Write Stuff

Tufan is sweating blood, huddled miserably over his answer sheet, scribbling and erasing, chewing the end of his pencil. Tufan hates writing. He chews his lower lip and wipes eraser rubbings off his desk, then casts a look of pure agony heavenward. Sighing deeply, he bunches up his lips, then tries again. And erases. And starts afresh.

Write to your good friend Barbara and tell her about the things you did during your first term, the directions state.

I slide on my glasses and unobtrusively read what Tufan has written over his shoulder: To My good friend Barbara, I am Tufan, Turkish boy goes to university and studying English. I has have twenty years old. I am like first term too much.

I try not to sigh. How many times have I told him that if you're writing to a friend, you don't have to introduce yourself? And we've covered simple present for habitual actions versus present continuous for current ones time after time, and yet look at what he went and wrote! Why in God's name can't he learn?

Two rows behind him, Esra is squirming in her seat, her forehead creased in concentration. She has finished her e-mail and moved on to the mock job application she is supposed to fill out. Her writing is nice and bold, so I can easily read what she has written. I almost wish I couldn't.

In the space marked Occupation, Esra has clearly written Yes.

We've covered what occupation means more times than I can count. She knows it's supposed to be student. Will she ever learn?

After Describe a person you know very well, I am heartened to see that Unsal has already written an entire paragraph; normally it takes her ages just to come up with an idea. On closer inspection, however, I find that she has written the following: My best friend Fatma and I have known each other from earliest girlhood. She is a kind and generous person and I consider myself very fortunate in having her as a friend.

This is beautiful English and if Unsal produced it herself then my name is Fyodor Dostoyevsky. I don't have to read much further to find the limits of her memory: I like my best friend, Fatma, too much. My best friend talk many times to me. We visit together and share. We go harbor. We eat somethings.

And yes, she knows exactly how I feel about plagiarism. She's done it before and she has been read the Riot Act. Clearly, she doesn't think I'll be able to tell the difference between the two styles.

There are times I feel like I'm beating my head against a brick wall. Will they ever learn?

So I go home and I spend hours revising my own endless manuscript. I sweat blood, I scribble and erase, metaphorically speaking, and sometimes I find it utter torture. I write, I erase, and I write again. And a week later, I go back and read what I've labored over, hoping against hope...and I find telling instead of showing. Long, drawn-out yawn-worthy scenes. Redundancies. Inconsistent characters. Information dumps. Embarrassingly obvious plot devices. Non sequiturs.

But I have every intention of learning...