Wicked Wiki and the Art of Arguments

First, let me just say that I am not computer illiterate. I've been teaching college online for quite a while now using Choices, Blackboard, Pearson CompLab, ANGEL, etc. Yet, for whatever reason, the wicked wiki of the west here kicks my butt every time. It's structure and dialogue is just so random and different than anything else, I can't figure it out. I hate it worse than black licorice. I'm told that the wiki is preferable to these other class hosting forms because it is less masculine and more democratic, but it seems to be to be pure anarchy. I just needed to share that.


Kastely's article was a keeper even if he does needlessly complicate and convolute Antigone a little bit to serve his points. Those points are so good, it's worth the ride. I could see myself in Kastely's description in my early days as a MA TA, teaching the arguments in perhaps an old-fashioned way. Maybe; maybe not. You figure out what you think. Then, you back it up with facts. Lastly, you try to convince your reader that you are correct. This would be the domination model Kastely talks about: "the assumption that one argued because the other party either was ignorant of the truth or lacked some information relevant for understanding the force of the present claim" and needed to be set straight.

I learned pretty quickly that this model is closed minded and doesn't take in to account the growth of the writer during the process. Also, it forgets the "otherness" in the context of a world larger than the mind of the writer. So, I began including a presentation in my argumentation process. A respectful session of listening with question and answer, which often includes arguments with both sides of the issue being presented adds to the writers' quality of arguments. Kastely mentions this: "When listening or attending to the other is crucial to argument, the goal of argument moves from justifying claims to discovering conversations that encourage two apparently contradictory projects." Lastly, although it doesn't seem like a part of the writing process, I insist that participants speak, ask, voice in class. If they don't, I call on them. I consider it integral to the argument process because if they don't speak, others cannot listen.

From Emig to Kastely

I was really interested in Janet Emig's article this week. She's been cited many times in one of my textbooks this semester, Writing Across The Curriculum: A Critical Sourcebook. The text provides a survey of Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) texts, and Emig's name is in most of them. I can see why. She makes some unique distinctions that set up the whole "Writing to Learn" and "Learning to write (in the disciplines)" movements that are the bread and butter for WAC/WID. For instance, she says, "Writing represents a unique mode of learning--not merely valuable, not merely special, but unique" (122). It's different from verbal language, particularly in that it is "more readily a form and source of learning than talking" (124). So, yes, talking is important. However, for learning, writing is very important too. My guess is that much of Emig's argument seems like a "D'oh" move, but in 1977, this was still fairly new. Somehow, educators didn't realize that writing was so important for learning. Now they do, and most of us in this class were raised in a culture that valued writing to learn--Emig was one of the ones that helped to make this happen! It's a pleasure to actually read her and see part of where this field of WAC came from. (And, as a bonus, she cites James Britton, the British educator who is often credited as being the founder of WAC in Britain).

As for the Kastely article, I can see where he's coming from. I agree that formalism can be too limiting and not really critically engage students as writers and thinkers. And, I agree that inquiry based writing is extremely important. However, I had some trouble reading through the parts on Antigone. I've never read it (yes, go ahead and gasp), and so it was hard to follow what Kastely was saying about the characters and the ways in which they subvert and question standard methods of argumentation. I kept wanting Kastely to talk more about Toulmin's methods of argumentation and the problems that arise from these methods (mostly because I was taught to teach Toulmin style argumentation in my first Composition Theory and Practice Class). I found it interesting that Kastely was presenting an alternative way. Maybe a way into this is to ask:

Can you think of any other texts, not just Antigone, that could have a similar result with our students? What else could we have them read that makes them question argumentation rather than just learn and present it?

guest speaker Antigone?

When I saw the title, I was totally excited to read the Kastely article on “Antigone.” Antigone! Yay, a way for me to legitimately introduce literature into my English 1000 class! Reading through the article, I was totally on board with the idea of “argument” being about discovering rather than confirming one’s opinions. This concept goes against my initial assumption of what argument is, but on thinking about it, I believe it’s much more intellectually and practically beneficial to consider argument as a way of working toward an opinion that has yet to be confirmed. And as Kastely points out, in “real life” it often isn’t helpful to have Winners or Losers in a debate, as in a highschool debate contest.

