What is Style? and how it influences the Classroom

On one hand there is teaching, the conveying of information from one individual to another, and then on the other hand there is teaching with an impact, which passes on a concrete concept that is readily available and utilized.  Teaching with an impact, in my opinion, is a technique that is developed.  It is what I would like to refer to as Style.  Style is a tool that educators utilize in order to convey what they, themselves, were taught as students to their own students, but at the same time causes what is taught to be an instinctive part of their everyday routine.  For English educators the information that should be taught are the tips and tricks to composing a written piece that is both interactive and engaging with its readers.  Why would writing something interactive and engaging be important? Writing something down solidifies ideas in the mind, and sometimes it also helps organize ideas that are only floating in the conscious.  Other than aiding students get that A on their report card, being able to habitually and subconsciously write their ideas out will help them 1) Continue to learn more about themselves and the world around them (the world is pretty interesting), 2) Get into a place of higher learning to further their education, 3) Find that delightful job they always aimed for, and 4) Be able to take a break from their everyday routine and perhaps jolt down whatever they want with the almighty pencil and paper.  An educator’s Style is the difference between inspiring students with what we have to say and simply hearing ourselves talk.

Donald Murray and Tom Newkirk have both said “educators will often time say that writing is either narrative, informative or argumentative.  But writing doesn’t have to be one or the other.”  I want to believe this.  Writing should be interchangeably narrative, informative or argumentative because speech and ideas in our minds are interchangeably narrative, informative or argumentative.  Both Murray and Newkirk go on to explain that writing is typically taught in this slice-and-dice fashion so that students will be able to formally learn what categories of writing there are.  While this is all way and done, educators later stages of a student’s career should be able to teach them that interchangeability does exist and can be done.  But sometimes, even with myself, those educators that have the best of intentions don’t exactly stick in my mind.  Their lesson plans soon dissipate into blankness, alongside their name and teaching Style.  For those educators whose Style does stick with me, well, they go on to influence how I perceive the world I live in and how I tend to compose my writing.  Because of their Style I analyze the way they used to analyze, I develop and compose the way they develop and compose, and I write according to how they writ and wrote.  Thankfully for me, those educators taught me how to be interchangeable in my writing.  It would be fair to say that Style and the development of Style are analogous to an educator’s Personality and the development of an educator’s Personality.  Those imprinted Personalities of my educators influence me, they help develop my abilities as a writer, they cause me to enjoy in the art of writing, and they remind me that outside of academic writing there is writing for fun.

Since having arrived at Rhode Island College, I’ve met with and been given many resources in as to what Style is and how to develop it.  Books by Donald Murray and Tom Newkirk are great aides.  Scholarly journals in our college index JStor will often time provide me insight into other students and educators that have dealt with this very issue.  And most importantly in helping me grasp what exactly is Style are my professors, my peers and graduates from the FSED program.  So far, I’ve already secured appointments with a recent graduate and friend James David Salisbury at the Nathanial Green Middle School.  His interactive and engaging teaching Style coincides with my own ideas in as to what would be my Style, so throughout the semester I will observe him and his students.  My professors and the professors of my peers are future appointments I plan to make so that I can observe them as well.  Each and every student at Rhode Island College have their favorite and their I-would-rather-be-outside-than-in-here-for-two-hours professors, and it would be very interesting to see exactly why that is.  Does the information stick with them or does it freely and easily dissipate from their conscious?  In learning what Style actually is, whether or not it really is a technique to developing an educator’s Personality or just something we’re taught, I have hopes to utilizing it to influence and inspiring my students.  And perhaps I could also pass it on to my fellows in the FSED program as well.