ACE Series Part IV: Writing ACE Commentary, or Everything I Need to Know About Arguing I Learned from Billy Madison!

Part I of Richard’s “ACE” Series can be read here.

My research deals with the scriptures people use to orient their lives. This interest may have begun in adolescence. Much to the chagrin of my youth group directors, my friends and I had a wider canon than the authorized version of any denomination out there.

Our central text was the Adam Sandler film, Billy Madison (dir. Tamra Davis, 1995). To us it was a cult classic to be quoted chapter and verse. This movie made those awkward teenage years some how more bearable. For every situation, there was some line from the film available for application. And for whatever reason, when I think of ACE commentary, this film clip comes to mind.

Though he uses different verbiage, the principal rejects Billy Madison’s ridiculous response because it lacks, among other things, commentary. And if there is one part of the ACE model your students will struggle with, it will be commentary. Once they invest in an assignment, the assertions will come. Evidence is there for the taking. But cogently explaining how the evidence supports those assertions can really trip students up.

A Thought Experiment

To help students think about the power of commentary, I invite students to participate in a little thought experiment:

• Recall the principal’s prompt: “…the Industrial Revolution changed the face of the modern novel forever. Discuss, citing specific examples.”
• Now using information reasonably inferred from the clip, help Billy Madison formulate an ACE response.

Crazy, huh? But have your class give it a shot.

Despite the author’s style and juvenile imagery, The Puppy Who Lost His Way is a poignant allegory for society’s ambivalence about the Industrial Revolution.

The close relationship between the book’s characters registers the tether that manifested between humans and technology. The boy loved the canine puppy as evidenced by the animal’s growth. Readers can infer that the boy played a key role in nurturing the pet viz. a viz. diet and exercise. Similarly the child’s failure to find the lost canine suggests that the boy loved it enough to conduct a search. In historical study, the notion of a revolution connotes a growing social movement such that when juxtaposed with the modifier “industrial” one should imagine a connection, or more poignantly, a leash.

And the issue of who is in control is precisely the question the novel and revolutions challenge us to ask. The narrative makes clear that the woods proved too vexing for the human to find his dog. Likewise, deforestation and other collateral damage from the revolution reenvigored the age-old and archetypal      struggle of humanity vs. nature. So although the author appears to oppose the industry/puppy and the woods, the narrative more profoundly characterizes society as master of neither.

Commentary is for Readers

Would the principal have evaluated the following answer differently? You be the judge.

This exercise provides an inviting way of discussing commentary’s purpose. Students don’t want or try to be misunderstood. But they often forget that critical writing is not about showing that they did the homework or paid attention in class. (All that should be a given.) Rather it’s about helping readers come to understand what an author’s come to know through research and a lot of thought.

Over the years, I’ve noticed that some students skimp on the commentary because they think it redundant. Remind students that though it may feel redundant to them, the reader has had less time to connect the dots. I try to imagine my reader as cynical and skeptical as possible, to the point of writing “So what?,” “why should I care?,” and “Is this relevant?” in the margins of my own rough drafts. This challenges me to be as explicit as possible in tying my assertion and evidence.

Another reason why students struggle with commentary is that they write in solitude. As teachers, we are often the only other person to read a student’s paper—in any form. So consider incorporating a peer editing session as part of major writing assignments. Some teachers use class time to do this, others will make it homework. This extra step usually results in better final essays.

The ACE Matrix

Having now gone through each element, we’ll wrap up our series next time with a discussion on the ACE model matrix and some tips for successful implementation. I look forward to your comments, questions, and experiences. And will see you back here at Seminarium next time.

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