But I was confused by Kastely’s interest in “questioning the viability of argument.” I agree that it’s difficult for people to have real arguments (rather than “I’m right and you’re wrong” confrontations), but isn’t this a problem with human beings, and not an issue about argument itself?

And I’m forced to acknowledge that my students would not appreciate reading “Antigone” for the sake of the concepts outlined above. My students would rather have me present the concept of effective argumentation by itself, shorn of any literary models or associations. Ancient Greece is too far from their comfort zone, and it’s universes from their areas of interest.

Plague and Polemics

Reading over the two articles made me sort of conscious of something I have already been doing during my explanations of the exploratory essay to my students. I have been telling them that it is really a rather strange practice that is usually taught in high-school (and often into college as well): I speak of course about the notion of beginning a persuasive essay with a thesis statement.

The two articles have really reinforced what I have "discovered" from contemplating the exploratory format. Is it not really very bizarre to begin with the answer, then go looking for evidence to back up this answer, ignoring (or attempting to refute) all that gets in the way? Of course, as advanced students we don't really do this (hopefully). We understand that when we look at a text there are numerous ways of interpreting it and that we are really exploring one particular viewpoint. But I have noticed that this certainly isn't usually the case in my students.

I have had a bit of a time convincing them not to argue in the exploratory essay, to just keep an open mind and consider all sides of the argument. This is especially difficult with students who are writing about "sensitive" subjects. Still, I have told them to be open to the possibility that they are dead wrong and that they may realize that the other side isn't. It stands to reason that if there is an issue worth arguing over, and that has been argued over, that all the people on one side cannot simply be too stupid to understand.

I think that I have had some success in explaining it, but I note the reserve in their eyes and the uncertainty that I know lurks within their hearts. As our readings point out, we really do live within a society of polemics, of talk radio and vicious politics, in a nation evermore divided according to Left and Right. I think that the political divisions in this country have created an atmosphere inimical to civil discourse. In a number of controversial issues, each side has comfortably settled itself down to yelling across at the enemy. It is The Hundred Years' War all over again, only with insults rather than longbows.

Witty Title

Janet Emig’s article was particularly interesting to me. I have been telling my students that when they write they’re being forced to slow down and really think about what they’re doing, so they can consider where they’re coming from and where they’re going while they’re making sense of where they are. Emig puts it much better: “Writing … connects the three major tenses of our experience to make meaning.” How cool is that?

I thought Emig’s points about talking and writing were interesting as well. I am not much of a talker – I’m kind of shy, so I tend to stumble over my words, forget pertinent information, etc. when I speak – but I feel that most of my students would rather talk than write. As we discussed a bit during training before the semester started, I’ve been trying to figure out ways to make writing seem relevant to people who think differently from the way I do. This is why I try to lead discussions more than lecture, and I think this might fit in with Emig’s point about talking being a form of pre-writing. I hope it works that way for my students.

Still, as Emig points out, talking and writing are fundamentally different, and they require different mental activities to be successful. Each of what Emig calles “the four languaging processes of listening, talking, reading, and writing” are fundamental to the learning process, and I hope to include each in equal measure in my classes.

(I used the word “point” four times in ~250 words, and I don’t care.)

Taking Risks

Emig forced me to think: what do I really want my students to learn? Which then forced me to reconsider: where do I perpetually fail as a teacher from semester to semester? And here it is: I struggle to get students to acknowledge the value of intellectual risk-taking in writing. For the most part, from one semester to the next my students are pretty decent writers. The writing isn’t horrible, though it is far from exceptional. Just average. And my, they are content with mediocrity. Why should they see any value in writing when mediocrity is the pinnacle of their academic ethos? I must admit to being slightly annoyed by Emig (though perhaps unjustly so, and perhaps I’m interpreting her out of context) when she writes, “…most students are not permitted by most curricula to discover the values of composing, say, in dance, or even in film; and most students are not sophisticated enough to create, to originate formulations, using the highly abstruse symbol system of equations and formulae.”

While I’m prone to agree with the general sentiment of this statement (though the curriculum restriction claim is, I believe, historically dated), and while I see her point is to emphasize the accessibility of writing as opposed to other graphic symbol compositions, there is an across the board expression of doubt in student sophistication. Clearly, the argument has its merits. On the whole, I must admit to doubting them. I get cynical quickly. But, I’d like to have a little more faith in student sophistication. But how? How to foster that intellectual risk-taking in writing? And Robin Williams-style, Dead-Poets-Society-Inspirational-Crap doesn’t cut it.

