Topic: Two Words I Hate!

10-second review: …I wish I would never read or hear again: “infrastructure” and “scaffolding,” as a synonym for helping students to learn.

Comment: I’d like to have a nickel for every time the word “scaffolding” has been used in the professional journals of the National council of Teachers of English (NCTE) and the International Reading Association (IRA). There has to be a more direct way of expressing the meaning of that word. Every time I read it, I have to go through the procedure of changing the metaphor to its direct meaning.

The February 2010 issue of College Composition and Communication printed Victor Villanueva’s acceptance speech for the “Exemplar Award.” Among his comments, this one: “…to demonstrate in our own writing the principles we espouse for student writing, believing that rigor does not have to be displayed as rhetorical rigor mortis.” “Infrastructure” and “scaffolding” are symptoms of writing that is dead! RayS.