Amish Writing?
When I did my writing course, I learned that while I was a skilled writer, I was not good at structuring my papers the way they wanted. I think something like this really adds to the feelings of not being good enough and never quite fitting in. Good grades make us feel like we are finally doing something right. Success at something means we might be able to throw off some of the Amish shame. A poorer grade reinforces the narrative of never being good enough. Of being too Amish and being told we are never going to make it outside. I think that academic writing may be something taught in high school. Our experiences are Amish letter writing. And narrative writing. Not academic writing. -MJ Kempf
This entry argues that the rhetorical situation is not only an academic concept and describes writing practices I learned through traditional Amish letter writing traditions. Comparing exigence, audience and constraints with the structure I was taught demonstrates how cultural writing practices may contain rhetorical knowledge, even if there is no specific theory or academic language to describe it. We used this process to develop booklets and address specific issues regarding abuse, crimes and access to information within Amish and Plain Communities in 2022.
This is a challenging assignment since the last composition class I took was in 2008. I pulled up one of my essays from that class, and began thinking about the writing practices I learned in Amish Parochial schools and from my mem (mom), especially the conventions of formal vs informal letter writing. The specific structure I learned was:
Dear insert first name,
· Put the date
· “greetings of love across the many miles between us" or some variation of this
· Then write about the kind of day it is.
· Let everyone know how the family is.
· If you are a writer for The Budget, Die Botschaft, The Diary, etc: (These are some of the largest Amish newspapers. While some portions of the newspapers may include articles, they are primarily letters. Writers may or may not follow the format I was taught.) write about community events and human interests. You may write about these events in individual or circle letters, but you must include community events if you write for Amish newspapers. (For context, circle letters are a group of people that write a letter and send it to the next person on the list. I’ve been in some with ten-twelve members. When you get the circle letter, you remove your old letter and send it to the next person).
· If you want to reach people better, create illustrations to engage their attention.
If it is a more formal letter such as one written when there is discord in church. There may be letters written by men in positions of authority to formally address the situation and their stance to the church district and/or specific sect of Amish. If this is between different church districts - they are still the same sect of Amish, but the rules may vary due to the church authority structure of decentralized leadership. If it is a different sect of Amish, there are considerations made for the specific rules and societal norms of the community. Formal letters may become petitions when multiple people sign the letter. These letters have varying outcomes, but they generally function as attempts to address conflict, convince people to join the writers stance and preserve order.
· Write about the history of the specific topic you are addressing.
· Provide information to clearly identify the topic about to be discussed.
· Give sources of information (think Amish published materials, scripture references and/or even references to The Bloody Theatre of the Martyrs Mirror).
· Describe specific relevant anecdotal evidence.
· As far as citing and quoting scholars who publish articles about Amish, there is often an attitude of disdain due to the repeated trend of overgeneralized information published by people who also dehumanize Amish people for their own personal profit, prestige, or gain. More than likely, if you mention any published articles, it will be to point out the errors.
· Lastly state your position again- reiterating why- give examples of desired outcomes
· Write the closing- future events, hopes, thoughts and wishes.
· Usually, we would sign letters
Love,
Writers name
What does this have to do with the rhetorical situation?
The biggest challenge for me is finding the words in English to explain why I think of formal Amish letter writing that may be done. When I compare the triad of exigence, audience and constraints to the above list, those elements are present in formal letter writing requirements the way I was taught. In many ways, the rhetorical situation is simply giving academic language to what my eighth-grade teacher and mem (mom) taught me about letter writing to address a specific need, reach the targeted audience and work within cultural context.
When we consider the context of the letter writing, I code switch between Amish use of English and the way I normally speak, depending on the social setting. When I write a letter to a practicing Amish person, I use some variation of the format above depending on topic and context. It is normal to use variations of this format to meet the needs of the situation, cultural norms and the audience to reach.
This may not be a formally named theory, but it was taught in certain Amish homes and schools as a cultural practice. Amish may structure their letters this way to convey family news, community updates and/or church disagreements. Does it have to be a named theory to count as something I learned as a cultural practice? Is academic language required for it to count? In my opinion, the absence of a formal theoretical label doesn’t remove meaning from the practice, rather it demonstrates that rhetorical knowledge may exist in oral, communal and culturally specific norms as well as academic terminology.
