Photo courtesy of www.ecologyofeducation.net
By
ANDREW LAM, New America Media
SAN
FRANCISCO ― “Dear Mr. Lam. I loved your essay, ‘The Palmist,’ but I can’t
figure out what the main theme is. Is it dying and being all alone? My teacher
suggests I read more of your writing… I’m glad I found you online…. Thank you
very much for your help.”
The
email from ― let’s call him “Evan” ― is not atypical. Students assigned my work
sometimes reached out to me for help. “The Palmist,” however, is not an essay
but a short story in my new collection, “Birds
of Paradise Lost.” Its claim to fame is that it was read on PRI’s
Selected Shorts a few years ago by not just one but two well-known actors:
David Strathairn, who played journalist Edward R. Murrow in “Good Night, and
Good Luck,” and later by James Naughton of “Gossip Girl” fame.
But
never mind all that, for Evan it is immaterial. What’s more important is to
have the answer, the main theme, since his paper is due. And who better than
from the author himself?
While
it flatters me to know that some of my work is being taught in high schools and
colleges, and that I have done my share in confounding the mind of students
near and far, it never fails to astound me what some of these young people
would do to avoid thinking.
A
classic email I got some years ago was from a young woman named Dao. Her
message came with the word “HELP” in caps in the subject line.
“Dear
Mr. Lam,” it says, “My name is Dao and I am having difficulties with
my essay in my English class. I am reading one of your short stories for class
assignment called ‘Grandma’s Tales.’ It is a really good story but I can’t seem
to find the REAL theme of the story. Can you please help me?”
“Grandma’s
Tales,” too, is collected in “Birds of
Paradise Lost.” But to be perfectly honest, I didn’t have a theme in
mind when I wrote that tongue-in-cheek story about a Vietnamese grandmother who
dies, comes back to life and goes to a party with her grandson.
I
once suggested a possible theme to another student but his teacher apparently
didn’t like the answer. She told him he had best find a more serious theme and
rewrite his paper if he wanted to receive a better grade.
The
whole situation reminded me of Rodney Dangerfield as wealthy Thornton Melon,
who went to the source with style in the 1986 movie, “Back to School.” Mr.
Melon, deciding to go back to school in his 50s, hired the great Kurt Vonnegut,
Jr. (who played himself in the movie) to write a paper about his own books, but
the scheme backfired. Melon’s English professor, Diane Turner, was disappointed
with the result. “Whoever wrote it didn’t know the first thing about Kurt
Vonnegut,” she told him curtly, no pun intended. But at least, Vonnegut got
paid.
Old homework for sale
Still, going to the source is admittedly rare. Students
don’t usually email writers to help with their homework. No, increasingly, it
would seem that they’d go online to look for other people’s homework instead.
“NEED HELP ASAP ENG/125,” was
posed by a student on StudentofFortune.com last July 30. “Has anyone read the
non-fiction stories?” the student asked. The “non-fiction stories,” also known
as essays, are: “Who Will Light Incense When Mother’s Gone,” by Andrew Lam,
(yours truly), Langston Hughes’ “Salvation,” Gretel Ehrlich’s “About Men,” and
Joan Didion’s “On Going Home.”
While
it is as flattering as anything even to be mentioned in the same sentence with
these great writers, let alone having one’s work compared and contrasted with
theirs, it is distressing to know that students are offering between $1 and $10
for someone else’s work, so as to avoid thinking.
The
assignment? “Select two of these four writers and write a 1,400-1,700 word
paper that would answer some of these questions: ‘What makes each of the
selections non-fiction?’ and, ‘How is imagination required for writing and
reading nonfiction? Why or why not?’”
What
the student would do with the $10 tutorial after it is paid for is up to him,
of course, but I suspect most likely he’d be busy rearranging sentences and
punctuations in hope to escape software programs that catch plagiarism. But it
seems the only imagination required here is not the literary kind and the bulk
of critical thinking is used for anything but literature. It is spent in good
part on methods that garner good grades ― be it finding and emailing the
authors or buying old homework online ― without having to think about the work
itself.
