A step-by-step guide to writing a step-by-step guide

Draw a circle on the whiteboard.

Easy enough to accomplish as long as you know what the word circle means. But what if you're a visitor from an alternate universe consisting entirely of straight lines and right angles? What if you've never seen a circle, never heard of a circle, never held a marker in your hand to draw a circle on the whiteboard?

Tell our visitor how to draw a circle, I told another acting as instructor, But use only words--and turn your back so you can't see what he's doing.

We tried this exercise in my Nature Writing class with two different pairs of students, each pair made up of a cosmic visitor unfamiliar with the circle concept and an instructor explaining how to draw a circle. The instructors used various methods, from defining a circle in the abstract to comparing a circle to other non-circular things to providing step-by step instructions for hand movements designed to result in a circle on the whiteboard. The visiting aliens followed the instructions to the letter but produced a dotted line in the shape of a mountain range or a squiggle resembling an upper-case N. 

Then we tried something similar with a more common task: Your classmate has never learned to tie her shoes--lead her through the steps, using only words. The classmate followed instructions carefully but ended up with a twisted mess of laces.

What's going on here?

My Nature Writing students had turned in their first major essay yesterday so I wanted to give them a lightweight but thought-provoking class activity aiming toward the next major project: an essay explaining a natural process. I wanted them to think about what's required to help a reader understand a process, so we started with some very simple exercises in giving instructions--Draw a circle. Tie your shoes. It's not as easy to explain as you might think, especially if you're limited only to words. (Try it!) 

We talked about methods for making a process comprehensible--establish common vocabulary, compare the process to something more familiar--but then we talked about the why question. A biology exam might ask students to explain the life cycle of the monarch butterfly, but outside of a testing situation, why would anyone need to know?

Then I showed them Margaret Renkl's recent essay from the New York Times on "How to Count Butterflies." She helps us understand various processes in the butterfly life cycle for a very clear purpose: so we can help protect them from extinction. Explain a natural process to a specific audience, making sure they know why it matters and what's at stake. That's the next assignment in a nutshell, and if our practice exercises over the next couple of weeks are successful, then my students ought to produce something more convincing than a squiggle on a whiteboard or a tangle of shoelaces.