This is the concept I used to address the dearth of information accessible Amish communities to report crimes several years ago. Because the project included addressing misinformation, cultural norms and linguistic specificity, we couldn’t simply translate mainstream resources. As someone with some formal education and work experience, I also incorporated use of the tools that we know work best. We gathered information about the deficit in information, inaccurate information, cultural norms, and linguistic specificity by attending multiple Amish meetings. “An exigence is rhetorical when it is capable of positive modification and when positive modification requires discourse or can be assisted by discourse”(Bitzer, 2023). If you read the following letter, I believe the booklet project will describe exactly why the lack of information was a rhetorical exigence.
Sept 3, 2026
Dear Ms. B,
Greetings across the miles between us. I hope this letter finds you well. We are all well here. It’s quite a beautiful day outside right now, the sunrise was beautiful to watch while I drank my coffee.
In our journal entries you ask us to write about the concept of exigence and something I remember from a previous composition course. (the three things given are a rhetorical concept you’ve retained, your work on a previous assignment, or the material you read). I learned how to write from my Old Order Amish schoolteacher and my mem (mom). My schoolteacher used a more general letter structure, but we didn’t write a lot of essays, we wrote letters. I don’t believe this was all written out specifically; it was passed down orally from my mem. I use those concepts to address exigency in the deficit of Amish being able to seek appropriate actions after being victimized by crimes. As an example of my past work using this specific type of writing, Jasper Hoffman and I spearheaded a collective project to create these booklets: https://www.themisfitamish.com/amishresources. We fundraised and applied for grants to print and disseminate these booklets across multiple states to provide access to information for Plain People. The project could be viewed as a success because some Amish people have reported disseminating the booklets. However, there are other sects of Amish that will not engage with them. The goal is multipurpose:
· Provide culturally appropriate and competent information about abuse and crimes using specific language that doesn’t dehumanize Amish and Plain people
· Give information about reporting crimes to civil authorities
· Function using language that supports victim empowerment
· Support the humanity of people within these groups
· Inform workers of some things to be aware of, instill curiosity about cultural nuances
If you search the archives for abuse and crimes within Amish communities, you will find a marked increase in documented crimes within the last twenty-two years. It started off slowly, but societal change for a group that operates from a collective existence may take a couple decades to get the ball rolling. There have been various investigative reports about this, but many academic articles lack cultural competency. As an example: “A safety plan drawn up by a worker and enforced through a court system will not likely be as effective as one created, implemented, and monitored by extended family and other members of the Amish church community (Harder, 2021, pp. 73–74). I have some questions about this: What qualifies the church and family members to provide supervision of offenders? What education and certifications do people have to supervise people that perpetrated crimes? Are you aware that most Amish people attend Amish schools and only have an eighth-grade education? As such the curriculum is limited. I attended five Amish parochial schools, none of them taught health or anything to qualify one to supervise criminal offenders. Does this apply to all religious groups or is this your favorable bias to display Amish people in a way that benefits you?
In the same article the author states: “The Amish are unlikely to report abuse to civil authorities, and children do not frequently come into contact with mandatory reporters, such as non-Amish teachers and health professionals” (Harder, 2021, p. 79). If legislation specifically mandates teachers as reporters of any suspected or known abuse of children, what makes Amish teachers exempt from mandated reporting requirements? Amish teachers in America are usually American citizens, while they may lack information about mandated reporting requirements, they are still teachers and citizens. Why would we write the statement that children don’t often come in contact with mandated reporters such as non-Amish teachers unless we were trying to provide exemptions and pretend legislation doesn’t apply to Amish people? Amish people who are American citizens are subject to American laws, the same as the rest of the white Europeans who settled in America.
Lastly, “The Amish father (or another male family member, such as an uncle or grandfather) will be central to all discussions and decisions. The Amish mother will be unlikely to engage with the worker, both because of male/female roles as well as familiarity with the English language”(Harder, 2021, p. 83). This passage implies Amish women can’t speak, from my own life experiences the author is writing things that benefit the men in power at a cost to women. My momi (grandmother), was a small woman, short in stature at four foot eleven and small in size – under a hundred pounds her whole life. When I was a very small child, didn’t even attend school yet, I watched her make an Amish bishop over six feet tall, cry. She wanted something addressed and she didn’t want the church to address it the way they were addressing it. If I understand right, di momi (the grandmother) got her way. Conversely, my mem (mom) was the type of woman that believed suffering in silence was honoring our martyrs and she would always follow the rules. This created a situation where she was held accountable for crimes she committed in the name of godly submission. I have spent my entire life being compared to my momi. The way I speak, write, create and even the values I have, are things that my cousins today tell me I display, some even say my actual voice when I speak and write sounds like hers. I can only hope that people will hear and take the right steps to address these problems. Abuse should be reported to the law (this is specifically the way many Amish people speak).
