Oh, professors. If I've picked up anything about this mysterious brand of human being over my four years of college, it seems to be that "professor" is more of a state of mind than anything else. A state of mind that, when harnessed properly, is seen by the special select few who could afford grad school (or thought they could) as almost a super power, a divine gift bestowed upon them that can be used for good or evil. This is a mindset that can be incredibly useful in teaching, but almost blinding in other aspects of daily life (many of which do not include academia). For example, when Hairston started out talking about the present growth of the composition studies field by citing tenure tracks and conferences, I just about laughed out loud. Shouldn't we measure writing courses by what students are learning and producing, rather than how much someone gets paid to teach it?
I think the true problem with freshman courses, rather than the political slant Hairston criticizes, is that writing professors just don't know what to do with freshmen. Often times, the class is a requirement, making it a mixed bag of gen-ed students writing professors would rather not deal with, and for good reason, I suppose. They signed up to teach writers, and the business and physical therapy majors who would rather be spending their time elsewhere only take up space in the intellectual vaccuum they had hoped to create. Hairston's argument, however that the freshman course should be moved away from the political mindset, in my mind, is incredibly short-sighted, as political issues are one of the few things college ids can get worked up about enough to write a paper. You take politics away from freshman writing classes, and you're going to be reading a lot more stories about high school boyfriends and sports heroes.
Honestly, the section titles "New Possibilities for Freshman Courses" made me laugh out loud. The whole previous section is dedicated to how we can make students more comfortable and productive in their freshman writing classes, and then the first two paragraphs of this section describing the exclusivity of "multicultural courses." For these reasons, I couldn't help but wonder what she imagined would happen when her idealistic little Benetton ad of a class tried to workshop, or even describe their work for one another.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
The "Public Intellectual"
At the beginning of the "Activist Research" section of this paper, Cushman outlines one of the negative side-effects in the students of the service learning course, what she calls the "liberal savior" complex. To me, this whole paper stunk of liberal savior complex. Ideally to me, a paper on how educated people can use their knowledge and means to help out those less fortunate would be full of applicable ideas and solutions, not ONE case study and sentences like "Theories of praxis can be united with notions of emancipatory pedagogy in an effort to create a theoretical framework for activist methodology." To me, that's just an attempt to prove the "intellectual" part of the claim made in the title. Cushman paints a picture of these "intellectuals" (a meaningless buzzword term in itself) as the benevolent instructors, handing down divine knowledge from on high. In the case of the YMCA case study, she seemed to talk about the "non-intellectuals" as a sort of untamed species, wild animals that needed to be tricked (if we give them journals, they won't realize they're learning!) in order to fully embrace education. While I think Cushman's motivation are admirable, her execution and professional tone, to me, leaves something to be desired. Perhaps it's that sinking feeling that in order to truly affect the literacy and education of people in the inner city, you need more knowledge and practical experience than "a three and a half year long ethnography."
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Delpit
I think the problem that I have with so many of the articles we've read is that they do a great job of laying out a problem, explicating it, providing examples, etc., however, when it comes time to start proposing solutions, they are so freaking idealistic that I lose all faith in the buildup they gave me. Delpit's articles are no different. Her speech is all about helping kids, but I had a hard time seeing past the condescension. They want to teach all children how to read, but reject the system that proves effective because of the unfair power dynamic it presents (after all, it's important they learn how to read WITHOUT hurting their feelings). They agree that children need different instruction based on their home life, but shudder at the idea of physically classifying them like that in the public setting of school.
I also have a problem with the issue of race that I feel the second article projects on some of the scenarios mentioned. The black student in the "process" writing class, for one. What did it matter that the crappy teacher was white, and the good teacher was black? That seems like a case of competence versus incompetence and I feel like she was grasping to pull a race issue from it. Similarly, I think the differences in rhetoric style she suggest have far more to do with class than color, as I have had black teachers who were soft-spoken and used the "upper-middle class" suggestion technique of instruction, and white teachers who were no nonsense. I have a hard time being optimistic about issues like this, as I see the endless cycle of "benevolence" and hypocrisy regarding race and education to be almost inescapable at this point. We don't want to treat anyone differently, but we want them to have equal opportunities to learn. But they have different backgrounds which necessitates different forms of instruction (ie: treating them differently).
I also have a problem with the issue of race that I feel the second article projects on some of the scenarios mentioned. The black student in the "process" writing class, for one. What did it matter that the crappy teacher was white, and the good teacher was black? That seems like a case of competence versus incompetence and I feel like she was grasping to pull a race issue from it. Similarly, I think the differences in rhetoric style she suggest have far more to do with class than color, as I have had black teachers who were soft-spoken and used the "upper-middle class" suggestion technique of instruction, and white teachers who were no nonsense. I have a hard time being optimistic about issues like this, as I see the endless cycle of "benevolence" and hypocrisy regarding race and education to be almost inescapable at this point. We don't want to treat anyone differently, but we want them to have equal opportunities to learn. But they have different backgrounds which necessitates different forms of instruction (ie: treating them differently).
Thursday, April 8, 2010
My article on Gender and Writing
The article I found is "Writing from the Trenches: Women's Work and Collaborative Writing" by Janice Doane and Devon Hodges. the article is essentially a response to Christopher Lasch's publication The Culture of Narcissism, in which their work was included but used, as they put it "to provide Lasch with feminist whipping girls." Because of this, the tone of the article is very defensive. Nevertheless, it is interesting to hear these two writers detail their process as collaboraters as well as the impact that has had on the response and reaction to their work. Though it occasionally comes off as a "look at us, look at us!" expose, it is an interesting look at the perception of collaborative work and gender in the "feminized" field of composition theory.
LINK: http://www.jstor.org/stable/464246
LINK: http://www.jstor.org/stable/464246
Composing as a Woman
I think it's interesting to look at composition theory in terms of gender, as it seems to be one of the only fields I've researched so far in which women didn't have to "emerge." A fairly new area of study, composition theory came to be recently enough that there are female minds who are considered the "founders" or "experts" in the field, and for that reason, I think it presents an interesting case study from which to approach the question of gender.
Flynn's opening statement that composition studies is a "feminization" of conceptions of writing and the composition process ties in with an article I read on womens art. This article began by outlining the psychological differences between men and women and then traced these differences to their physical manifestations. One of the observations made by this author was the tendencies of males to focus on singular details, whereas females are much more inclined to look at the big picture. I believe that it is this tendency that led to study of writing to be limited to product versus process for so long. The technical "masculine" style of analysis also is evidenced in Carol Gilligan's views that Flynn ties in, the idea that men view morality in terms of competing rights and rules, whereas women see it in terms of conflicting responsibilities. The evolution of composition studies away from the technical nit-pickery to a more comprehensive study of why people write the way they do does then seem, to be a "feminization" of sorts, shifting focus from the concrete product to the abstract process, and illustrating the differences in the individual writer while doing so.
Flynn's opening statement that composition studies is a "feminization" of conceptions of writing and the composition process ties in with an article I read on womens art. This article began by outlining the psychological differences between men and women and then traced these differences to their physical manifestations. One of the observations made by this author was the tendencies of males to focus on singular details, whereas females are much more inclined to look at the big picture. I believe that it is this tendency that led to study of writing to be limited to product versus process for so long. The technical "masculine" style of analysis also is evidenced in Carol Gilligan's views that Flynn ties in, the idea that men view morality in terms of competing rights and rules, whereas women see it in terms of conflicting responsibilities. The evolution of composition studies away from the technical nit-pickery to a more comprehensive study of why people write the way they do does then seem, to be a "feminization" of sorts, shifting focus from the concrete product to the abstract process, and illustrating the differences in the individual writer while doing so.
