, where, in most cases, a few students show up ticked off enough to go there and rip the prof.
Most faculty would prefer that you not know of that site’s existence. The reviews generally run from negative to — abusive. In contrast. I proudly invite you to go right there and see what a great many students of mine (2005-on, all from CU) had to say about how I teach and what I have to offer. I just wish this site (and the Web, in general) were around during my Regis heyday of the 1990s.
Christmas in May
To true teachers (I’ve surely been called that, along with Teacher of the Year, many times), our “Christmas” falls on Graduation Day. I still stumble across fancy, printed graduation programs, here and there in my basement. I just can’t seem to “downsize” them (whether from Regis or CU) all the way out of the house, especially since they are filled with little notes and marks, made during that given year’s commencement ceremony.
Each year, amidst the many speeches and degrees conferred, I’d pull out my pen, during the long ceremony (many times, enlivened by my speech student, delivering the student address!), and I’d circle or *star* the printed names of students I fondly remembered from class, as I watched them stride across the stage, shining in their moment.
Well, my students (especially at Regis U) may have entered the program lacking notable academic acclaim, but a great many left my care as honor students, as I would see, noting the little symbols after their circled names in my program: * = cum laude; # = magna cum laude; ! = summa cum laude.
Participation at Commencement (whether at CU or Regis) was always optional for faculty, but I, personally, would never miss – nor dream of missing – these joyous events. What? Miss the Christmas party? One year, I was even chosen, for the ceremony, to lead the faculty “processional” across the yard and to our special seating, up by the stage. Everyone knew how much I loved commencement.
I would never miss all the smiles, hugs, thank-yous, and photo ops with my students’ family members (at CU, sometimes their parents; at Regis, sometimes their kids!). I had played an active and often-awarded role in getting many, many students up to that stage, as they would exclaim upon seeing me there at the ceremony. I like hard proof of things. At commencement, there walked my proof. My system works! I enjoyed a very merry Christmas, each May.
If you can get by on a king’s ransom . . .
Indeed, when my time came to teach college “kids,” I taught them the same way – treating them like adults, as I was used to teaching, and they loved that and thrived, accordingly. I wrote more “letters of rec” (for jobs and grad school) than anyone I’ve ever known, and I loved (and still keep!) dozens of thank-you letters telling me, “I got in!”
Over the years, quite a few of my students (usually former ones but sometimes current!), would “show up in the paper” or other public media, including television, often (if they were current students) for some achievement (maybe a group project) related to their class with me.
In fact, for the past few years now, I’ve proudly watched on TV, almost every night, one of my former CU “kids” (my “Public Speaking” student Romi Bean, now around 40!) on our Denver-area CBS news sports broadcast, where she serves many prominent duties in her role as sports anchor. She’d come into my speech class as a marketing major. She left wanting a career in “talking about sports.” That worked out great!
Cranking out star graduates, even setting records for such, as documented by HR, may not have enriched me a lot, in money, but it paid a king’s ransom in community betterment, personal pride, and, finally, in opportunity — to develop and refine the system I am now teaching you.
As I mentioned, I’m quite fond of the human race, and that includes you. I find incalcuable richness in our shared humanity, which we sometimes study (and teach, with my own history therein reaching back to a lifetime of influence from my prominent grandmother) as the humanities. We humans love when “things work” — even moreso, when they also work beautifully.
I want to enliven and inspire your beautiful voice, as a feature of our global — and local — human choir (the opposite: “AI can say it for me”).
Put that in your Tesla and smoke it
Put that in your pipe, Elon, and puff away. There’s more to humanity than squeezing, out of the planet, “a trillion or so” for yourself. Personally, I’d rather “teach the world to sing” – and my continued work and calling extends, now, to you, Reader-student.
I want you to understand that a great many of my proudly-honored graduates (at Regis, especially) came from “the real world” (most, already supporting themselves and often others), and the real world makes a great place to apply what I teach – to them, then, and to you, right now!
Helping students get great grades and then succeed in life has always warmed my heart (and still does), and I’ve done it an awful lot. And now I want to make you — whether academically oriented or not – a star writer for the real world, not just in school (but there, too, if you’re a student!).
True teachers start out as true learners
No, I did not learn the following “re-thinking of the word “is” during my 13 years of full-time college; nobody (until now!) had yet theorized a practical (and necessarily critical) definition (as you are about to learn) of this verb, the most common verb (well, technically “to be“) in the English language. Soon, you will see just what I mean.
I did learn a lot about communication, though, focusing on language, along the way to a bachelor’s, master’s, and doctorate, all in the one fascinating (to me, anyway) field, which impacts everyone every day. Three successive degrees, all in the same discipline – it’s extremely rare to run into that – ask around.
But that’s me, all over. Yes, I’ve taught more communication-related classes, nurturing each danged class into a special and memorable group, than anybody (that I have ever heard of or you could ever find), and my training includes nine years of fully-funded graduate study, on top of many awards and honors as an undergrad, including the only 4.0 GPA in my graduating class of about 1600, as my dad gasped to hear, at the “Honors Banquet,” during commencement weekend at SUNY-Oswego, circa 1987.
You’re in pretty good “scholarly” hands, Reader-student. I just want you to know, going in, the source of my confidence and basis for redefining “is.”