While pondering this I was struck by the following paragraph: “…the right hemisphere [of the brain] seems to be the source of intuition, of sudden gestalts, of flashes of images, of abstractions as visual or spatial wholes, as the initiating metaphors of the creative process.” So, question: How do I teach my students to follow their writing intuition, to seize those sudden moments (Boice would be so upset)? And beyond that, not only how to teach the pursuit of intuition, but how to get my students to engage with the fickle nature of intuition—that there is a utility to failure, how to recognize lucky accidents, the need to push through discomfort, when not to trust intuition…

There is some kind of relationship here between following intuition and engaging in intellectual curiosity and risk-taking. I just don’t know what it is.

Writing: A Rollercoaster of Emotions

As I was reading the Emig piece for this week, I cannot say enough how much of a rollercoaster it was. Emig attempts to shed a more comprehensive light on writing and its relationship to learning, and, in the process, she also covers a lot of ground. Writing seems to be everywhere at once. Likewise, my reaction to what writing was varied drastically, from feeling alienated by writing’s artificiality (124) to exhausted by writing as the “fullest possible functioning of the brain (125) to appreciative by writing’s adaptability to the way and pace I learn best (126). By the end, I am not entirely sure I had fully comprehended all of Emig’s information, but, I believe, her basic argument still took hold in its effect.

In the article, Emig uniquely parses out the function of writing, enabling readers, like myself, to gain a greater appreciation for its diversified, yet malleable structure. I undoubtedly had a moment where I said to myself, “So this is why writing is so difficult! I must be crazy for trying to make a profession out of it.” However, with this same idea, I began to think about how extraordinarily difficult teaching writing was and is.

And, it is from this position that I want to respond to Emig’s article. While I took a lot away from Emig’s piece, I am still struggling with its practical application in the classroom. While, for Emig, activities of analysis and synthesis engage all “three major tenses of experience” (127), I am curious what other ways we can incorporate the lessons of this reading into class. Is it merely a matter of structuring our class, conference, and workshops to include more conversational elements, where speaking and hearing are engaged as much as writing? Or should the assignments themselves take on an element of the spoken and/or aural as a way of engaging our sense of pre-writing? Or, is it that we already do pieces of each, but we fail to places these lessons in conversation with the other, where the talking/hearing portion is followed up by a reading/writing activity?

Having said all of that, I am not entirely sure I have provided a complete response. Rather it seems as though I have raised more questions…but, here, is to hoping some of you might have an answer or two.

blerg

In teaching students to write at a college level, I try to stress that although college writing conforms to a certain structure and set of rules, they shouldn’t lose their unique voices in the process. I agree with most of what Emig has to say about writing, but drew different conclusions from some of her points. Yes, writing is an artificial process as compared to talking and I guess I can see that that makes writing into a kind of technological device, certainly one slower than talking. But I don’t think the natural next conclusion is that, “writing is stark, barren, even naked as a medium; talking is rich, luxuriant, inherently redundant.”

By separating writing from talking in such strict form, I think Emig wanders off course and starts to draw differences that don’t exist. Writing doesn’t, in fact, have to be a stark, barren medium. Good writing is often conversational and redundant the same way speech is. The dominant characteristics of an individual’s writing and talking are formed by that individual’s concepts of language. Anyone who has mastered speech and writing should, I think, see the two mirror one another. I

know that Emig is making an argument for the value of writing, so there’s really no reason for me to argue, but her concept of writing feels stiff, almost scientifically come by. Good writing, even good scholarly writing, to me should be more organic, less “technological”, just like good conversation.

A few days later: Reading through the other responses to Emig so far, I think I must have missed the point. Must slow down my reading. I love speech! Speech generates writing!

Speaking

I am really glad I read Emig's article this week as it's bringing up a point I was curious about, though in a kind of different way. I have something of the opposite problem with a student. He writes wonderfully and bring a lot of deep, logical and passionate arguments to his writing, and I can tell that he is well-read and puts a lot of planning into his writing (I've seen his brainstorming). However, he has a lot of problems with verbal communication. In a way, talking is not "natural" to him. From what I know of his background - working class, first generation, etc - I know that this might be partly why he has troubles doing things many take for granted, like making eye contact for one (as it could be seen, in a different context, as a challenge). BUT, because his writing is really beyond his peers I want to be able to use this class to not only refine his writing but also to get him to work on his verbal skills.