Inventing the University
This is another article which starts out addressing the phenomena of students reaching for overly academic rhetoric in order to sound smarter than they are. It is an idea that continues to surface in the comp theory papers we are studying and what fascinates me is not the phenomena itself, but the belief system from which it seems to have arisen. We talk about writing as an art, but unlike other forms of art, there is very little credence given to raw talent in the field of writing. There are child prodigies who can play Mozart on their recorder based on hearing it, and visual artists who have risen to the top of their field with no formal training whatsoever. But unlike these other "less academic" forms of art, there seems to be no writing prodigies. There seems to be a level, a higher plane in which the walls are decorated with diplomas and other worthless pieces of paper, where these composition theorists exist. They write these articles on composition, addressing only those on their level, yet designed to "fix" the problems of the rest of us down here on earth. They write about students, but with a remarkable distance from the time when they themselves were students, producing "written Anguish" and substituting in five dollar words they found in the thesaurus. to tie in an idea of Shaugnessey's, why work so hard at "correcting the problem," when the source seems to be the academic atmosphere which fosters the desire to sound smarter than you are? Why not work to dissolve some of the stigma around academic writing, making it more accessible and less daunting to all involved. This would, inherently, ease the pressure on students to sound smart, and eliminate the deisre to use words one doesn't know.
Monday, April 5, 2010
Diving In: An Introduction to Basic Writing
Despite the fact that I thought this article kind of read like an overly academic treatment for a cliched, inspirational "teacher in the inner city" movie, it was refreshing to read a comp theory article that address the importance of the teachers attitude. As Shaughnessy outlines on the first page, teaching writing is one of the most time-consuming and interactive subjects, as it requires constant reading, writing, and feedback. For this reason, the attitudes and motivations of writing professors are just as important as those of his students, and the success of the interactions between the two determine exactly how much a student takes away from a "basic" writing class. I didn't really appreciate the occasional conceit of the author in addressing these students, but maybe it's just the television student in me that believes every basic writing class is a pool of potential and talent, all they need is the right young Hollywood star to inspire them.
Movie metaphors aside, the discussion of the first stage of teacher development reminded me of our discussion about students overreaching in their academic tones. Shaughnessy discusses this in her description of the "written Anguish" students churn out in the hopes of appeasing their teachers who are stuck in this first stage, but truly no one benefits. Even when a teacher has progressed to stage two, "converting the natives," they still are guilty of encouraging this behavior, offering large generic models to their students who, without a better understanding of composition, will still fall into their old habit of copying and overreaching academic tones.
The biggest thing that I took away from this article is that we need better training for our writing teachers. If teachers could begin the year or semester with a more open understanding of the limitations of their students and the strategies to best reach them, they could have more time to seriously help them improve their writing, rather than wasting it fretting about how bad it is, and how it will never get them into college. This, I suppose is Shaughnessy's point, though it's a little hard to glean through the conceit the author tries to push off on "basic writing teachers," but embraces happily at the slightly over the top call to arms at the end. Yes, the work is waiting for you. So stop writing articles that make me think of Michelle Pfeiffer rapping to a classroom full of Southern California and go teach.
Movie metaphors aside, the discussion of the first stage of teacher development reminded me of our discussion about students overreaching in their academic tones. Shaughnessy discusses this in her description of the "written Anguish" students churn out in the hopes of appeasing their teachers who are stuck in this first stage, but truly no one benefits. Even when a teacher has progressed to stage two, "converting the natives," they still are guilty of encouraging this behavior, offering large generic models to their students who, without a better understanding of composition, will still fall into their old habit of copying and overreaching academic tones.
The biggest thing that I took away from this article is that we need better training for our writing teachers. If teachers could begin the year or semester with a more open understanding of the limitations of their students and the strategies to best reach them, they could have more time to seriously help them improve their writing, rather than wasting it fretting about how bad it is, and how it will never get them into college. This, I suppose is Shaughnessy's point, though it's a little hard to glean through the conceit the author tries to push off on "basic writing teachers," but embraces happily at the slightly over the top call to arms at the end. Yes, the work is waiting for you. So stop writing articles that make me think of Michelle Pfeiffer rapping to a classroom full of Southern California and go teach.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
William Perry and Liberal Education
While I think Perry's developmental stages are valid, it disturbs me that he didn't feel the need to pinpoint what or when his development scheme describes, simply the three stages of intellectualism that all people pass through at one point or another. I find it slightly excessive, these theorists need to put things in neat little boxes. I would argue that Perry's stages of development could be reduced to something as simple as the evolution of selfishness as we grow up: when younger, we see things in terms of good and bad because we have not yet learned to be selfish, or the perks it brings. As we grow we become more selfish in nature, which eventually softens when we realize the importance of others worldviews. It's just simple growing up, but by forcing it into these "stages" that are unclear both in age and progression as well as application to teaching the process of writing. Bizzell argues that these stages could be used in order to help the instructor identify what level the writer is at, but wouldn't that also be clear through other components of the writing (sentence structure, word choice,etc)? Furthermore, I think there's something to be said for the subjective nature of each of these stages. Some people never progress very much past the world of valuative extremes, good v evil, and some people are incredibly selfish for all of their lives. While I think Perry's observations are interesting, without more detailed explanation or application, I struggle to see their validity.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Thoughts Paper
As I am attempting to narrow my focus for my final paper, most of my reading responses will be to topics relating to my area of interest in composition: specifically the idea of audience and how it is changing for fiction and non-fiction writers in a world that is becoming increasingly more “connected” and yet more isolated all at once. I think interesting comparisons could be drawn to Brandt’s essay “Remembering Reading, Remembering Writing” in regards to personal, nonacademic writing. I think a lot has changed in this realm of composition, especially the increase in popularity of online journals (where the idea of privacy is almost laughable) and the use of social networking sites like Facebook to express intensely personal thoughts.
Ong’s article on the audience as a fiction is also very interesting to me as I attempt to explore how the idea of an audience is changing. For example, who do the authors of online journals see as their audience? Do they see it as a truly personal medium, or is the allure in the faceless readers who can anonymously comment. To go past Ong’s argument, I think it can be contended that authors of online content can often not only fictionalize and frame their audience, they often have a hand in shaping them (with such a wide variety of reading material online, it seems that an online journal readership would be comprised mostly of people of similar demeanors, personalities, and problems), adding another dimension of isolation to the medium. Elbow’s ideas on “ignoring the audience” essentially non-applicable, in a format where you can get a personal response within minutes of typing the last word.
Another topic I think would be interesting to address (and the point I thought was most lacking from Bruffee’s article on collaborative learning) is the disparity in ideas of audience between introverted and extroverted writers. While composition theorists seem to want to overlook the minutia of character that can so drastically shape a composition style, I think it is crucial to address within the context of collaborative learning and writing. In Bruffee’s example, it seems almost ignorant to ignore the fact that there are people who simply prefer to work alone, and create better in isolation due to simply being more content than when they work with others. In the world of new media and social networking, it would seem logical that an introverted person would react far differently than an extrovert to these new forms of composition, which feature a vast potential audience of strangers and friends, as well as the potential for immediate feedback, criticism and/or praise. I would also be interested as to how personality type informs what kind of writing a person likes to do, it seems to me through my collegiate career that the people who have a propensity for journalism and nonfiction have strikingly different demeanors than those who compose sonnets or write short stories. I would think personality type, as well as style preference, would inform a lot about how a writer perceives his or her audience.
