Banning Topics

As a writer and English teacher I’m against banning books. And my colleagues are too. But when it comes to banning topics for any kind of “research” type paper, we find ourselves a bit conflicted. Regardless of what it is called – the documented essay, the research paper, the source paper, or as we call it here in the Writing Program the “Adding to the Conversation” paper there is a lot of talk about banning certain topics. Let’s be honest, we’ve all read our fair share of papers on legalizing marijuana, abortion rights, lowering the drinking age, and stem cell research. And probably there isn’t anything really new or interesting that a first-year student can say about any of these topics. We’ve read it all. Since we have to read these papers most of us would like to read something new, something a bit more interesting about a topic we actually don’t know too much about. One semester I had a student write about how damaging wearing high heels are. I assumed they were bad, but I had no idea how much damage high heels could do to someone’s feet. It was fascinating.

Another argument for banning topics is that if we remove these tired old topics from the students they will be forced to find something more interesting to write. Students gravitate towards these typical topics because they think research papers are supposed to be about arguing for or against something—you can argue for legalizing marijuana, you can argue against the death penalty.

Banning topics isn’t just something those of us teaching composition do. At an AWP Conference (Associated Writing Program—the national organization for creative writing programs) I attended one year, the keynote speaker spoke about how she banned her introductory creative writing students from writing stories about their conflicts with their roommates, and the death of a friend and/or family member. Like those of us teaching the research paper, this creative writing teacher wanted to read something more interesting and if she felt that if banned these usual first stories, her students would have to find something else to write about. And usually that something else would become a much more interesting story.

This all makes sense. Good things can come from banning topics. But then I remembered something. The first story I ever submitted to a fiction writing workshop was about the death of my college roommate. I’m sure it wasn’t the most exciting story the workshop leader ever read and it wasn’t the best story I ever wrote, but it was a story I had to write at that time. And I learned something from writing that story.

And this helps me remember something else. The students aren’t writing their “Adding to the Conversation” papers for me to learn something new. They are writing these papers to learn something about the purpose of research. And if we think students learn best by being invested in their topics, we need to remember that legalizing marijuana and lowering the drinking age may actually be topics our first-year students are interested and invested in. We need to remember where the students are. The topics that we may feel are typical and tired may be new to our students and may actually be the issues they are thinking about. Our students may also have something at stake in learning more about the topics we are tired of reading about. One semester I had a student who wanted to research stem cell research because he had a family member who had Parkinson’s and he wanted to know if stem cell research could provide his dad with a cure. As a result he was able to add a personal element to the paper as well as learn something about an issue that was important to him.

So maybe there is another way. I try to lead my students through a range of generative writing exercises that enable a range of topics to emerge—hopefully some topics my students didn’t think they could write about—like high heels. And after my students have selected a potential topic I ask them why. Why do you want to write about the legalization of marijuana? Why are you interested in lowering the drinking age? If the answer is because they think they can find enough information about the legalization of marijuana to write a paper, maybe they should be steered away from that topic. But if their answer is because a family member needs marijuana for medical reasons or their roommate binge drinks every Thursday night, these just may be topics they are invested in. And hopefully their investment will come through their writing. So maybe banning topics isn’t the answer. Maybe asking why is.

One Reply to “Banning Topics”

  1. Thanks for adding your blog to the conversation. every semester I add blogs to my Blackboard course to tell students why I prohibit certain.

    I do what you do and ask why ( a lot). I’ve found that they often cannot tell me. They really aren’t terribly interested in the topic, but they say thought thought it would be “easy” to write about ( sigh). I pontificate about “easy” topics too!

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