Blog 2

The reading I tackled first was Smith's WW Chapter 8, which nearly bored me to tears. I found myself thinking, yes of course the flow of words comes out that way, and afterward you can change specification based on what you intend the writing for... duh. However, I like that he called out the fact that there are two obvious requirements that drive your purpose in writing; 1) you have "a reason for saying something" and 2) you "desire to say or write what needs to be said". (108) The diagrams were cute pictures to elaborate on his drafting analogy, but this chapter pretty much did nothing for me as a student of writing.

I don't know if I was in a bad mood after reading the Smith at 2 AM last night or what, but I didn't enjoy the Spandel as much as some other classmates did. Her tone seemed too motivational-speaker-like, but I like that fact that she's trying to elaborate on how to facilitate a conducive environment for teaching students to write. I really liked that she addressed teaching writing as "preparing students for anything based on experience" (41) largely because I firmly believe it's experience in writing that progresses you as a writer. I think because it was geared toward teaching young writers, and I'm not going into secondary education, that I felt less connected to this piece.

Disappointed, I browsed the WTL book and read the Jane Tompkins piece. I really enjoyed it. The writer was very engaging, her prose was easily read, and her ability to play at humor, especially with raw honesty, was really refreshing. I like that she first dives right into the way students resent the authoritan aspects of institutionalized learning. That was always what made or unmade a class for me, whether I was being corralled by the person teaching me or whether I was being enabled (for better or worse) to take control of my learning experience. Also, the way she addresses how some of the students that are "good performers" often achieve that status because "they/we successfully imitated the behavior of adults before we were in fact ready to do so." (17) I couldn't agree with that more, especially when considering myself one of the "we" she was writing about. Her class model of handing the job of teaching over to the students is by far my favorite. The empowerment of being given the authority to address a new subject and expound upon it as a professional student is unmatched, especially when compared to lecture based or syllabus restricted teaching styles. I have learned the most from classes that follow the model. Tompkins was wonderfully witty, and I had to smile at her analogy using sex as comparison to a writing based class. She also dealt some gems on the psyche of a teacher, and how to make the experience of teaching both self-indulgent and more beneficial for students.