I don’t really take much stock in the articles which attempt to outline composition in a formulaic way, and I think most all of the research and surveying for my paper will have to be qualitative in nature. While articles like “Writing as a Mode of Learning” and serve as a good foundation for composition theory, the ideas I’m looking at deal with composition and learning on a realm that the authors of these articles couldn’t even imagine. Janet Emig would have had no way to forsee the phenomenon of Facebook, though it is interesting to imagine how the idea of status updates would have tied in with her “languaging processes.” The idea of revision, as outlined extensively in the article by Sommers is almost nonexistent in the world of digital composition, where you can tweet faster than you can spellcheck, and That said, articles like these provide the history of composition, while my paper will attempt to explain the differences in composition today, and potentially how the field will continue to move forward.
Ong’s article on the audience as a fiction is also very interesting to me as I attempt to explore how the idea of an audience is changing. For example, who do the authors of online journals see as their audience? Do they see it as a truly personal medium, or is the allure in the faceless readers who can anonymously comment. To go past Ong’s argument, I think it can be contended that authors of online content can often not only fictionalize and frame their audience, they often have a hand in shaping them (with such a wide variety of reading material online, it seems that an online journal readership would be comprised mostly of people of similar demeanors, personalities, and problems), adding another dimension of isolation to the medium. Elbow’s ideas on “ignoring the audience” essentially non-applicable, in a format where you can get a personal response within minutes of typing the last word.
Another topic I think would be interesting to address (and the point I thought was most lacking from Bruffee’s article on collaborative learning) is the disparity in ideas of audience between introverted and extroverted writers. While composition theorists seem to want to overlook the minutia of character that can so drastically shape a composition style, I think it is crucial to address within the context of collaborative learning and writing. In Bruffee’s example, it seems almost ignorant to ignore the fact that there are people who simply prefer to work alone, and create better in isolation due to simply being more content than when they work with others. In the world of new media and social networking, it would seem logical that an introverted person would react far differently than an extrovert to these new forms of composition, which feature a vast potential audience of strangers and friends, as well as the potential for immediate feedback, criticism and/or praise. I would also be interested as to how personality type informs what kind of writing a person likes to do, it seems to me through my collegiate career that the people who have a propensity for journalism and nonfiction have strikingly different demeanors than those who compose sonnets or write short stories. I would think personality type, as well as style preference, would inform a lot about how a writer perceives his or her audience.
I don’t really take much stock in the articles which attempt to outline composition in a formulaic way, and I think most all of the research and surveying for my paper will have to be qualitative in nature. While articles like “Writing as a Mode of Learning” and serve as a good foundation for composition theory, the ideas I’m looking at deal with composition and learning on a realm that the authors of these articles couldn’t even imagine. Janet Emig would have had no way to forsee the phenomenon of Facebook, though it is interesting to imagine how the idea of status updates would have tied in with her “languaging processes.” The idea of revision, as outlined extensively in the article by Sommers is almost nonexistent in the world of digital composition, where you can tweet faster than you can spellcheck, and That said, articles like these provide the history of composition, while my paper will attempt to explain the differences in composition today, and potentially how the field will continue to move forward.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Ignoring Audience
While I think Elbow's theories about ignoring an audience are interesting, and the arguments make sense tome, I don't see ignoring one's audience as something that can feasibly accomplished. Unless you were raised as a recluse, sheltered from society, you always have some concept of what a potential audience for your writing must be, our self-consciousness comes from inadequacies we perceive when comparing ourselves with those around us, and self-consciousness in writing is no different. Even when we strive to emulate a style of writing, we do that because it has proven popular, found itself a niche audience that we too wish to play into. Conversely, even in the so called "desert island" writing exercise, the writer is conscious of the audience that is NOT there, and forms their words accordingly. So there is always some sense of audience, I don't believe it is possible to ignore it completely.
While it's true that we don't always have to write FOR our audience (that is, keep them in the front of our minds while composing and write for them to read), I still think it is true that all writing is conscious of it's audience or a potential audience, as the author is always a member of a society that is to this day putting increasing emphasis on perception by others.
While it's true that we don't always have to write FOR our audience (that is, keep them in the front of our minds while composing and write for them to read), I still think it is true that all writing is conscious of it's audience or a potential audience, as the author is always a member of a society that is to this day putting increasing emphasis on perception by others.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Writing as a Process of Valuing
I think the idea of value at it is first introduced plays heavily on the selfish nature of human beings. Meaning is constructed upon how much value the words have to the audience, though I would argue that the characteristics of the boy in the second scenario are not things that we outgrow. Deep down, we all still want people to desire the same things we do, making it that much to attain. Along with the example of the photos of grandchildren are thousands of others: spilling personal detail on social networking sites, calling into talk radio, most reality television. The words never have as much meaning for your audience as they do for the speaker, yet human beings continue these public displays of emotional information in order to get attention. However, I do think our perception and reaction to our audience changes over time, as the examples show, as we grow in our writing, we advance in commiserating with our audiences and appealing to their value systems.
I agree with the assessment that making meaning is an act of valuing, and the examples given made me consider just how much conflict there is in the word because of ignorance to others values. From something as small as Jeanne's argument against those who denounce homemakers, to something as large as the Israeli-Palenstinian conflict, the value is so often placed in the words used in argument. This is problematic as the statements from one side have little meaning to the other because their value systems are so drastically different. A problem worth addressing, though it often seems unsolvable.
I agree with the assessment that making meaning is an act of valuing, and the examples given made me consider just how much conflict there is in the word because of ignorance to others values. From something as small as Jeanne's argument against those who denounce homemakers, to something as large as the Israeli-Palenstinian conflict, the value is so often placed in the words used in argument. This is problematic as the statements from one side have little meaning to the other because their value systems are so drastically different. A problem worth addressing, though it often seems unsolvable.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Collaborative Learning
It did not surprise me that this article was published more recently than most of the others we have read. While some of the ideas are relevant to the theories we have read before (language as a means of learning, etc.), this idea of "collaborative" learning is something that seemed to pop up in the eighties and has been a buzz word ever since. With new technology continuing to develop, this idea of collaboration has become more and more popular, but I'm not as optimistic about it's superpowers as Bruffee seems to be, and I have disagreements with his claims that the only way to learn how to think is through communication with others.
I guess my biggest issue with the article is how Bruffee sings the praises of collaborative learning without addressing any of the negative aspects. He mentions them at the very end: "conformity, anti-intellectualism, intimidation, and leveling down of quality," but his ideas about collaboration offer no real tools to combat these problems, what I see as very realistic problems anytime collaborative thinking is encouraged, especially among students of disparate style concerns and motivation levels. As a kid who went to public school for all but two years, I had little interest is any kind of collaborative work until I got to college and was able to work with people who were all focused on more or less the same thing I was. While I think encouraging discussion among students to further their general knowledge is a good idea, I don't quite believe collaborative learning to be the missing link in developing writers Bruffee makes it out to be.
I guess my biggest issue with the article is how Bruffee sings the praises of collaborative learning without addressing any of the negative aspects. He mentions them at the very end: "conformity, anti-intellectualism, intimidation, and leveling down of quality," but his ideas about collaboration offer no real tools to combat these problems, what I see as very realistic problems anytime collaborative thinking is encouraged, especially among students of disparate style concerns and motivation levels. As a kid who went to public school for all but two years, I had little interest is any kind of collaborative work until I got to college and was able to work with people who were all focused on more or less the same thing I was. While I think encouraging discussion among students to further their general knowledge is a good idea, I don't quite believe collaborative learning to be the missing link in developing writers Bruffee makes it out to be.
Monday, March 8, 2010
Cognitive Development and the Basic Writer
Yet another example of these authors trying to qualitatively lump writers into categories. We've read about skilled/unskilled, experienced/inexperienced, and now we see perhaps the most generic of them all: "basic." I sometimes have a hard time figuring out exactly what unskilled, inexperienced, and basic mean in the context that these writers use them, and the best I can come up with is that the authors intend with these words to say "uneducated" without posturing themselves as "educated," meant to mean "better." "It's the people who aren't us," they illustrate through rambling sentences, charts and footnotes. "We know how to write right." Well, good for them.
