Fishin or Wishin

O NOO!! You have to do it this way or you will fail!

"What Should Colleges Teach Part 3?" is by Stanley Fish. In Fish's article he is mainly arguing because throughout his observation of college students he has noticed that many students are lacking the basic skills necessary to succeed in a college level paper and beyond. I quote Fish when he states “You’re not going to be able to change the world if you are not equipped with the tools that speak to its present condition.” He basically states that lacking the ability to be able to fluctuate from one style of communication to another would and can lead to a downfall in your career path. The main topic Fish states is that composition classes should focus on sentence structure and being able to arrange them in such a manner in which the reader can still understand them. In fact he is arguing and voicing out his opinion because throughout his observations of college students he does see the lack of basic fundamentals and the inability for students to transition from one style of communication to another.
Just as Fish believes your structuring of sentences is a key to success I also believe that structuring within a paragraphs in a paper is key to success as well. I say that the organization of sentences should be taught in high schools and colleges as well. My study of organization within college level students shows evidence that, as Fish found; some students aren’t able to clearly state what they are trying to convey because they are not organizing their words or the structuring of their sentences. If their sentences or structure of their paragraph isn’t correct it does give off a different meaning.

I observed a student who was working on a paper and formed a thesis but had an issue keeping on topic with their thesis. She felt as if she was wandering off and including unnecessary information within her paper. That little bit of wandering off can lead her thesis to portray a different message then what was intended. The same applies to Fishes idea; if one word in that sentence is changed in any way it can lead to the reader to develop a different meaning to it. Imagine having to get ready to present a subject to a comedic crowd and you organize your paper in a style that is mainly for a business presentation. Organizing your paper in the wrong style can lead to the audience getting a different interpretation, which leads me to my next conclusion.

Simple things like metaphors can change the view of a sentence
and even a paper.

Giving your paper a certain style of organization pertaining the message you are trying to relay can help you in college and beyond. Another example of this is in Dave Barry’s "The Frog Plague" Barry is a comedian and structures his paragraphs in a manner that tells a story but also gives the readers a sense of his goofiness. Barry’s style of writing differs from that of a normal college paper or a
business presentation paper. He begins his paper with a story then starts using metaphors to give the reader a picture to imagine. If you were to organize your paragraphs in such a manner for a business presentation and hope to win a client over then unfortunately you are wrong.

Similes can even change the idea of a sentence.

Every topic has it’s own style and when to use them and transition to either or is really the skill that I believe as well as Fish believes is necessary to success. One last example I can use is within another one of my observation of a student in the OSU Newark Writers Studio. The student I observed had been trying to summarize a poem in his own words and if you don’t know many poems are interpreted differently because of the basic structure of each sentence. The poem specifically was about self-rejection but both the student and teacher who assigned the poem had different views. In other words, as Fish stated “You have to start with a simple but deep understanding of the game, which for my purposes is the game of writing.”