As I was
reading, I started to reflect on my own writing experiences in school. Reading
was always promoted more than writing. It was important for us to understand
where the author was coming from and what the authors’ purpose for writing was.
The times when writing was practiced, it was usually expository, argumentative
or persuasive in reference to whatever we were reading. There went many times
when we would practice creative writing or narrative writing. I did have one
college professor through when I attended York College (freshman year) that did
enforce writing alot. Her classes were so much fun because of the way she
conducted it. We would come in in the morning and do a small free writing. After
that, we would usually discuss the reading from the night before which was only
about 5-7 pages in length, not long at all. Along with the reading with would
also have to do some writing. The writing usually consisted of us expressing
our ideas on the subject and detailing why we felt the way we did. There were also a couple of short answer
questions that we had to complete. The fun really came in the next day in the
morning when we got to discuss what we wrote and verbally debate our opinions
on the piece. Till this day I could still remember some of the tings we read in
that class.
I say that,
to really say I see where Elbow is coming from and I completely agree with his
logic. If the class, in my above example would have just consisted of reading
and then writing what I think the authors’ purpose was, I’m sure I wouldn’t have
been as passionate about the class. The passion arose when my own ideas and thoughts
became valuable to class discussion; it kept me awake and involved. Like Elbow
says, writing asks ‘What do you have to say’ versus reading to understand what
someone else said. I haven’t always been
a fan of writing because usually the writing I did in school wasn’t always creative,
it was usually expository. The only other time when I did enjoy writing was
when I wrote poems on my own time about things I found to be interesting. Elbow
makes a good point when he said “Talking is a crime and writing the punishment.”
More often than not, teachers will assign writing tasks as punishment for bad behavior.
When I was in the fifth grade, our punishment for misconduct was writing during
out lunch period. I’ve actually just recently developed an interest for
writing, besides poetry I’ve always liked that.
I really love your quote “The passion arose when my own ideas and thoughts became valuable to class discussion; it kept me awake and involved”, I whole heartily agree with your point of view about writing, and the importance of being able to voice our opinions and concerns, because of that, the writings become more personal to us. Usually when students are asked about what the author thinks, they recite off the answers because that is what they are taught to do. Whenever someone asks a child what do you think, they get taken back, because we so rarely ever ask the child their opinion. But this is exactly what we need to engage students to get them interested in their own words and to write.
ReplyDeleteI think my bog for this week is a mix of both ‘input’ and ‘output’ writing. I consider it to be input because I am reading another person’s writing (Elbow’s) and commenting on a topic he is presenting. Then again it’s also output because I’m putting out my opinion about the topic and not necessarily writing a synopsis about Elbow’s writing or elaborating on his views. I think most writing is both input and output. A lot of writing is a response (output) to something that the writer either read or verbally heard/discussed (input). I think that most of the writing in my school career has been consumption from other writers. There have been occasions when my writing was my own production, but only now that I write in diary do I consider my writing to be more production than consumption. My understanding of being an active or passive writer is the writing tense (I hope I’m answering the question correctly, not really sure). I’m not sure how to make a writer use the active voice more than the passive because it really depends on what the writing is expressing. If it’s a story from the past it’s obviously best to write it in the past tense.
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