Diatribe aside, this article is most obviously related to Emig's "Writing as a Mode of Learning," in fact it references the essay as it's introduction. However, this article seems more intent on how writers learn the specific rules and nuances of language as they write. I enjoy the Ryle quote on learning "how" versus learning "that" and I think that idea summarizes what most of the authors seem to be trying to explicate. I thought the examples were interesting, but they seemed to be very rigid in their rules, if all of her exercises are this way, I would imagine most of her students essay come out sounding exactly the same, how could they not. I don't think writing is as exact as she'd like it to be, for example, in the pattern sentence exercise, I could come up with at least two viable examples for each group of words, yet there seems to be one correct answer she was looking for. What does this say to the writers who come up with some slightly different, but equally coherent and correct? Is their process defective? Should we change them so that next time, they come up with the same formulaic answer demanded by "proper" writing? I don't think so.
Diatribe aside, this article is most obviously related to Emig's "Writing as a Mode of Learning," in fact it references the essay as it's introduction. However, this article seems more intent on how writers learn the specific rules and nuances of language as they write. I enjoy the Ryle quote on learning "how" versus learning "that" and I think that idea summarizes what most of the authors seem to be trying to explicate. I thought the examples were interesting, but they seemed to be very rigid in their rules, if all of her exercises are this way, I would imagine most of her students essay come out sounding exactly the same, how could they not. I don't think writing is as exact as she'd like it to be, for example, in the pattern sentence exercise, I could come up with at least two viable examples for each group of words, yet there seems to be one correct answer she was looking for. What does this say to the writers who come up with some slightly different, but equally coherent and correct? Is their process defective? Should we change them so that next time, they come up with the same formulaic answer demanded by "proper" writing? I don't think so.
A Cognitive Process Theory of Writing
Like some of the other articles we have read, this one attempts to break the practice of writing down into steps, explaining the physical and cognitive processes a writer goes through in order to create a work. However, I liked this article slightly better, if only for the grants it makes towards individual process and creativity. "The problem with stage descriptions of writing," the author states, "is that they model the growth of the written product, not the inner process of the person creating it." My process is different for almost every single type of writing, and I assume this must be true for many other writers as well. Why the great minds in the comp theory field seem so obsessed with dissecting and investigating the intangible workings and processes of the inner mind, I'll never know, but it just seems so futile to me.
I think what this article does really well is further illustrate the cognitive processes that go into writing, expanding and explicating on some of the topics Emig touched on when she wrote of writing as a means of learning. The steps of planning, translating, reviewing, etc., explained in such detail, show how a writer learns through the process of composing a paper,and makes corrections as such as they go. These thoughts on revision, or "regeneration" as Flower and Hayes put it, also tie in nicely with the article of revising process.
I think what this article does really well is further illustrate the cognitive processes that go into writing, expanding and explicating on some of the topics Emig touched on when she wrote of writing as a means of learning. The steps of planning, translating, reviewing, etc., explained in such detail, show how a writer learns through the process of composing a paper,and makes corrections as such as they go. These thoughts on revision, or "regeneration" as Flower and Hayes put it, also tie in nicely with the article of revising process.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Audience as a Fiction
I think the ideal of the fictionalized audience is what makes writing such a unique form of art and communication. The idea of communicating without feedback, of needing to create characters and the world they live in as well as the lens they are viewed through adds an extra dimension of creative complication to the process of writing. I think this will be one of the most important practices to be maintained as the field of composition continues to develop, especially as technology and society continue to advance. I think our generation has begun to develop a skewed perception of what audience is, as people who thanks to the internet have an audience 24/7. I agree with parts of what the author discusses, but wonder how it will come to change as the idea of literacy does.
Revision Strategies
This is another article that attempts to quantify the practice of writing, something I'm still not sure if I'm comfortable with or not. For example, have studies been done on painters, analyzing the size and directionality of each individual brush stroke? If there have, they are probably taken as benign studies of habit, rather than the investigative agenda this article takes on.
Though the analysis of the different revision styles are interesting, I think the discrepancies between the two styles can be explained by one thing: purpose. Experienced writers in this case were defined as people who wrote professionally, for a living. The writing experience of the student writers on the other hand,was limited mostly to school assignments and related work. It is logical that two completely separate reasons for a practicing a skill would yield two completely different methods of doing it. Student writers are not writing for themselves, they are writing for the approval (and grade) givenby someone else. So they write what they think their audience wants to hear and revises likewise, to make things better. The professional, on the other hand, has developed a more personal relationship with writing, writing is beneficial to them, and so they are inclined to explore it further and revise in much the same way, to deepen and solidify their thoughts so as to best express it.
Though the analysis of the different revision styles are interesting, I think the discrepancies between the two styles can be explained by one thing: purpose. Experienced writers in this case were defined as people who wrote professionally, for a living. The writing experience of the student writers on the other hand,was limited mostly to school assignments and related work. It is logical that two completely separate reasons for a practicing a skill would yield two completely different methods of doing it. Student writers are not writing for themselves, they are writing for the approval (and grade) givenby someone else. So they write what they think their audience wants to hear and revises likewise, to make things better. The professional, on the other hand, has developed a more personal relationship with writing, writing is beneficial to them, and so they are inclined to explore it further and revise in much the same way, to deepen and solidify their thoughts so as to best express it.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Literacy Autobiography
Book-Shaped Present
When I think of books, I think of Christmas. My immediate family is full of avid readers, myself included. It is almost an inevitability in my family that a good number of the presents under the tree on Christmas morning will be books. The inevitability that follows is what we call the “Great Christmas Freeze-out.” After opening their presents, the book readers retreat to quiet nooks and corners to break into their new treasures. It only recently occurred to me that most families probably spend a lot more time talking to each other on Christmas Day than we do.
I don’t have a distinct memory of learning to read, perhaps because I began reading around the same time kids begin developing long-term memories. To me, reading was just something I did, and in my family, something most people did. My maternal grandparents were both published writers who wrote for the fishing and hunting industries most of their professional lives, and the three things I remember their house being full of was guns, rods, and books. I think this is the reason my father, a born and bred Lancaster County boy, was able to get along so well with my mothers family. He didn’t have much in common with them (especially the guns and the rods), but he had the books. They loved to talk literature and my grandmother loved never having to agonize over a present for my dad come Christmas time.
I don’t think I truly appreciated this attitude towards literacy in my house until I went to college. Announcing my intention to declare a writing minor was met with praise, rather than the disdain I can imagine and have heard tales of in other families. In my family there was no question that skill at writing was not only valuable, but viable as a career path.
Dewey Decimal
My first memory of the library is of going to a “bedtime story” club at the small neighborhood library down the block from our first house. A group of neighborhood children and their parents met up in the basement of the little library to hear a bedtime story, the kids all decked out in their jammies. Most of us lived so locally that we walked to the library for the club, a parade down Broad Street of parents and their children all dressed for bed. I think maybe that was weird now, though I guess it wasn’t at the time.
When the library down the street closed down, my dad started taking me to the large public library in Lancaster city. I remember thinking it was a palace of a place with great marble steps and three giant floors filled with books. The children’s section upstairs was where I started, but I have stronger memories from this place in my high school years, coming here for hours to do research for term papers on subjects from John Berryman to A Streetcar Named Desire (I suppose I had a penchant for the dramatic as well as symbolism, apparently). I remember walking the long stacks of reference books, and shuddering when my call number directed me to the basement, with its newspapers on rods and homeless guys napping. But I loved it, the safety and anonymity of the stacks of books. You could disappear for hours and no one would know, no one would even stumble upon you.