As Emig says, talking relies on the environment, and I think that might be what's holding him back. Though I don't mean to imply that a working class background means that education is not encouraged (because that is wrong and foolish to think), however I do wonder if being in a strange environment, along with his what appears to be innate shyness, surrounded by a different sort of people, might be squelching his verbal communication. Wow, this is really making it sound like I put way too much thought into my individual students. I swear I don't.

Well anyway, one of the ways I'm working on his (and everyone's) talking is by making them speak to one another during peer review, as per Rachel's model. It works wonders thus far. I'm giving them the option of doing a presentation which I sincerely hope he takes, and I have been planning some group discussion and argument workshops that I hope will inspire them all to talk more and work on how to verbally communicate and convince.

Talking: A Writing Tool

While I enjoyed Emig’s idea about how writing engages us on multiple levels forcing our “hand, eye, and brain” to work simultaneously and to stimulate both sides of the brain, I also especially felt inspired by the relationship of talking and writing (125).

Talking as a form of free-writing is something that I feel I have hinted to myself as a possibility but have never put into practice. I notice that when my students come to my office hours just to discuss their topic or thesis idea, their ability to synthesize and then communicate through writing what they want to say improves. I wonder how well incorporating this into the classroom would help their brainstorming process? I encourage my students to find the place and time that they like to write. I also teach free-writing, clustering and outlining, but I think that talking is what these students like best. I even feel that speech being their chosen form of communication is why they feel like they struggle with writing. I imagine an exercise where, much like peer review, students in groups of 2-3 talk out their ides or how they see their future paper coming together with their peers, who then write down what they hear the student saying. Upon receiving what their classmates hear them saying, their written revision might make more clarifications. It would be interesting to see how well students would respond to this exercise in action.

Too Tired to Think of a Title

How can I use the idea of brief, regular sessions in teaching practice? Boice seems to suggest pre-teaching brevity, not teaching brevity.

I’m wondering about silences in the classroom and their relation to the BRS. I think an inevitable (and necessary) product of brief teaching sessions (dividing the class period into segments) is that there should be a pause between transitions. I don’t mean pauses as in Boice’s previous discussion of waiting—I mean letting the silence linger. What’s wrong with silence in the classroom? My impulse is to rush through material. Sometimes I feel the urge to fill up every moment in class with sound. Either I need to be speaking, asking a question, or the students need to. But what about simmering in the silence? I think I need to employ more uncomfortable silences in the classroom as I transition from one brief session to another. It’s those moments of silent discomfort which promote reflection.

to be brief

In reading Chapters 3 and 11 of Boice’s book, I find I’ve already started to write in “brief, regular sessions,” surely because Donna must have mentioned the idea at some point during class. I know this isn’t something I came up with on my own! So far, I find the brief sessions to be a great way to relieve the stress associated with the constant assignments and projects that are always on my schedule. For instance, in the half-hour before my class started today, I corrected a stack of student quizzes. Normally I would have messed around checking email and doing I know not what, because I’ve felt (up to this time) that I needed an extra-long uninterrupted period set aside for work—I didn’t think I could get anything done in a half hour. Even though I can’t do a lot of work in thirty minutes, the little bits that I can accomplish help me feel that I have a bit less on my plate.

Side note: When training animals, I find that having many brief, consistent training sessions works better than having one long session. I’ve found this to be true with horses, cats, parrots, rats, and now also snakes. I think brief sessions must reduce stress, and stress inhibits learning…?

As for my teaching, how can I introduce the idea of “BRS” to my students? “Introduce” in the sense that I get them to actually do it, not just listen to me advise them to do it. “Cramming” is the classic student study method, after all. I know I’ve done enough of that in my time.

Just Wallowing (Not in Complexity)

Writers write. In the class I’m taking on Mark Twain, Professor Quirk pointed out that everything we know about Shakespeare could barely fill a single page, while what we know about Twain fills volumes upon volumes. Over his lifetime, Twain had twenty-eight separate book releases, this not including short story collections. He wrote thousands of letters, hundreds of speeches, published articles, kept journals. He wrote so frequently that actual volumes have been composed relating what Twain did every day of his life starting in his early twenties. This blows my mind.