And
if the student is still dissatisfied with the website’s offerings? There’s
always Studymode.com, which advertises to inspire “better grades” – a kind of eBay
for old homework assignments, I suppose. On Studymode you can “supplement your
classroom learning and boost your grades with help from our powerful site
features.” After all, it’s where ― egad! ― “6 million students reference us
every month!!!”
Studymode.com
offers some old homework that compared Langston Hughes’ “Salvation” and my
essay, “Who Will Light Incense When Mother’s Gone.” But since I didn’t pay, I
only got a partial glimpse of some of them, and though not greatly instructed,
I remain oddly jealous. Had I gotten half of the help the new generations are
accessing, I would have flown through my English courses, instead of failing
them at UC Berkeley, and ― to my shame — had to take Subject A, a remedial
course that remains a sore point surely for any published author.
In
my defense, however, I did think for myself; I just wrote badly, due to
the fact that English is my third language and I was still wearing donated
jackets from Camp Pendleton, the Vietnamese refugees processing center in
Southern California where my humble American life began. (On the other hand, I
wonder if I would’ve even cared to think at all if I had access to a treasure
trove of mediocre writing and ready-made homework online at a click of a
mouse.)
Trouble for everyone
But
I digress. Let’s get back to the main theme here, which seems to be the trouble
for everyone involved.
There
is something endearingly naïve about students’ search for easy answers in
literature and how some approach literature as they would math problems. What
Evan wanted is a clear-cut answer. He wanted to know “The Palmist’s” main
theme, and assumed that if I were to hand it over, he would instantly get that
much-coveted “A.”
If
x=5 and y=3 and 10/x + 4 – y= Z, which is really the main theme of “The Palmist,”
then what is Z? The answer is 3, or y, but, for all practical purposes, Z might
as well equal aging and dying all alone.
On
wiki.answer, too, someone I assume to be a student asked: “Can you
answer this question? What is the definition of Andrew Lam’s Who will light
incense when mothers gone?”
Alas,
the problem with literature is that “the definition” or the “real”
theme never is obvious, if they exist at all. If a story is any good, be it
fiction or nonfiction, it leaves a deep impression from which the reader
reflects and discerns experiential meanings. The reader’s sensibilities play a
strong role in coming up with a theme or two, if he or she were to think
critically at all about the work. And, surely, it involves the reader’s own
imagination.
A clear answer ― at a cost
But
why use imagination or critical thinking when you can use a credit card?
According to paperdue.com, there’s a clear theme to “Who Will Light
Incense When Mother’s Gone?” It is “an attempt to reflect on the cultural
changes which take place in people’s lives when they immigrate to the United
States… ” paperdue.com offers. “This question is not only about one
particular cultural ritual, but is actually a discussion about how people’s
lives, and their cultural beliefs change when they immigrate to America.”
It
actually sounds good enough, and there’s more but, alas, you’ll have to sign up
to be a member before you can read the rest.
So
—
“Dear
Evan: It may not occur to you that there might be more than one theme to any
story, and that, more often than not, there are no wrong answers in literature,
only well-argued propositions. May I suggest that, as I suggested to others who
came before you asking for ‘main’ or ‘real’ themes, you go sit under a tree and
read ‘The Palmist’ aloud to a few friends who can listen well? They’ll probably
have a better answer than I do. And once you figured out what that theme is, do
put it up in paperdue.com or some such websites. And when I can afford
membership, I’ll be sure to log in and read it.”
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
New
America Media editor, Andrew Lam is the author of “Perfume Dreams:
Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora” (Heyday Books, 2005), which won a
Pen American “Beyond the Margins” award and where the above essay is
excerpted, and “East
Eats West: Writing in Two Hemispheres”
where the above essay was excerpted. His latest book, “Birds
of Paradise Lost” is
due out March 1. He has lectured and read his work widely at many universities.