To this day I find comfort in the peace and quiet of the library. A year or so ago, I was home on break, driving around aimlessly and having a particularly existential moment. I began to panic, about my life, about my major, about having just two years left to decide my life’s trajectory. I found myself in the Mountville Library, the one my mom used to bring my brother and I to every week, the two of us always entering and leaving with stacks of books piled up in our arms. The same library where I worked my way from kids stories to young adult fiction to real fiction when I started to find the young adults petty and predictable. I grabbed a seat at a table and just took it in for a moment. Then I read A Tree Grows In Brooklyn for the umpteenth time and walked out feeling immensely better about my situation.
The Letter “r” Does NOT Look Like That
To this day, when in conversation my friends and I stumble upon the topic of handwriting, two subjects inevitably come up: elementary school and the SAT’s. Drastically different times in a scholar’s life, linked only by the fact that they were the only exposure we’d ever have to cursive handwriting. Handwriting samples in elementary school were the bane of my existence, the copying of script and getting it sent back from the mysterious grading center with commendation being one particularly frustrating thing I couldn’t master no matter how hard I tried. No matter how painstakingly long I took to form my letters, my samples never came back. I tried with a vengeance for a few weeks, before realizing that it was probably never going to happen for me. I held the pencil wrong, the teacher said. And she was right, but for the first time, I couldn’t bring myself to care enough to change it. Despite teachers’ warnings and special pencil grips my mother bought, to this day my hand still cramps from having two fingers wrapped around the pencil rather than three placed gracefully, holding it comfortably.
Being forced to produce these samples at the same time personal computer technology began making them obsolete lent a special kind of futility to the exercises. However the effect of this is one we didn’t realize until ten years later when we had to write a sentence, ONE SENTENCE, in cursive. For most of us, it took the whole time block, and more than the shaded block of allotted space on the answer grid to finish our sentence, an ungraded proclamation that we would not cheat on the exam. To this day, we half-joke that it was the hardest part of the test. Who knew we were practicing, all those years ago?
Living Fiction
Like most kids in general and writers in particular, I kept a notebook/journal of sorts as a kid. However, my journal was not a “Dear Diary” type of deal, it was a place for intensely personal thoughts, including itemized lists of my current crushes:
1. Andy T- nice smile, made me mix CD
2. Bryan B- London Calling t-shirt
3. Marcus N- snack bar, free drinks?
However, most of my journal entries took the form of fiction. Even when I was writing about something intensely personal, it was happening to someone else, in some alternate, but completely identical universe. I wrote short stories about school dances, dramatic scenes about failed relationships, there was even a distinct protagonist in my emo high-school poetry. I’m sure a shrink would have something to say about this, but I’m not sure I care to know what it is.
I remember the first story I ever wrote. It was inspired by a particularly tumultuous event in the life of an elementary school student: the loss of a best friend. Now, this was almost on a yearly basis at that age, the title of “best friend” generally being someone who fulfilled three categories:
1. Was in the same class (our school had eight third grades, proximity was essential)
2. Shared the same interests (including but not limited to: foods in the cafeteria, class subjects, boy bands, sports/games, fictional characters)
3. Would totally never, ever talk to your worst enemy
The amount of kids in our school assured that different people would fulfill these qualities each year, and so it seemed inevitable that best friends would change. However, at the beginning of my fourth grade year, I was feeling particularly scorned. My best friend from third grade was not only in a separate class, but a whole other hall, and by the looks of it at the first recess of the year, a new and improved group of friends. My insecurity over this, as well as an unfortunate looking pair of glasses I had acquired over the summer, made me spiteful and vindictive, and I spent he whole recess talking with my new best friend about how stupid her perm looked. That night, I took to my journal with a vengeance, crafting a fictional tale of “former best friends pitted against each other.” The story featured the girls combating each other with pranks and trickery, only to reconcile with each other and themselves at the end. The tale of “Four Eyes and Fuzzhead” will always live with me, both as my first story, and my first foray into using writing to create a more desirable reality.
Fiction and Reality
This penchant for fictitious worlds followed me even to my chosen major and (hopeful) career path film and television writing. The first screenplay I ever wrote was a story of a “popular” girl who gets cancer, making her feel guilty and have to make up for terrible way she’s treated others (only to wake up and realize the whole thing was just a dream). The main character in the script was a variation on mean girls I knew, and most of the supporting characters were based on people I knew, including myself. To this day I flinch when professors criticize my characters, knowing that there’s a part of me or my friends and family in almost all of them.
I’ve always been curious where this propensity for fiction comes from. I wonder if, in studying the background and literary roots of authors today, a common link could be found between those who choose fiction over non-fiction. Surely, there are some people who are inclined to be writers and some who are not, but I wonder if there exists an inclination for the type of writing these people feel compelled to do. Perhaps the kids who find comfort in fictional worlds of reading in their youth are the ones who grow up and strive to make similar utopias for new generations of readers. Maybe fiction writers are the most elaborate escapists. Or maybe it’s just in my blood.
When I think of books, I think of Christmas. My immediate family is full of avid readers, myself included. It is almost an inevitability in my family that a good number of the presents under the tree on Christmas morning will be books. The inevitability that follows is what we call the “Great Christmas Freeze-out.” After opening their presents, the book readers retreat to quiet nooks and corners to break into their new treasures. It only recently occurred to me that most families probably spend a lot more time talking to each other on Christmas Day than we do.
I don’t have a distinct memory of learning to read, perhaps because I began reading around the same time kids begin developing long-term memories. To me, reading was just something I did, and in my family, something most people did. My maternal grandparents were both published writers who wrote for the fishing and hunting industries most of their professional lives, and the three things I remember their house being full of was guns, rods, and books. I think this is the reason my father, a born and bred Lancaster County boy, was able to get along so well with my mothers family. He didn’t have much in common with them (especially the guns and the rods), but he had the books. They loved to talk literature and my grandmother loved never having to agonize over a present for my dad come Christmas time.
I don’t think I truly appreciated this attitude towards literacy in my house until I went to college. Announcing my intention to declare a writing minor was met with praise, rather than the disdain I can imagine and have heard tales of in other families. In my family there was no question that skill at writing was not only valuable, but viable as a career path.
Dewey Decimal
My first memory of the library is of going to a “bedtime story” club at the small neighborhood library down the block from our first house. A group of neighborhood children and their parents met up in the basement of the little library to hear a bedtime story, the kids all decked out in their jammies. Most of us lived so locally that we walked to the library for the club, a parade down Broad Street of parents and their children all dressed for bed. I think maybe that was weird now, though I guess it wasn’t at the time.
When the library down the street closed down, my dad started taking me to the large public library in Lancaster city. I remember thinking it was a palace of a place with great marble steps and three giant floors filled with books. The children’s section upstairs was where I started, but I have stronger memories from this place in my high school years, coming here for hours to do research for term papers on subjects from John Berryman to A Streetcar Named Desire (I suppose I had a penchant for the dramatic as well as symbolism, apparently). I remember walking the long stacks of reference books, and shuddering when my call number directed me to the basement, with its newspapers on rods and homeless guys napping. But I loved it, the safety and anonymity of the stacks of books. You could disappear for hours and no one would know, no one would even stumble upon you.
To this day I find comfort in the peace and quiet of the library. A year or so ago, I was home on break, driving around aimlessly and having a particularly existential moment. I began to panic, about my life, about my major, about having just two years left to decide my life’s trajectory. I found myself in the Mountville Library, the one my mom used to bring my brother and I to every week, the two of us always entering and leaving with stacks of books piled up in our arms. The same library where I worked my way from kids stories to young adult fiction to real fiction when I started to find the young adults petty and predictable. I grabbed a seat at a table and just took it in for a moment. Then I read A Tree Grows In Brooklyn for the umpteenth time and walked out feeling immensely better about my situation.
