Writing to Heal

For this week's personal readings I chose an article by Molly Hurley Moran entitled "Toward a Writing and Healing Approach in the Basic Writing Classroom: One Professor's Personal Odyssey." In it Moran shares her personal experience of writing for healing (due to a very traumatic event in her life) and through this discovers a new rewarding approach to the basic writing classroom. Her article also revisits the ongoing debate on personal vs. academic writing with Moran explaining her hope that basic writers, through the process of personal essay/narrative, can improve their academic writing as well as find their personal voice.

I was quite intrigued by this article and the results of the studies therein. From my own personal experience I can vouch for the fact that writing to heal has its advantages. While working on the memoir/narrative portion of our wikibook, I wrote a memoir example of a "bad day" about the death of one of my cats. I hadn't realized how painful the death of a pet could be - especially when I felt somewhat at fault and therefore suffered from chronic guilt. However, looking back I do remember that I was able to make peace with the matter not long after writing my memoir example. It wasn't until I read this article that I realized the personal benefit of what I had done. So I guess what I'm trying to say is "YAY!" for personal essay/narratives to help improve overall writing with the goal of better academic writing down the road.
(I borrowed "YAY!" from Amy - an inside joke. And thank you Chaz for your "technical" help).

Moran, Molly Hurley. "Toward a Writing and Healing Approach in the Basic Writing Classroom: One Professor's Personal Odyssey." Journal of Basic Writing 23.2 (2004): 93-115.

Response to Braun's "Audio Ethnography" Article

While reviewing the online article Remixing Basic Writing: Digital Media Production & the Basic Writing Curriculum by Catherine C. Braun, Ben McCorkle, and Amie C. Wolf, I was especially fascinated by Braun's article on audio ethnography. She writes that "teaching of rhetorical principles is central... I do this because I believe that in order to be effective communicators in an increasingly global and digital environment, students will need to be able work within digital environments as well as reflect upon and shape them." I couldn't agree more with Braun. We live in a digital age. What better way to bring language arts and science together. Granted, I am an old fashioned pencil and paper gal. It has only been in the last five or so years that I have come to appreciate basic word processing by way of Microsoft Word. It took me a long time to be able to compose at a computer - I always sat in bed, writing for hours until my hand felt like it was going to fall off. After I felt like I had my project in a state of completion (and my butt was numb), I would sit down to type it - what a waste of time! Anyway, back to Braun's article. I really enjoyed the three audio essays that were included in the article. Though I would have been greatly intimidated by such a task, I also know that if I had to do one, it would have been very fulfilling. For instance, this blog has been both a gripe and a lesson to me. It was one more technologically based thing that I didn't want to do, but now I know what a blog is and the potential and opportunity that a blog brings to the writer's world (narrow-minded focus, but still) Because of this, I could see how a basic writer from the MySpace generation would enjoy if not excel in writing and communicating if presented with an assignment of this nature. Oftentimes when a student is given an assignment that they can relate too more readily, they will learn more from it - retaining practical knowledge that they can use for the rest of their lives.

Another chance to discuss literacy - and me

Literacy is one of those words that I have understood (or so I thought) but have never been asked to define. When asked to do this in class, I thought, "piece of cake!" And then I tried and came up blank. All I could think of was the common view concerning the ability to read and write, but I remembered from the reading that it was so much more - so much more that I struggled to understand. As I have mentioned before, I have struggled all my life with reading comprehension. I read slowing, process thoughts and therefore write slowly, and often times when I read the theoretical works from our class texts, I find myself reading and rereading, struggling to understand - to comprehend. It was when I revisited this weeks reading in order to figure out what the heck I wanted to write about in my blog that I came to the conclusion that my "issues" may fall into one of the many definitions of literacy. Unfortunately when I reread "Literacies and Deficits Revisited" I found that I could not fully understand the literacy definitions well enough to see if my problem and possibly the reason why I have this problem may be literacy related. I know some of you are thinking, "Dude, I don't get some of these readings either!" because I have spoken with a few classmates that also struggle. However, I also know from comments in class that many of you do comprehend these articles quite well and I covet your ability to do so. Sooo, do any of you have thoughts on whether or not my reading comprehension issue may or may not be a literacy problem?

Yes, I am uncomfortable

I am still fired up over the "uncomfortable" email that we looked at in class this week. It reminded me of a situation that I observed in a poetry class a few years ago that was being taught by a T.A. There were two students, roomates and/or friends, I believe, that showed up to the first few classes but mysteriously disappeared for at least a month claiming illness. One night in particular one of them came in to hand in an assignment. She looked fine and told the instructor that they were both still very ill. Both of them were surprised when the instructor threatened to give each of them a "B" (I would have failed them) due to so many absences with no doctor's excuses, and rarely any other explanation other than "I'm ill." They were so full of themselves claiming to have been "already published" on the internet and yada yada. What is sad is that these girls were not basic writers. They were actually very talented, though a bit cliche and grandios in style. I was incredibly frustrated with the way they were treating the T.A., not to mention how badly they were cheating themselves and even the rest of the class because it was a workshop oriented class. They were merely taking advantage of the T.A. because they knew that they could bully ___. They knew how to work the system, to manipulate, because they knew that this T.A. needed to keep their position. I only know this because the T.A. vented to me one evening in the hall (and apologized later knowing that ___ had been very unprofessional). Stuck between a rock and a hard place, the T.A. ended up giving them "A's" in order to keep from rocking the boat so that ___ could keep ___ T.A. position. What is this world coming to? Even though the girls were very talented, there was an obvious room for growth. I am thinking that email guy and these two girls have something in common - they are too full of themselves. The only difference is that email guy was a basic writer in desperate need of accepting this fact, and the girls in my poetry class had more than enough talent to accomplish their tasks and chose to waste their time instead. My mind has officially shut down. (Please excuse the lack of depth in this blog entry. I am so incredibly sleepy that I actually nodded off and woke up to the sound of my head crashing on my keyboard.)

