First Impressions (Or A Letter to My English Composition Students) (Or "We're Not Hesher.")

Before we go any further discussing objective versus subjective descriptions or read essays by Heather Rogers and EB White or beat ourselves over the head with anymore comma splices or discuss how some of you begin a paragraph in past tense then switch to present tense then past tense again, I want to talk about first impressions.

Did you know we have only seven seconds to make a first impression? That means other people look at us and then decide within seven seconds what kind of person we are based on our appearance. That’s right. Seven seconds. A first impression.

Consider my appearance today. Here I am dressed in tennis shoes, a tee shirt, and overalls. Do I look like a college professor to you? Better yet, if I had arrived to our first class dressed like this would you have thought, “Why has someone from Hillbilly Handfishin showed up to teach us how to clasp a twenty pound catfish between our knees then wrestle it to the surface? I want a tuition refund.” If you’d thought that based on how I’m dressed right now, I wouldn’t have blamed you. After all, I don’t look professional like this, which implies I don’t take my job as a college professor seriously, which means you should doubt my credibility and even my commitment to academic achievement.  Whether we like it or not, people make snap judgments about one another based on appearance and presentation all the time.  As a college professor, I can’t show up for class looking like this. I can’t show up looking like Hesher either. You don’t know who Hesher is? He’s this guy right here.

But Ms. Voth, you might say, I saw that movie, and regardless of Hesher’s appearance and presentation, he taught that boy and his father a valuable lesson. Sure, in a movie. Also, we’re not discussing how a character who looks like a dirtbag becomes an unexpected metaphor for Jesus right now. We’re talking about seven seconds to make a first impression. We’re talking about college.

This weekend, I finished reading your first formal writing assignments (unless you got yours to me late, in which case, I’ll finish reading those by Wednesday) and several of your papers made a less than favorable first impression. Some of them came off a little like Hesher. I’m not talking subject matter here. I’m talking appearance and presentation.

Imagine me, your esteemed professor not dressed in overalls, regarding each one of your papers the first time. Unfortunately, some of them fell loose from my fingers because you hadn’t stapled your pages. Once I was finished feeling  annoyed by that, I picked said essay back up and then arranged it again before scanning it. Now I saw the heading I had instructed you to use on both our class syllabus and the grading rubric for the assignment was incorrect. I also saw how said writer had thumbed his nose at my formatting guidelines. Was I annoyed at this point, or was I angry? Take a guess. I saw margins that weren’t one inch. I saw font that wasn’t 12 point but so tiny I had to pull out my magnifying glass to read it. I saw font that wasn’t Times New Roman. I saw text that wasn’t double-spaced. I saw typos even though I said at least three times to read your papers out loud to yourselves so you’d catch those. I saw sentences that ended with no punctuation. I saw sentences that began with a first word that wasn’t capitalized. I saw “I” spelled in lower case rather than uppercase like this, “i.”  Since when is that correct? Text messages maybe. In college, this type of inattention to proper grammar and punctuation is sloppy. Ladies and gentlemen, we’re not Hesher. If ever in doubt, imagine the presentation and appearance of your paper like this.

You’re college students, and I’m a college professor, and my job, beyond teaching you about comma splices and narrative, is to prepare you for the real world. You haven’t been there yet? You’ll love it. Here you get to work for someone who will tell you how to dress, how to conduct yourself, maybe even how to speak. They’ll also expect you to complete specific tasks in a specific way. Yes, parameters. Yes, cramping your style. Yes, setting all kinds of rules you must follow. I’m the first to admit having to do something exactly how someone else tells me feels claustrophobic and frustrating sometimes; but what do we do in the real world?

We do it the way our boss tells us if we wish to keep our jobs. That’s all there is to it.

Regarding class, or more specifically your papers, I allotted a certain amount of points to formalities and proofreading, in other words, appearance and presentation. Before collecting your second formal writing assignments, I’ll ask each one of you to lay your paper on your desk, and then I’ll walk up and down the aisles like a Nazi and check each one for the correct formatting. If I see you haven’t doubled spaced or used 12 point font Times New Roman or one-inch margins, or if you haven’t used the correct heading or stapled your pages together, I’ll not accept it. You’ll have to fix your paper and then turn it in late and lose points for turning in a late paper. By the way, those of you in my ten a.m. class aren’t allowed to ask your classmate for his stapler anymore. I’m instructing him not to loan it to you. Your paper isn’t his responsibility, so how dare you put it on him or even expect him to pay for all those staples. You can find mini-staplers at Rite Aid or Wal*mart or even Office Depot. They aren’t expensive.

