Perspectives and Balance
Okay. So, I thought that the articles we read produced some helpful ideas and some not-so-helpful ideas. I was a bit irritated that most of the "invention activities" described were geared to helping students produce good personal narratives or creative writing; though I know these activities can be altered and adapted as deemed fit, our English 1000 classes have such a focus on preparing students for academic writing that I was hoping to find more activities devised for that.
Anyhoo, I want to talk a bit about Susan Allspaw's "Writing Exercise--Connections." I think Allspaw has a tendency to go a bit overboard with her mumbo-jumbo about power struggles between writer and subject and how "the writer...should want to please the subjects" (263) when writing personal narrative, but I was drawn to her activity because she has students unearth the "story" in a photograph, inventing and developing as needed, and I'm planning to do a writing assignment with my kids in which they analyze the argument made by war photographs. Moreover, Allspaw brings up what I feel to be a crucial issue for student writers, whether they're writing personal narratives or not: perspective. Beginning writers often have a difficult time writing anything without letting their personal opinion or views color it, and they need to learn to adopt different perspectives and understand "how many different vantage points there are" (264) in order to be successful writers. Interpretations change when vantage points change, and I think Stancliff's "pass-the-topic-around-the-cirlce" exercise also emphasizes this notion. By making her students adopt the viewpoints of the subjects, observers, and photographers of pictures, Allspaw creates an interesting (and pretty fun) way to convey the importance of having a well-rounded writer's persepctive.
Allspaw opens her essay with this sentence: "There is a delicate balance between being an observer and transferring these observations into writing." I know she's talking about writing personal narratives, but isn't that statement really applicable to all writing? We are always observing, whether through research or reading or listening or literally watching something, but we rarely know how to deftly transform those observations into writing that does them justice. And I say "we" beacuse all writers struggle to achieve this balance, and that's a fact that I think it's important our students know. So, we should say it a lot. Don't you think?
Anyhoo, I want to talk a bit about Susan Allspaw's "Writing Exercise--Connections." I think Allspaw has a tendency to go a bit overboard with her mumbo-jumbo about power struggles between writer and subject and how "the writer...should want to please the subjects" (263) when writing personal narrative, but I was drawn to her activity because she has students unearth the "story" in a photograph, inventing and developing as needed, and I'm planning to do a writing assignment with my kids in which they analyze the argument made by war photographs. Moreover, Allspaw brings up what I feel to be a crucial issue for student writers, whether they're writing personal narratives or not: perspective. Beginning writers often have a difficult time writing anything without letting their personal opinion or views color it, and they need to learn to adopt different perspectives and understand "how many different vantage points there are" (264) in order to be successful writers. Interpretations change when vantage points change, and I think Stancliff's "pass-the-topic-around-the-cirlce" exercise also emphasizes this notion. By making her students adopt the viewpoints of the subjects, observers, and photographers of pictures, Allspaw creates an interesting (and pretty fun) way to convey the importance of having a well-rounded writer's persepctive.
Allspaw opens her essay with this sentence: "There is a delicate balance between being an observer and transferring these observations into writing." I know she's talking about writing personal narratives, but isn't that statement really applicable to all writing? We are always observing, whether through research or reading or listening or literally watching something, but we rarely know how to deftly transform those observations into writing that does them justice. And I say "we" beacuse all writers struggle to achieve this balance, and that's a fact that I think it's important our students know. So, we should say it a lot. Don't you think?
posted by K. | 11:49 PM
3 Comments:
Hmm...if the invention activities you propose only lead to assignments, then how can you expect the skill to transfer to other areas of their lives? It would sort of be by chance that they applied it to something else unless you helped them make the specific connection, no?
That is, if you want skill transfer, then I think you would need to help them make the connection and propose invention activities for their everyday lives too.
I'm in the camp that thinks it all counts, but that, at times, it counts in unexpected ways.
For example, I didn't intend for anyone to come up with the idea of using sex as a theme for English 1000, but Russell did when I posted about study skills.
Kirstin makes a good point when she says, "We are always observing, whether through research or reading or listening or literally watching something..." and I think what is key is to help students make connections from everyday observations to academic writing. This is part and parcel of critical thinking. The medium, be it academic paper, newspaper editorial, letter to the editor, poem, etc., requires a different format, but they all begin with making observations and thinking critically.
At first when I heard people talking about personal narrative, I wasn't sure how much I liked the idea, especially because I wasn't sure how it could be transformed into academic writing. I envisioned having to read 50 versions of "What I did on my summer vacation." On the other hand, reading essays regarding a movie that they watched, or text that they read, and how that really reflects society's view on x, y, or z, does appeal to me, especially if in the stages of drafting I show them how it's possible to transform it from writer-based writing to reader-based writing.
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I want academic writing to be creative and interesting. Are these mutually exclusive?
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