Using the On-Ramp and Sipping the Coffee: Analogies in the Classroom

[mimmoore]

While reviewing first drafts of a source-based essay from my corequisite students, I noticed how often they introduced quoted material without much integration or context. In general, they had mastered the use of a signal phrase, but they used such phrases without providing any context to indicate the relevance of the source or the expertise from which the author spoke (again indicating that the internet is, for many of them, a flat landscape).  In a subsequent class, I revisited source integration via short summaries and author credentials.  At a few minutes after 8 o’clock that morning, I could see I was rapidly losing the class.

I stopped and asked them a simple question: “How many of you took the interstate to get here this morning?” Several raised their hands. 

“So did you use an on-ramp when you got on the interstate?” Nods all around.

I asked them what would happen if they skipped the on-ramp and tried to enter the interstate using a right turn. “We’d hit someone and cause an accident,” they laughed. Exactly:  you have to speed up and merge into the flow of traffic. I explained that introducing quoted material is similar to a car merging onto the interstate: it has to merge into the flow of traffic by using the full on-ramp. The proverbial on-ramp in writing is the way you set up a context for the quoted material. 

Did the analogy lead to sophisticated integration of quotes? Of course not. But in the next drafts, I could see the students’ attempts, however rough, to add context.

Analogies are ubiquitous in college classrooms. After all, students make sense of new concepts and skills in light of what they already know. And over my career as a writing teacher, I have often resorted to analogies to teach writing concepts: a choppy paragraph is similar to what happens when I try to drive a car with manual transmission (being proficient only on an automatic), or like trying to climb a stairwell with missing steps. I explain the information deluge that occurs when corequisite students neglect paragraphing or end punctuation this way: what if I am asked to drink an entire pot of coffee at one time, rather than in measured sips?  I’d choke on one of my favorite things!  

Sentences weighed down by unneeded adjectives or adverbs remind me of swimming in the Gulf of Mexico when the seaweed is heavy: it’s hard to see where I stand because the seaweed obscures the sand. And of course reading a text whose author has not yet found a thesis reminds me of what happens when my GPS malfunctions: I just don’t know where I am going. Or perhaps it’s more like being in a corn maze in the fall: I have no sense of where to go next because I don’t know what the big picture is. If the writer could just take the view from above—from a hovering drone—I would be much more willing to follow. 

There are days when I wonder whether I am (at 57) too far removed from the experiences and digital spaces that my students share to make meaningful connections with them. But I have found that analogies cross generational divides, even as vocabulary and lived experience seem further apart. Shared laughter over my silly analogies—or my students’ adaptations of those analogies—is a reminder of what has not changed, and what we have in common.

What are your favorite analogies in the writing classroom? I would love to hear from you.