Our task: To re-define, re-think, and
RE-PLACE what . . . “is”
I know the above material (thank you for skimming! 😊) might seem like terrible bragging, so please forgive me. I just want to provide some factual basis for what is going on here, especially now, in Stage 3, where I am outright purporting to re-define, re-think, and, especially, RE-PLACE (in your writing) our language’s most common verb.
You may wonder, how have all the “grammar experts” – at school, work, or all over the Web (including Grammarly and every other such site) – missed the simple and powerful concept that little old I am about to teach you? Good question! I wonder the same thing!
So please pardon my bragging above, in preparing you to embrace and understand the third and most powerful stage of my system. Without the solid and special foundation available to you in my system’s first two stages, you will not understand what you’re about to read, here in Stage 3. To truly grow (even transform) as a writer, you can’t just read what follows, you have to study it. I know you can do it. Will you? I hope so.
For me to claim I have theorized, developed, taught, and am now spelling out what matters as much as any writing issue, anywhere – and that’s exactly what I’m claiming, here and now — requires that I present at least some of the preceding “credibility establishing” background. Necessarily, to save time and prevent serious boredom, I am leaving out a LOT!
Where to “Donate”???
. . . in your own writing!
I know what you’re thinking: “Where’s this site’s donate button, so I can help you pay off your massive student loans from those nine years of grad school?”
Thank you, State of Maryland; thank you, State of Colorado; no bill for the tuition ever came. I gave back a lot, too, and I am calling it even.
The pay during that time and thereafter never rolled in on a Brink’s truck, but I cherish the career-long opportunity to teach so many classes (not 75-100, but 375-400!), learning, myself, from every single group.
Couldn’t wait for high school!
Before moving onto the bulk of Stage 3, let’s back up just a minute. I didn’t come to appreciate the human side of humanity “at university,” but way before that. From the cradle on, my very upbringing focused there (as you can read in more detail, in About Mike). In particular, my grandma (Mom’s mom) made a splash in the 1960s, pioneering, as an English teacher (at a tippy-top high school in NYS, frequently “state-champs” in both academics and sports), a bold, news-making course in “the humanities.”
A writer for a scholarly journal in education even came to visit and observe her and then wrote a feature article about her innovative vision and methods. Gram relied on her “slide projector” (remember those? Oops, maybe not) just loaded with fine art from every period – while teaching about how the human race has expressed itself – in art, music, and literature (also achitecture and more).
A few times, she recruited me (she lived, at one point, in our family home) to help arrange her slides for the week’s classes ahead. An 11-year-old boy can’t help but notice a “nymph” or two, cavorting in the background of a masterpiece from what I learned as “the Rococo period.”
Take it from an 11 year old. We reeeeally like the Rococo period! Nymphs everywhere you look! I couldn’t wait for high school. I planned to focus on art history, specializing in the Rococo period.
Yes, the billionaires are happy to let AI write it for you – but I’m not. Where’s a reader-student to turn? Well, you’ve already turned to the right place: a resource that will teach you to think and write, expressly your own way, owing to the site’s mantra: “Say it as only YOU would – and only you COULD.”
What is — and what should never be
There’s a song in there, somewhere – apologies to Led Zeppelin. Did you know that, among other genres, I also write (and play and sing) songs? (A few songs are up on Youtube, under Table Mountain Trio.) Poems, songs, stories, essays, research and theory, technical instructions – I’ve written in many genres, including even a play, written as a book. That’s two more genres right there! 🙂
Maybe I’ll put all this into a song (a rock opera?) later. Right now, I’m writing an essay, intended to set-up a lesson, in a series, within a three-stage system – all of which shares a single prevailing aim, characterized by my site’s mantra, above.
I’m not kidding. I want you to believe (and act on) the proposition that you could (and should) say things that others aren’t saying (yes, that’s rare and special!), in ways that others – lacking your biography, outlook, vocabulary, and “way with words” – couldn’t say it, if they said it at all, which they won’t; hence, we must speak up and/or speak out.
Where *are* we now?
And when *is* dinner?
Here is where we are (Stage 3), reached by making it through the place we recently were (Stage 2) and, before that, where we had been (Stage 1). (Notice that, here and nearby, I am highlighting (in bold italics) my use of the ubiquitous verb “to be,” in many conjugations and tenses (am, was, were, will have been, etc.).
Remember how, in Stage 2, I would put into bold italics and sometimes use extra spaces to make sure you would notice exactly what I was practicing, right while I preached about the same thing, namely options for connecting multiple main clauses in a compound sentence? Well, I‘m at it again, with similar “instructive typography.”
I will utilize that inventive “mode” of writing instruction, as I strive to purposely display, including “intentional repetition,” a whole bunch of cases of some technique, aided by appropriate means of typographic highlighting.
In this way, my very typography supports the instruction, showing examples of the technique I am explaining. Actually, I did not set out to do that; things just evolved that way. See? Authenticity thrives when we open ourselves to our own unique voice. That includes you, me, and everyone else with openness to authentic growth.
And that ‘s the truth. Or is it? It is, as far as I ‘m concerned. Boy, that “to be” verb sure is everywhere in everyday usage. That‘s the problem! And I ‘m here to fix it, especially here in Stage 3, where you will soon come to understand the wide scope of this problem – and its solution!
I’ve now set the table, including in Stages 1 and 2, but also in this first essay of Stage 3, to prepare you to approach, enjoy, assimilate, and digest (no outgassing!) the meal that awaits in these coming Stage 3 essays. Get ready for the main course. Bon appetite!