My biggest problem since starting this program has been finding the time to get my own writing done. Between lesson plans, grading, and my own course work, it’s too easy to fill every day with getting through the week’s work load, neglecting what I came here for: creative non-fiction. It’s frustrating. As a creative writer, short writing periods don’t work for me. A lot of creative writing is discipline, but there’s also that intangible element of inspiration, and I have a hard time getting to the point of being inspired if I’m only working in short bursts. I appreciate planning classes in short bursts, doing research and its accompanying writing in short blocks, but I’ve never made much progress on a creative essay without devoting a significant time binge to it first.

Without wanting to, I’ve been employing this method of writing in small doses for the last few weeks, and what I’ve gotten so far is disjointed, uninspired work. Boice probably isn’t addressing creative writers in this chapter, but I wish he would! Give me some good news, Boice. Twain had a writing space built at a high altitude that most readers wouldn't be persistent enough to climb to. So if you see me perched with my laptop in some strange space next week--on top of the condemned refrigerator in the copy room, for instance--be happy for me. I might actually be getting some writing done!

Reflections on Boice: This was YOUR idea.

Boice provides a sentence in the opening of Ch 3 (which, if he wrote in a paper for my class he would receive some comments questioning this theory): “Society teaches us to work sporadically and, too often, in great binges and under looming deadlines” (39). When are we taught this? I don’t recall anyone ever telling me: procrastinate until you have four hours of free time, because that definitely exists somewhere in your week. It is frustrating that Boice assumes that all of his readers have amassed a collection of bad habits.

I do all of my lesson planning and most of my grading during my office hours. I set a timer every time I start grading and refuse to extend the boundaries of my “grading time.” As Boice states: your teaching prep should “not interfere with other important activities” (40). I refuse to let the stress in my life be my teaching. But then he goes on to suggest that we should spend time every week looking at research on teaching. Every week, Boice? WHO has time for this? I am glad to read these things as I come across them, or toward the beginning of the semester, but who has time to read articles every week on classroom management with lesson planning, teaching, grading, classes, homework/reading, our writing time, our own scholarly work + any semblance of a social life we are trying to scrape together. I am busy spending my few brief moments working on these things, which you suggested that I do!

I do however love his suggestion in Ch 10 to chart your progress. I have a hard time with the idea that even if you do have a “product” at the end of all of your writing, all of those little brief moments of note taking and prep aren’t in there—they seem to get no credit. You give yourself credit for the chunks, not for the little pieces. I think I’m going to try this for the semester.

Teaching with Constancy and Consistency

In many ways, I find these chapters on consistency, constancy and efficiency very useful. The art of creating and maintaining a routine within our writing and teaching practices is an ongoing challenge for graduate students and academics alike, both of whom must rearrange their daily schedules each semester. With this fact in mind combined with the seemingly insurmountable amount of work in graduate school, there really is never a moment to spare. Therefore, what becomes exceptionally important in these chapters is the tools in which Boice is trying to provide his reader. Using this idea of BRS, we can find a way to minimize the effect of semester-by-semester change and maximize what time is available to us.

Having said this, I am curious how I might better apply this theory to the classroom. I understand Boice’s point, in that he incorporates BRSs into the very structure of class. Rather than organizing the class around large, comprehensive topic, which can never be fully covered in class, he advocates for a model that breaks down this process and utilizes a recapping, or reflection, process.

Yet I am curious to know other ways that we can create constancy in the classroom, particularly in terms of class discussion and interest. Despite my meticulous planning, I find that I am still a very organic teacher. While my lesson plans help me to conceptualize where the class is going and what lessons I want to cover, I typically allow the students to have a larger role in the daily tone of the class. I undoubtedly have a precise idea of what I want to cover in the class, but I also want student to find these conclusions naturally. Therefore, I often let the topic at hand unfold and evolve naturally. This organic approach, I believe, benefits the students as it enables them to see connections from their own perspective, in that it follows their thought process rather than mine. And, generally speaking, it works. However, on occasion, it does give rise to the issue of consistence. A lesson that proves to be ‘hit’ with one class might fall short in another—or the lesson falls flat in both classes leading me to question the soundness of the lesson itself.