Now let’s talk a minute about following directions. Back to the real world again. Let’s say your boss assigns you a specific task. Let’s say you don’t understand it. What do you do? You ask for clarification. When do you ask for that clarification? Here are your choices.

A.) After you’ve completed the task incorrectly?

or

B.) Before you get started?

The correct answer is B. Not only is time money in the real world, but if you complete a task incorrectly because you didn’t understand the instructions and didn’t bother to ask your boss for clarification, your boss will think you’re dense.

I gave you a specific topic to write about for your first formal writing assignment. That assignment was to write a personal narrative about a time you wished you had spoken up but failed to do so. A few of you came to me before the paper was due and asked if it would be alright if you took the opposite approach; in other words a few of you wanted to write about a time you spoke up and stuck your foot in your mouth and wished you hadn’t. I said yes to all those students. I also said yes when a student asked if she could write from the perspective of her best friend. In all actuality, I’m a flexible person who appreciates creativity. I also admire initiative. I respect people who think ahead, who think outside the box even; what I don’t appreciate or admire or respect is when a student decides to write a paper off topic without coming to me first and asking, “May I do this?” and then turns it in like it’s no big deal. It is, in fact, a big deal.

“First rule of Fight Club, know the instructions for an assignment.

Second rule of Fight Club, ask your professor for clarification if an assignment doesn’t make sense or if you’d like to discuss approaching an assignment a different way.

Third rule of Fight Club, failure to abide by rules one and two will result in ten points off the top of your grade, plus you forfeit an opportunity to revise.”

Sincerely,

Tyler Durden

And that’s just this time. Next time, you get a zero if you don’t follow my instructions without checking with me first. I’m tough that way. Most your professors will be tough this way. This is college and part of our job is to prepare you for the real world. Haven’t been there yet? You’ll love it. You get to work for The Man. He wants things done his way or the highway. Sometimes The Man is a woman, and she wants things done her way too. She’ll say, “Jump.” And you’ll say . . ?

“How high?”

Look. I’ve been there. I’ve jumped and jumped and jumped. It feels frustrating, exhausting, even demoralizing or demeaning sometimes. The Man will make you jump just because he can. She’ll get off on it, watching you jump. It’s a power trip for some supervisors. Or maybe it’s not even that: you just need to swallow your pride and buck up. So I’m tough on you. Because I’ve learned the same way some of you will: the hard way. I’ve cut off my nose to spite my face. I’ve shot myself in the foot then limped off into the horizon. I’ve burned a couple of bridges.

Why?

Because I hate anyone telling me what to do. I hate lines in the sand. I hate boxes. I loathe feeling patronized and belittled. I have a master’s degree. I’m an artist. I write to rebel. I’m a Renegade Writer. Says so on my coffee cup. Even so. I’ve paid a price for not following the rules. That’s just the way it is. Some rules we must follow to get where we want to go. Heck, just to survive. Yes, some people get to tell us what to do. I’m your professor, and beyond teaching you how to write descriptive essays and complex sentences, I must prepare you for what comes after college.

It’s terrible.

What I mean is, have you checked the economy lately? People are being laid off; people are losing their homes; people are going without health insurance. Don’t give your one-day potential employers any reason to let you go or not hire you in the first place because you can’t follow instructions or don’t bother to complete a task at all. Show initiative. Do the work. If you haven’t turned in your first formal writing assignment yet and haven’t even bothered to tell me why, you’ll fail this class. This is college not high school. By the way, quiz Wednesday. Did you take notes? Know our syllabus too.

Consider this as well: slouching at your desk communicates disengagement. Crossing your arms over your chest communicates defensiveness. Sitting at the back of the room provides you an opportunity to tune out. That’s all I’m saying except how many of you can identify the tense inconsistency in the following paragraph? How about a comma splice?

I rode my bike to school yesterday and came across this guy with long hair and tattoos all over his body. He grabs me by the neck of my shirt and then drags me across the ground a few feet like he’s going to beat me up or something, but then he lets me go. The guy jumped into this piece of crap van and drove off just like that. Later, he showed up at my house. I mean he’s inside my house using my grandmother’s washing machine without asking. My grandmother said, “Is this a friend of yours?” and I said, “Not really.” Then my grandmother wants to know my friend’s name, and I tell her I don’t know. “My name is Hesher,” the guy said, he just stands there in his underwear smoking a cigarette and smiling, and then my grandmother says, “Nice to meet you, dear.”