by Karen Sesterhenn

I am the writing coach for an undergraduate syntax course, but I am not a syntactician.

The first time I had even studied the subject at length was only the semester before, so I didn’t feel qualified to be a TA for the course as the academic year approached. And I couldn’t follow a friend’s advice about keeping in mind that I had more experience than these undergraduate students because I’m pretty sure they have had more semesters of linguistics than I. In order to feel prepared, I reassured myself that what I had worked on (explaining my thought processes in clear prose and becoming comfortable with grammatical terminology) only a few months prior in the graduate version of the course was fresh in my mind, and I felt more confident helping students learn the material through writing and advocating that method.

The design of the course and the writing assignments has kept the students working toward the objectives of the class and of the Writing Intensive Program. It’s based on a discovery method where students are discouraged from consulting outside sources (there isn’t even a textbook for the class) in order to write up their own analyses. The professor’s goal is for them to take ownership of their write-ups. Even though there was early resistance to the style of the course and there have been many lengthy essays, student feedback during individual conferences has proven that the course is fulfilling that goal. This is in accordance with the WIP philosophy that writing is a means of learning.

For example, one student told me she appreciates being treated as an adult. She isn’t being lectured to and then expected to spit out what she has learned. Instead she is responsible for developing analyses of given data sets and arguing in favor of her answers. When she told me this, I pointed out that syntax, like many other subjects, might be much more difficult to grasp in a lecture-style class. Each modification to our theory builds on the previous one, and you can get lost early on if you don’t wrestle with the problems yourself in order to figure them out. This requires a lot of work, but those “ah-ha!” moments feel really good. I can remember being in her position as a student and realizing the benefits of that method. Since then I’m glad syntax has taken on a more prominent role in my education.

Even though syntax isn’t my primary (or even secondary) area of concentration, it is a valuable subject for my career prospects. (By the way, if you stop any linguist and ask what their area of interest is, chances are they’ll list off nearly every subfield in the discipline; I really can’t exclude syntax from my studies since everything is so intricately related.) I hope to do editorial work, such as copyediting, or teach linguistics or grammar. Both are feasible with my experience as a writing coach since the terminology and logic from the course have become ingrained. Now I can’t look at sentences without seeing complements and embedded clauses and thinking about underlying structures of complex utterances. I can throw around words like “predicate” and “phrase” with confidence. Grammar is what I enjoy studying most, and since working as a WIP TA, I now have sharper instincts when it comes to explaining it.

In my position, I get to read well-written, clear analyses, and by responding in prose, I improve my own explanations. You learn when you teach, as the adage goes. Writing is one of the most effective ways of understanding something through teaching, and that should include explaining your thought process to an instructor (or to a TA who’s still getting comfortable with the subject). Students in this WIP course have come to learn that, and I include myself among them.