The Letter “r” Does NOT Look Like That
To this day, when in conversation my friends and I stumble upon the topic of handwriting, two subjects inevitably come up: elementary school and the SAT’s. Drastically different times in a scholar’s life, linked only by the fact that they were the only exposure we’d ever have to cursive handwriting. Handwriting samples in elementary school were the bane of my existence, the copying of script and getting it sent back from the mysterious grading center with commendation being one particularly frustrating thing I couldn’t master no matter how hard I tried. No matter how painstakingly long I took to form my letters, my samples never came back. I tried with a vengeance for a few weeks, before realizing that it was probably never going to happen for me. I held the pencil wrong, the teacher said. And she was right, but for the first time, I couldn’t bring myself to care enough to change it. Despite teachers’ warnings and special pencil grips my mother bought, to this day my hand still cramps from having two fingers wrapped around the pencil rather than three placed gracefully, holding it comfortably.
Being forced to produce these samples at the same time personal computer technology began making them obsolete lent a special kind of futility to the exercises. However the effect of this is one we didn’t realize until ten years later when we had to write a sentence, ONE SENTENCE, in cursive. For most of us, it took the whole time block, and more than the shaded block of allotted space on the answer grid to finish our sentence, an ungraded proclamation that we would not cheat on the exam. To this day, we half-joke that it was the hardest part of the test. Who knew we were practicing, all those years ago?
Living Fiction
Like most kids in general and writers in particular, I kept a notebook/journal of sorts as a kid. However, my journal was not a “Dear Diary” type of deal, it was a place for intensely personal thoughts, including itemized lists of my current crushes:
1. Andy T- nice smile, made me mix CD
2. Bryan B- London Calling t-shirt
3. Marcus N- snack bar, free drinks?
However, most of my journal entries took the form of fiction. Even when I was writing about something intensely personal, it was happening to someone else, in some alternate, but completely identical universe. I wrote short stories about school dances, dramatic scenes about failed relationships, there was even a distinct protagonist in my emo high-school poetry. I’m sure a shrink would have something to say about this, but I’m not sure I care to know what it is.
I remember the first story I ever wrote. It was inspired by a particularly tumultuous event in the life of an elementary school student: the loss of a best friend. Now, this was almost on a yearly basis at that age, the title of “best friend” generally being someone who fulfilled three categories:
1. Was in the same class (our school had eight third grades, proximity was essential)
2. Shared the same interests (including but not limited to: foods in the cafeteria, class subjects, boy bands, sports/games, fictional characters)
3. Would totally never, ever talk to your worst enemy
The amount of kids in our school assured that different people would fulfill these qualities each year, and so it seemed inevitable that best friends would change. However, at the beginning of my fourth grade year, I was feeling particularly scorned. My best friend from third grade was not only in a separate class, but a whole other hall, and by the looks of it at the first recess of the year, a new and improved group of friends. My insecurity over this, as well as an unfortunate looking pair of glasses I had acquired over the summer, made me spiteful and vindictive, and I spent he whole recess talking with my new best friend about how stupid her perm looked. That night, I took to my journal with a vengeance, crafting a fictional tale of “former best friends pitted against each other.” The story featured the girls combating each other with pranks and trickery, only to reconcile with each other and themselves at the end. The tale of “Four Eyes and Fuzzhead” will always live with me, both as my first story, and my first foray into using writing to create a more desirable reality.
Fiction and Reality
This penchant for fictitious worlds followed me even to my chosen major and (hopeful) career path film and television writing. The first screenplay I ever wrote was a story of a “popular” girl who gets cancer, making her feel guilty and have to make up for terrible way she’s treated others (only to wake up and realize the whole thing was just a dream). The main character in the script was a variation on mean girls I knew, and most of the supporting characters were based on people I knew, including myself. To this day I flinch when professors criticize my characters, knowing that there’s a part of me or my friends and family in almost all of them.
I’ve always been curious where this propensity for fiction comes from. I wonder if, in studying the background and literary roots of authors today, a common link could be found between those who choose fiction over non-fiction. Surely, there are some people who are inclined to be writers and some who are not, but I wonder if there exists an inclination for the type of writing these people feel compelled to do. Perhaps the kids who find comfort in fictional worlds of reading in their youth are the ones who grow up and strive to make similar utopias for new generations of readers. Maybe fiction writers are the most elaborate escapists. Or maybe it’s just in my blood.
Monday, February 15, 2010
"Unskilled" Writers
What struck me most about this article was the way in which the author talked about the "unskilled" writers in this study. I think too often we think of skill writing and composing in the same way as reading, where there is a clear cut way to tell whether you are doing it right or wrong.However, I think composing words should be thought of in a more artistic way, like composing music. Sure, maybe it isn't how you'd do it, and maybe it doesn't sound great, but that doesn't make it any less of a composition. I have a real problem with trying to quantify and study the process of writing, as the process and product is unique to each individual.
One of the most fascinating observations about the writers in this study to me was the disconnect between speech and writing. Tony, the subject who was singled out, had a practice of "reading in" proper words and punctuation, but could not physically see where they were wrong on the page. I suppose this is one of the greatest struggles for those who learn how to write later in life, the ability to know what you mean, but the inability to put it on paper.
One of the most fascinating observations about the writers in this study to me was the disconnect between speech and writing. Tony, the subject who was singled out, had a practice of "reading in" proper words and punctuation, but could not physically see where they were wrong on the page. I suppose this is one of the greatest struggles for those who learn how to write later in life, the ability to know what you mean, but the inability to put it on paper.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Writing as a Mode of Learning
What I understood of this article, I thought was very interesting. I find it fascinating that, of the four "languaging processes" that she discusses, writing is the only one in which the individual is charged with creating physical meaning. The significance of this is not to be overlooked, and it is precisely why being a good reader does not automatically make you a good writer (in the same way being a good listener does not make you a good talker--and vice versa). I also liked the analysis of both left and right brain action and the idea that writing is one of the original processes that uses both hemispheres.
However, though I agree with the argument of writing as a mode of learning, I am hard pressed to think of something I learned through writing. I think the typical educational mindset is that reading is for learning, and writing is for regurgitating, grading, and ranking. Along those lines, if the last article is also to be taken into account, if most students aren't even writing in the correct way, how are they expected to learn anything from it? I suppose it is a less concrete idea than I am making it out to be, however, I would appreciated a little more explanation on practical application from the author,
However, though I agree with the argument of writing as a mode of learning, I am hard pressed to think of something I learned through writing. I think the typical educational mindset is that reading is for learning, and writing is for regurgitating, grading, and ranking. Along those lines, if the last article is also to be taken into account, if most students aren't even writing in the correct way, how are they expected to learn anything from it? I suppose it is a less concrete idea than I am making it out to be, however, I would appreciated a little more explanation on practical application from the author,
Process, Not Product
This article really emphasized what I agree to be some of the largest flaws with the way students are taught to write in schools today. From my own experience, I felt my school did a poor job emphasizing the connection (and disconnect) between good literature and good writing. In our English classes, we read the classes, by authors revered as some of the greats. Yet we picked these works apart for structure, symbolism, and semantics so much that by the end, they hardly resembled a composition. Expected to produce essays in nearly all of our classes, we stumbled to piece back together that which we had deconstructed and the results were usually messes of attempted profundity and garbled logic. As we advanced through the grades, we got better at faking it, better at producing what was expected. But I don't truly believe we became better writers.
The sad part of this essay to me is the near impossibility of implementing any of his suggested "implications." In a school system that is heavily grade-centric, letting students write about whatever they want, take however long they need, and take however long they need to complete the assignment is laughable. There needs to be some way to quantify students, to rank them, especially in schools where the numbers shoot high into the triple digits, teaching writing the way he suggests is a wonderful dream, but not one I see coming true.
