The class I'd like to teach Jason F. Nov 05
43 comments Latest by Matt J.
Today I gave my last conference talk for a while. Next year I’m going to focus on our own 37signals events. It feels good to not have any external speaking obligations in 2011.
At the end of the talk I took some Q&A. The last question was asked by a guy in the front row. He said “What’s your take on the true value of a university education?” I shared my general opinion (summary: great socially, but not realistic enough academically) and ended with a description of a course I’d like to see taught in college. In fact, I’d like to teach it.
It would be a writing course. Every assignment would be delivered in five versions: A three page version, a one page version, a three paragraph version, a one paragraph version, and a one sentence version.
I don’t care about the topic. I care about the editing. I care about the constant refinement and compression. I care about taking three pages and turning it one page. Then from one page into three paragraphs. Then from three paragraphs into one paragraph. And finally, from one paragraph into one perfectly distilled sentence.
Along the way you’d trade detail for brevity. Hopefully adding clarity at each point. This is important because I believe editing is an essential skill that is often overlooked and under appreciated. The future belongs to the best editors.
Each step requires asking “What’s really important?” That’s the most important question you can ask yourself about anything. The class would really be about answering that very question at each step of the way. Whittling it all down until all that’s left is the point.
I hope to be able to teach this class one day.
Paper essay, Blog, Mini-Blog, and Text Message. My professor in grad school assigned a weekly one-sentence summary based on 6 hours of reading. I learned how to parse, believe me!