My question then becomes how do we parse out this issue. How do we know what the real issue is? I know Boice would suggest logging these experiences and looking to find patterns (which is a good idea that I will have to try out), but I was wondering what other advice people might have. Is there a way to assess and improve the constancy of our teaching?

Practicing the BRSs

This week in Boice, we read about Brief Regular Sessions (BRSs). I'll admit that when I read chapters 3 and 11 on Saturday morning, I nodded my head in agreement, thinking yes, yes, I already know and practice this; get to the interesting stuff. However, now it's Sunday, and I've been up since 10am (yes, I like to sleep in on Sundays) working. That's 7 hours of working. For the most part, a 7 hour block of work doesn't really feel like BRSs. It seems like I'm doing the mad-dash to the finish line. I'm curious, though, if it could count, so I'm going to explore my day, so far, to try and decide whether I'm practicing BRSs or not. Bear with me as I bare my terrible habits to the blogopshere:

10:00--Wake up, freshen up, make tea, make smoothie, sort laundry, throw in laundry, sit down in office with tea and a few of my sources for the exploratory essay. Read source 1 and take double entry notes.

10:45--Get up, change laundry, make another cup of tea, return to office. Read source 2 and take double entry notes.

11:15--Write intro and first section of exploratory essay, using double entry notes to help me construct my narrative.

12:00--Get up, change and fold laundry, make another cup of tea, return to office. Write second section of exploratory essay, using double entry notes to help me construct my narrative.

12:45--Get up, begin to cook lunch, read for my English 8040 seminar while I cook, change laundry and fold, continue cooking, continue reading while cooking

2:00--Eat, chat about what I was reading with Max, brainstorm/chat ideas for my blog post for English 8040 seminar, change and fold laundry

2:45--Return to office, finish reading for English 8040 seminar, write blog post for English 8040 seminar

3:30--Get up, stretch, return to office, read source 3 for exploratory essay while taking double entry notes

4:00--Write third section and conclusion section of exploratory essay, and then send it to Max, asking kindly if he'll read and review it

5:00--Receive feedback, revise based on feedback, put essay away until later (probably Tuesday) revision

5:30--Pick up Boice book, look at marginal notes written while reading last Saturday, and then write blog post (which I'm still doing)

When I break it down this way, I think I might be practicing the BRSs that Boice talks about. I'm not really taking 15 minutes here and there, but I'm also not sitting down and working on one thing all day. I take breaks for real life (eating, laundry, chatting) and I pace myself with my projects, being sure to switch back and forth between them when I get bored or hit a block. I didn't really arrange a regular time, unless you consider Sunday my writing day. I do writing on other days, but this is the only day during the entire week that I don't have to get dressed up, showered, and teach. So, I usually get a lot of writing done, or at least the first drafts done, and then I revise throughout the week. Also, I do practice the "write in the same location" thing that Boice talks about. I've spent a large chunk of today sitting in my rocking chair, facing the window and listening to the rain. Somehow this helps. It's a lot better than sitting at my desk. I don't think there's one "right" place to write, though: I'll switch to the bed in a few hours and finish up there. And, finally, I do chart my progress. Most weekends, I make a list of everything that needs to get done before certain days the following week. I cross off and write stages of completion as I go. I think that's kind of like Boice's chart your progress idea. The difference? I don't really chart by page numbers: it's deceiving. I always write too much. Instead, I break up big projects into smaller chunks (reading chapters, writing sections, etc) so that I can check off a task when it's completed.

Anyone else experience what I call the mad-dash, only to realize you're actually practicing brief regular sessions?

The old lessons

So, I feel like these chapters are stating the writing lessons that every single writer has ever passed down to another writer, but that doesn't make me ornery. Really, it only reinstates how true they are. Writers write! Indeed. And successful writers write everyday. Yep. Still have to jump on that bandwagon, though I try to as often as I can. Maybe I need to do as Boice says, and write a little each day, and avoid impulsiveness.

One thing I find to be true is the writing space, but that seems to be subjective to how my day is going. Sometimes I do my best writing in bed, sometimes in the office, and other times I must be in a coffee shop or a Panera or something. Actually, Panera seems to work wonders most of the time, but then I have to buy something. And why aren't they open at 2am when I want to write? And having the writing schedule works, too. In my MFA I had a group of writers who I regularly met with and, after we were done complaining about whatever it is that deserved to be complained about, sat around and wrote for hours, shooting ideas off of one another or shoving paragraphs in front of one another. It was a magical time.