The sad part of this essay to me is the near impossibility of implementing any of his suggested "implications." In a school system that is heavily grade-centric, letting students write about whatever they want, take however long they need, and take however long they need to complete the assignment is laughable. There needs to be some way to quantify students, to rank them, especially in schools where the numbers shoot high into the triple digits, teaching writing the way he suggests is a wonderful dream, but not one I see coming true.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Remembering Writing, Remembering Reading
Brandt's essay focuses on the progression of reading and writing through childhood and beyond. The basis of her arguments stem from some 400 interviews she conducted with a wide variety of people from a Wisconsin town I assume is meant to represent Anywhere, USA. I have a hard time remembering what might be my "first" writing experience, it seems to me that it has always just been something I did, some "natural extension of language," as Brandt puts it. But as I read, I attempted to recall some of my own writing experiences and the people and events that made me grow as a writer.
She speaks of the "ambiguity" of writing, the indifference with which some people treat it as a skill. I agree that some of the daily activities writing is required for seem mundane, but as a child, I don't ever remember thinking of writing that was something tedious but necessary. I suppose that has a lot to do with circumstance, my parents were both in professions that required extensive writing: my mother a newscaster and my father who graduated with a degree in English and has held a wide variety of jobs from teacher to web developer to marketing executive (all of which involving varying degrees of writing). My maternal grandparents were also both published authors, so it was always an environment where writing was encouraged and, when done well, praised.
As far as school-related writing goes, I assume my experiences are fairly typical: handwriting assignments, the dreaded five-paragraph essays (later, term papers) and projects, etc. However, it was academic writing that first lead me toward what would become my major and my passion: screenwriting. I remember in middle school, every student was required to enter the Pennsylvania Scholastic Writing Competition and submit a piece from any of a dozen or so categories. When we received the list of categories, most of my classmates went straight for the "short short essay" or poetry categories (300-600 words and 100 lines, respectively). However, my eye was drawn to what looked like the most daunting category (and, I remember, the one my teacher said she was sure none of us would attempt): Dramatic Script (50+ PAGES). The script, I remember, was awful, some sob story about a girl who got cancer and repented for her sorry ways, only to wake up and realize it was all a dream. It was a seventh-graders feeble attempt at being profound, but all that mattered tome was that it was a script. I had done it. And I could do it again.
I also remember another writing style from middle school and high school: the "note" (which I passed copious numbers of). It was a large school and once we started switching classes, sometimes you could go a full day without getting a chance to talk to your friends. Notes exchanged as we passed in the hall were the easiest (and most exclusive) way to communicate. In high school, my best friend and I even had a running notebook that we would write back and forth in and exchange. Prior to the text message being invented, notes like this were the easiest form of written communication between peers.
I do empathize with Brandt's conclusion that personal, nonacademic writing is intensely private in nature and hard to qualify because so few want to share. I did have journals as a kid, but used them mostly for "fiction" or sensationalized versions of what was happening in my own life. Fictional or not, they were still intensely private. To this day, I still get a gnawing feeling in my stomach when others read any of my writing, be it script, personal essay, or academic paper. I think these feelings stem from writing because of how terribly subjective it is; the idea that you could pour your heart and soul into a piece that you think is wonderful and someone else could see it as complete drivel is just a little too traumatic for writers to take. That's why, until you have some teacher or peer who tells you what you've written is brilliant, you want to keep it completely to yourself.
She speaks of the "ambiguity" of writing, the indifference with which some people treat it as a skill. I agree that some of the daily activities writing is required for seem mundane, but as a child, I don't ever remember thinking of writing that was something tedious but necessary. I suppose that has a lot to do with circumstance, my parents were both in professions that required extensive writing: my mother a newscaster and my father who graduated with a degree in English and has held a wide variety of jobs from teacher to web developer to marketing executive (all of which involving varying degrees of writing). My maternal grandparents were also both published authors, so it was always an environment where writing was encouraged and, when done well, praised.
As far as school-related writing goes, I assume my experiences are fairly typical: handwriting assignments, the dreaded five-paragraph essays (later, term papers) and projects, etc. However, it was academic writing that first lead me toward what would become my major and my passion: screenwriting. I remember in middle school, every student was required to enter the Pennsylvania Scholastic Writing Competition and submit a piece from any of a dozen or so categories. When we received the list of categories, most of my classmates went straight for the "short short essay" or poetry categories (300-600 words and 100 lines, respectively). However, my eye was drawn to what looked like the most daunting category (and, I remember, the one my teacher said she was sure none of us would attempt): Dramatic Script (50+ PAGES). The script, I remember, was awful, some sob story about a girl who got cancer and repented for her sorry ways, only to wake up and realize it was all a dream. It was a seventh-graders feeble attempt at being profound, but all that mattered tome was that it was a script. I had done it. And I could do it again.
I also remember another writing style from middle school and high school: the "note" (which I passed copious numbers of). It was a large school and once we started switching classes, sometimes you could go a full day without getting a chance to talk to your friends. Notes exchanged as we passed in the hall were the easiest (and most exclusive) way to communicate. In high school, my best friend and I even had a running notebook that we would write back and forth in and exchange. Prior to the text message being invented, notes like this were the easiest form of written communication between peers.
I do empathize with Brandt's conclusion that personal, nonacademic writing is intensely private in nature and hard to qualify because so few want to share. I did have journals as a kid, but used them mostly for "fiction" or sensationalized versions of what was happening in my own life. Fictional or not, they were still intensely private. To this day, I still get a gnawing feeling in my stomach when others read any of my writing, be it script, personal essay, or academic paper. I think these feelings stem from writing because of how terribly subjective it is; the idea that you could pour your heart and soul into a piece that you think is wonderful and someone else could see it as complete drivel is just a little too traumatic for writers to take. That's why, until you have some teacher or peer who tells you what you've written is brilliant, you want to keep it completely to yourself.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Complexion
Complexion discusses the Rodriguez’s experiences with discrimination due to race and more specifically, skin color. I find it interesting that the stigma relating to darkness of skin is almost polar opposite for Caucasians (where a tan complexion is desirable and a sign of wealth and leisure) than for most other ethnic groups (where the dark-skinned ones are thought of as lesser and are often shunned, ashamed).
While I cannot empathize with Rodriguez’s plight as a darker-skinned man, I can sympathize with the emotional repercussions of body image. He states that he “becomes divorced” from a body he is unhappy with. I think this is a common sentiment for children (or people, for that matter) who are upset with their own bodies. The disconnect from yourself, the knowledge that you might be “happy” in a sense, but you’re not happy with who you are, is a dichotomy of emotional turmoil.
Being raised in the heart of the Amish country didn’t bring me much in the way of cultural diversity, but unlike many people’s perceptions of more conservative, rural areas, I was raised to respect all races, religions, creeds, etc. One of the most hurtful things I’ve ever heard was a black girl on my hall freshman year telling me that she had just assumed I was racist, hearing where I was from. My parents were exceedingly tolerant people, and raised me to be one as well. However, I think being raised in such a homogenous area bestowed me with a latent kind of racism, just the unfamiliarity of certain kinds of people makes me curious, fascinated with types of people I’ve never encountered before. I suppose sometimes this over-interest could be construed in the wrong way, however, I am confident in myself and my belief that anyone who would take five minutes to get to know me would realize that my interest is harmless and hardly derogatory.
I find it fascinating that the remarks about his skin color that make the deepest mark on Rodriguez are not the slurs he hears on the street but the ones he hears at home as the women talk about their desire for light-skinned children. Statements like this make me believe that perhaps truly the worst form of racism is that which a group inflicts on itself. But is this true? Is this even racism then? Or should it be “allowed,” overlooked like the appropriation of the N-word in the black community or the tolerance-reversing appeal of Jersey Shore?