Look it up! Sound it out!

Remember, back in the day, you were struggling over the spelling a word, let's say... accent, and your teacher tells you to look it up in the dictionary. My usual, albeit whining response was, "how can I look it up if I don't know how to spell it?" And Mrs. White (name changed) would say, "Sound it out." Of course, accent sounded like axsent to me, but that word wasn't in the dictionary so my frustration was often validated when I would lug the mammoth class dictionary up to her desk to show her that my word wasn't where it was supposed to be, and then she would get angry and tell me the spelling without explaining what Shaughnessy describes as "misspellings caused by unpredictability's within English spelling." Those two phrases, "Look it up," and "Sound it out," were so common in my grade school experience that I began to loathe all writing assignments. However, over time I made peace with my dictionary and began to love writing - (though I am still not very good at spelling). I suppose I needed better instruction on how to use a dictionary (see page 185 of EE), but over time I figured it out on my own. Yay, me! (Incidentally, Mrs. White was, ahem, "let go" after a couple of years terrorizing her students).

I spent the last hour or so reading and commenting on this week's blogs. I was surprised by not only the amount of responses to Shaughnessy's article, but the diversity as well. Though I want to agree with those of you who feel as if spelling should be more arbitrary, I cannot tell you how many times I have had to run and grab a dictionary to help me with keyword searches when I am helping customers find a title and location of a book at B&N. Sure, this is just one particular situation, and it doesn't involve teaching writing to a bw student, but it is still a valid point. Correct spelling in a keyword search is rather crucial, or perhaps B&N just needs a better search engine, but that's beside the point! I'm just saying that not knowing how to spell certain words can put you in a situation where you might look a bit foolish - especially if you're working towards a degree in English. But then again, I have always been one to worry over what others think.

By the way, I am so happy that we can do spell check on our blogs. I had no idea that I had spelled "incidentally" and "unpredictability's" wrong (I had spelled them as: "incidently" and "unpredictabilities"). I suppose I am grateful for this "crutch," but I'm still looking at "unpredictability's" and thinking "that doesn't look right." I suppose spell-check does tend to make me a bit lazy and less alert concerning spelling errors but now I'm second-guessing the spell-check. Is there no end to this? Sighhh.

Have "the basics" come too late?

Donald Lazere's article, Back to Basics: A Force for Opression or Liberation? in "Landmark Essays" brought up several valid points concerning literacy. On page 125, Lazere quotes James Sledd on the challenges that children may face and how those challenges may affect their school work. Sledd believes that due to "hunger, fear, grief, disease, or other circumstances beyond their control" children cannot learn. On the other hand, Lazere challenges Sledd by saying that many of the white middle-class and upper middle class also have the same problem. I strongly believe that the above issues concerning hunger, fear, etc are true. When I was taking elementary ed. courses, that was one issue that my intructor kept bringing up, asking how we were going to get through to kids that are exhausted or hungry (for instance). However, what about the latter class of students? I have noticed these observations are valid as well. I don't mean to be harsh and short sited, but I believe that much of the problems concerning literacy within this age group is old-fashioned laziness or distraction. To top it off, many students just don't care. Perhaps during their childhood they were never disciplined to do their homework or encouraged to read. I fall into this category as well. I struggle with reading comprehension and slow thought processing (it's very frustrating), and I was not encouraged to read as a child. My parents were also lax about disciplining me concerning my homework and grades. I believe both of these points are valid and if we merely blame poverty and the product thereof, we have become shortsighted. What do you think?

Yes, another story about dance from catdance

The essay about Ellie at music camp in The Discovery of Competence struck a personal cord with me. I have had a few humbling moments since I have returned to school to pursue my Masters in English. When I was first admitted into the program I was full of confidence and motivation, at least until I found out just how difficult the classes were going to be for me. Most of my peers already had some sort of undergrad degree in English. During classes the discussions seemed so foreign to me. I had very little knowledge of common writing "terminology," much less anything from a theoretical perspective, and my literature background was quite anemic. Don't even get me started on grammar. Grammar - ugh! I was used to expressing thoughts, concepts and emotions with my body (degree in dance studies) not my mouth. Though I had a love for reading and writing, and words in general, it wasn't enough. The extent of my vocabulary was (and still is), quite pathetic compared to those that I shared classes with, and I had/have great difficulty articulating my thoughts. Sometimes I draw a blank and have absolutely no opinion whatsoever concerning a particular reading or discussion when everyone else seems to have something to say about it. The whole issue of "do I really fit in here?" and "what can I possibly gain from feeling so out of place?" began to crumble the excitement and motivation that I once had upon returning to school. But you know what? I began to remember all those times that I was trying to teach a student the concepts of dance, not merely the form, but the concepts. Especially the teenagers. Ahhh teenagers. Convincing a teenager that they are quite capable of visualizing the stem of the aplomb (invisible line from head to toe) so that they could then visualize their pirouettes (one-legged turns) in perfect form, was like convincing a third grader that learning the states and capitals is mahhvelous fun. The excuse that I got most often was, "You've been doing this your whole life! How do you expect us to get it?" And my answer was quite simple, "I actually started dancing when I was fifteen so I don't want to hear about it." The problem with that statement is that not everyone has the natural propensity to "pick up" on dance. I happened to have a "tad" of natural ability (though I was too much of a wimp to truly excel - dance training kills your body) and an undying love for the artform, so I was in a better place to "absorb." So even though I feel a bit out of place at times in my classes, I can use these experiences in the classroom later on.