Writing and Introductions

Whew, writing is hard work! I have been writing most of the day, working on the book I am writing about using technology to teach literature and I know that my students have been writing a great deal -- at least I hope they have, since there is a paper due tomorrow.

On Thursday we had a good talk about writing papers. All but two students had heard of the "five-paragraph" paper, and after I talked about its strengths and weaknesses, a show of hands indicated that three or four students had heard teachers talk about some of the formulaic problems that the five paragraph paper can lead students into.

One of the things we talked about was how the five-paragraph paper idea produces introductions like making sausage from a meat grinder. When, in fact, it is hard to write good introductions. I was reading this morning a new book by Franco Moretti and he talks about the difficulty he has with introductions, which, in fact, are almost always written after everything else, so that it really should be some kind of postlude, but then, it does have to go first. "Immediately one starts writing an introduction, one wants to write the exact opposite of an introduction. I have tried to resist this impulse, then to subdue it, then to disguise it."

Today I completely rewrote the introduction to the chapter I am writing about using literary archives. Aargh! Introductions!

Speaking of introductions and their difficulties, our next project is a very close look at what may be the most famous introduction in the world, well, at least the introduction to one of the most famous literary works in the world, Homer's Odyssey.