Starting without inspiration is the part that trips me up the most, it seems. I don't feel comfortable writing with inspiration (though I will limit that comment to creative work. Though when I talk about writing, that's what I mean). What does one even write without inspiration? Maybe inspiration needs to be defined. It's one of those abstract words that means something weird to every person. Also, side note, I dislike Louis L'Amour, not because of his writing, but because I used to work in a bookstore and shelving his books was always such a pain in the ass because one always ran out of room. Gah.

Foreplay is Painful?

I feel like Boice is, at times, highlighting all the reasons I will hold off writing. And, I was irritated with myself when reading some of those points, particularly the procrastination and perfectionism points. For instance, there are times when I allow myself to feel so irritated or upset that my writing is not working the way I envisioned it, that I’ll all but destroy the work. Meaning, I’ll chuck a project for months, thinking I’ll never revisit it. However, recently I pulled out an old essay and started the re-working process. It was painful, to say the least. But by playing with it, by not allowing myself to give up on the piece simply because it didn’t take on the feel that I wanted right away, I was eventually able to produce something that not only worked with my larger creative project as a whole, but also as a kind of stand alone piece. After reading Boice, I’m wondering if this practice of writing before I’m actually ready is something I’ve been doing all along, only I’ve lacked the kind of patient follow through that Boice recommends.

After reading Boice I’m motivated to go back and approach previously written pieces as a result of some kind of pre-writing. The trick is not to allow my desire for perfectionism to cause me to wait so long to re-visit my writing. I think what will help me, and hopefully allow me to help my students, is to become more self aware of all the possible steps, the foreplay to writing. I suppose the idea here is to understand that writing when it feels good is great, but sometimes to get the writing to take on that pleasant feel, it just may require a bit more tender care.

Rethinking Outlines

I have always used outlines in my writing, so nothing terribly new here. But I have always done them in the rather old-fashioned method of very specifically and formally outline what I am going to write about and then filling in the areas. I like Boice's idea about combining playful freewriting with informal outlining. I think this can help to create writing that is organized while remaining creative.

I can also see the potential of using this in the classroom, as a student exercise in planning. Some informal outlining can help the students to get a feel for the overall paper in a relaxed manner. I have a number of students who write decently enough on the sentence level, but their paragraphs seem like a collection of boxes that they have divided up and thrown things in. I have had trouble getting many of them to create a paper with organic unity. I think this sort of informal outlining, even after a draft is written, could help them to look at the big picture. I'm not talking so much about doing a reverse outline, either. But having them, without looking at their draft, create an informal outline of what they think their paper is saying. I think I may try something like this for a later paper, to help them get a relaxed view of their entire essay.

Please Begin

I’m beginning this blog post before I feel ready. I haven’t mulled over the assigned chapters to my satisfaction, and I haven’t read over everyone’s blog posts yet. However, I’m starting to type now.

Boice’s suggestion to go into the classroom before one feels completely ready to teach struck me as great advice. I can’t tell you how many students I’ve bored by over-preparing for my lectures. When I read from lecture notes without engaging the students in the proceedings (at least by making eye contact with them), I feel stiff and slow, like I can’t look up from my text to respond to things that are actually going on in the classroom. The “permission” to teach even if I feel unprepared also makes me feel less guilty for keeping my class preparation for last, after having done work for my own classes. I know that my priority as a grad student is to do my grad student work, but all the same, I want my students to have a great college experience. To me, that means teaching them as well as I can. Even if my day-to-day undergrad routine at Smith College didn’t prepare me much for teaching, Smith did make me a “believer”— I believe absolutely in the value of a college education, and I think those 4 years can stimulate tremendous intellectual and personal growth in a student.

Now I’ve gone and intimidated myself. How can I possibly change my students’ lives? At least I can start with the strange idea of improving my teaching by minimizing my preparation.

I think it would also be good for me to begin my exploratory essay “before I feel ready.” I suppose I’ll never feel completely ready. It would most likely be a problem if I did feel I had complete control over the material and knew what I wanted to say about it, particularly for an exploratory essay! Here I’ll try to apply Boice’s suggestion to view unpredictable situations as fun and exciting.