Monday, February 1, 2010
The Achievement Of Desire
The Achievement Of Desire describes Rodriguez's educational upbringing as a "scholarship boy," and the emotional toll that comes with playing such a role. He sees his educational success as coming with a heavy burden: the need to constantly be achieving and improving seemingly for the sole sake of continuing on as a scholarship boy, without deriving any real personal pleasure from academic success. He also describes the disconnect between his learning self and his home self, and begins to feel embarrassed and ashamed that his less-educated parents aren't more like the teachers he comes to revere.
I can identify with Rodriguez in some aspects of his intellectual experience, while I do feel there was a point where I surpassed my parents educationally, it was never something I was made to feel ashamed or guilty about. I revered my own teachers, insomuch as I had a burning desire to make them like me, which was part of the reason I strove to be such a good student, but that never detracted from my feelings of love and admiration for my parents. I think a large part of this is the cultural factor, there was nothing as evident as a language barrier to evidence that I had intellectually outgrown my parents, I never felt like my home life changed drastically because of my desire to learn, and I harbor no real nostalgia for my life before schooling.
However, I feel sorry for Rodriguez when he discusses his early experiences with reading. As a child I had some of the same compulsive tendencies when it came to reading “the right book” and would compile lists of books I thought I should read to be a more “well-educated” person. However, unlike young Richard, I hardly even made it through half of these lists. I was incapable of reading just for information, I had to become completely engrossed in a book. For me, reading was an experience to be lost in, to the point where you forget where you are, outside of the fictional world. If the characters, drama and plot weren’t holding my attention, it was onto the next book. I tried (and failed) three times to read Atlas Shrugged before realizing that perhaps some “classics” weren’t for everyone.
After reading this article and looking closer at my own relationship with my parents as well as those of my friends and relatives, I have to wonder what the ideal parent-child dynamic is in regards to education, or if one even exists. In a society that pushes us to always be better, smarter, and more successful than those who came before, it is only natural that there would be some educational disconnect between generations. I have witnessed many vastly different examples of this generation gap, and have yet to see one I would describe as “ideal,” making me wonder if there is such a thing, and if so, what it looks like.
I can identify with Rodriguez in some aspects of his intellectual experience, while I do feel there was a point where I surpassed my parents educationally, it was never something I was made to feel ashamed or guilty about. I revered my own teachers, insomuch as I had a burning desire to make them like me, which was part of the reason I strove to be such a good student, but that never detracted from my feelings of love and admiration for my parents. I think a large part of this is the cultural factor, there was nothing as evident as a language barrier to evidence that I had intellectually outgrown my parents, I never felt like my home life changed drastically because of my desire to learn, and I harbor no real nostalgia for my life before schooling.
However, I feel sorry for Rodriguez when he discusses his early experiences with reading. As a child I had some of the same compulsive tendencies when it came to reading “the right book” and would compile lists of books I thought I should read to be a more “well-educated” person. However, unlike young Richard, I hardly even made it through half of these lists. I was incapable of reading just for information, I had to become completely engrossed in a book. For me, reading was an experience to be lost in, to the point where you forget where you are, outside of the fictional world. If the characters, drama and plot weren’t holding my attention, it was onto the next book. I tried (and failed) three times to read Atlas Shrugged before realizing that perhaps some “classics” weren’t for everyone.
After reading this article and looking closer at my own relationship with my parents as well as those of my friends and relatives, I have to wonder what the ideal parent-child dynamic is in regards to education, or if one even exists. In a society that pushes us to always be better, smarter, and more successful than those who came before, it is only natural that there would be some educational disconnect between generations. I have witnessed many vastly different examples of this generation gap, and have yet to see one I would describe as “ideal,” making me wonder if there is such a thing, and if so, what it looks like.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
School
I don't have vivid memories of my first school experiences, to me they are just a jumble of vague recollections, people and faces, locations and events. My first day of school was atypical, my parents had decided to start me off at the only secular private school in the county, about a forty minute bus ride at the time. As I've gotten older, I realize that to some who were raised in much more rural areas, this may seem like nothing, but to a five year old who lives in the middle of suburbia, right down the street from the closest elementary school, it was needlessly and often worrysome, as I had to change buses in the middle of the trip.
I remember the first day I had to do the switch myself, I followed a friend I had just made onto her bus, as she insisted it was the right one. She was one of those kids that spoke with conviction, and I was one of those kids who listened to kids like that. As the bus pulled out of the catholic school parking lot, I knew we were going the wrong way, but for some reason kept my mouth shut. Who wants to argue with a new friend? After another switch and a few worried phone calls, I made it home eventually to a very worried mother, and learned a lesson that day about trusting my gut.
I hated the bus, but I loved school. There wasn't a part of it I didn't love. We had a split class of about forty or so kids, and for us, kindergarten was full day, meaning a full eight hours to play and learn in the Rainbow Room and the Sunshine Room (I can picture them clearly, I just can't remember which was which). As I got older, I think maybe I lost some of the continued joy I found in educataion, however, I never failed to get excited about the first day of school. Getting new supplies, new books, new pens, seeing everything all clean and ready to be scratched and dirtied up by another years work, it still excites me to this day. I think the only people who actually enjoy school and succeed in it are the ones who are excited by it, and I had a hard time seeing how you could not be excited.
My experiences in the world of private schooling would only last for the two years it took my parents to realize that the public system in the area we had moved to was better than the school I was attending, and they finally let me go. I remember thinking that the best thing about this was that my friends would now be people who lived close by, the notion of an after-school playdate was now not something that had to be planned weeks in advance. I could be like those kids in movies now, running down the street pounding on their friends door to come out and play before dinner.
I don't remember being nervous about switching schools, but I'm sure I was. Making new friends, meeting new teachers, the potential horrors of a new busing system, I remember seven year old me, and she would have been petrified by all of these things. So I'm sure I was nervous, but I was probably mostly just excited for another first day of school.
I remember the first day I had to do the switch myself, I followed a friend I had just made onto her bus, as she insisted it was the right one. She was one of those kids that spoke with conviction, and I was one of those kids who listened to kids like that. As the bus pulled out of the catholic school parking lot, I knew we were going the wrong way, but for some reason kept my mouth shut. Who wants to argue with a new friend? After another switch and a few worried phone calls, I made it home eventually to a very worried mother, and learned a lesson that day about trusting my gut.
I hated the bus, but I loved school. There wasn't a part of it I didn't love. We had a split class of about forty or so kids, and for us, kindergarten was full day, meaning a full eight hours to play and learn in the Rainbow Room and the Sunshine Room (I can picture them clearly, I just can't remember which was which). As I got older, I think maybe I lost some of the continued joy I found in educataion, however, I never failed to get excited about the first day of school. Getting new supplies, new books, new pens, seeing everything all clean and ready to be scratched and dirtied up by another years work, it still excites me to this day. I think the only people who actually enjoy school and succeed in it are the ones who are excited by it, and I had a hard time seeing how you could not be excited.
My experiences in the world of private schooling would only last for the two years it took my parents to realize that the public system in the area we had moved to was better than the school I was attending, and they finally let me go. I remember thinking that the best thing about this was that my friends would now be people who lived close by, the notion of an after-school playdate was now not something that had to be planned weeks in advance. I could be like those kids in movies now, running down the street pounding on their friends door to come out and play before dinner.
I don't remember being nervous about switching schools, but I'm sure I was. Making new friends, meeting new teachers, the potential horrors of a new busing system, I remember seven year old me, and she would have been petrified by all of these things. So I'm sure I was nervous, but I was probably mostly just excited for another first day of school.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