In addition, a report from three organizations provides the details of multiple Amish and Plain women attempting to engage through various means. They asked Harder to cease publishing content that actively harms practicing members and children. They mention that her narratives are ones that benefit patriarchal authoritarian leaders in high control insular groups. A book she co-authored is with a leader in plain Mennonite circles. Because some survivors engaged with her on social media, she responded by saying “Call me old school but I do not engage in these kinds of dialogue on social media” (The Misfit Amish et al., 2022, p. 7). I would argue that the women that engaged in discourse over her actions absolutely will speak to workers. Perhaps its not that Amish and Plain women won’t engage with workers, rather it could be that we don’t trust people because of experiences with people like her that taught us it may be dangerous to trust people.
I received a call this spring from someone who has visited Sam Shetlers fake healing place. She said she wants to know how to report what she knows about that place because she doesn’t think he should ever get out. She also informed me that a baby died because of what he’s doing. In her account despite the slave trafficking, forced labor, first degree kidnapping and sexual abuse, she thought he was probably going to find a way to use money to keep him from having more than a slap on the wrist. There are now charges for the baby that died. I provided a hotline number to contact the officers working the investigation.
Later my cousin who is an Amish bishop, we won’t mention names, went around telling people Sam Shetler did nothing wrong. Sam Shetler was so explicitly awful to those girls in the name of healing them from a history of sexual abuse, I can’t stand it. I had to take a break and come back. If you want to understand what he did, just look up the probable cause statement. It’s not good.
I hope that the publication of memoirs and autobiographies, Abuse Awareness Meetings, documentaries like Sins of the Amish, podcasts like The Plain People’s Podcast, The Misfit Amish and the dissemination of information will generate change. I can see that the movement has already gained traction. Especially with Bishop Levi Esh Sr. in PA being charged a couple years ago for failure to aid a victim and report a crime. That sends a message. Also, I just thought about this, since 2020, I know of Jessica Mast being murdered by 4 adults in Missouri, the thirteen-year-old Amish girl forced to give birth after being raped by her brothers, and another case. There are more cases in other states. This is a marked increase in crimes being reported and prosecuted. I hope this trend continues.
Meanwhile, in academic articles, the people writing about us should first start by seeing us as actual people. People are complex. We can’t help people when our bias – either favorable or negative gets in the way. If we genuinely want to help people using a multi-cultural perspective, we need to check our privilege. We need to be careful to understand the nuances and complexity of the people group we are writing about. Adding perspective can be helpful. Clearly when one thinks Amish are incapable of critical or intelligent thought, it leads the researcher to write extremely harmful and non-factual statements about Amish people. To pretend that Amish women can’t speak without a man in the room is one of the most demeaning and devaluing statements I have ever heard about Amish women. As my momi would say, si kenna ust net di rechta deutsche leit (they don’t know the right Amish people). Scholars should seek to inform themselves of nuances even within the same sect of Amish, as well as understand societal norms that differ from mainstream Western societal norms. They could also be way more cautious about overgeneralizing information they publish regarding Amish people. There are many different types of Amish people with many unique norms to the type of Amish.
Well, I better go, the day is waiting for me to get busy. I am working on my other class, and I have a bunch of reading to do for that class. I do enjoy the class, it just takes some work to keep on top of things. At least the sun is out and it’s not too hot. It will be great weather to be outside in the hammock to read.
Aus Liebe,
Mary
References
Bitzer, L. (2023). The rhetorical situation. In A. Welker & G. M. Carter (Eds.), Rhetorical readings for advanced writers (4th ed.) [eBook]. Tophatmonucle Corp.
Harder, J. (2021). Understanding and partnering with amish communities to keep children safe. Child Welfare, 99(1), 69–92.
The Misfit Amish, A Better Way, & Into Account. (2022). A case study in well-intentioned intervention in high control groups. Into Account. https://intoaccount.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/JH.Report.pdf
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