Blog 1

Smith makes interesting points in WW, that I too agree work well to supplement the ideas we have been throwing around in class discussion. I believe writing to be a continued constant in culture, though the medium may often change, the need for written language will remain the same. Technology does worry me in times where people abbreviate to a degree where they no longer develop a sentence, but I don’t believe it to be a complete detriment to written language, or in any way capable of dropping writing standards.

Hairston’s WTL reading riled me up a bit. When I was being taught to write, the “how to” always seemed to fluctuate. In elementary school, the focus was split somewhere between grammar and addressing a central point coherently. Once I reached middle school, there was a shift to the five paragraph essay form, which all teachers pushed for reasons of structure and clarity. At the time, it made a lot of sense to me to have a standard for essay writing. Once I reached high school however, the focus was changed by one teacher. He sat me down and looked at my ten page paper with only five paragraphs and asked me why I didn’t break with each individual point addressed. So I told him the five paragraph rule, and he said that it’s bunk. He taught me to focus on developing thoughts before emphasizing structure. It was a lifesaver. I’m glad to see the call for change, paradigm shift and what-have-you, it seems to be better for the students and a call for teachers to be much more active in working to develop their students writing abilities. What it made me think of was the politics of education, particularly “No Child Left Behind”. I have always worried that a lot of schools would suffer by focusing on teaching students to test well rather than educate students on how to perform well. I feel like such legislative restrictions may detract from a lot of the teachers working with children who are troubled with writing. In any case, that’s where my mind went.

Spandel’s bit on storytelling of course rings true. Telling people to share a story seems much more motivational than telling them to write a paper. The story telling impulse is a wonderful way to draw out somebody’s inner writer, and gives the perfect base to build off of when teaching writing.