Blog 4

In Writing, Teaching, Learning, G. Lynn Nelson points out the fact that starting in early childhood, we all are exposed to an endless stream of words in our everyday lives. Rather than improving our control over words, it instead deadens us to language. I thought it was very easy to make a comparison between this statement and one in Chapter 1 of The 9 Rights of Every Writer in which Vicki Spandel discusses our compulsion to feel dialed up all the time.

Strangely enough, I recently wrote a personal essay for my writing portfolio about America’s obsession with technology. In this essay, I discussed a recent family reunion at Red Top, a lake-ringed, lush-forested state park far away from the bustle of Atlanta, Georgia. For seventy-two hours, we could not rely on television, CD players, or other distractions. Instead, all attendees of all ages had the opportunity to walk in the woods, eat watermelon for competition, and participate in a sing-along. From this experience, along with my three summers spent performing in the beautiful mountains of Vermont, I can easily relate to Spandel’s realization. She says that “a week in the Boundary Waters would be, for many students, more useful preparation for writing – or writing assessment – than many of the frenzied drills and practice we feel we must provide. A mind freed is a powerful thing.”

It is so important that we all give ourselves time to be alone with our own thoughts. For this reason, I loved Nelson’s recommendations to counter the chaotic culture in which we live. The processes of silent writing to quiet music and of using breathing exercises were very refreshing to me. At the start of acting classes, we often would lie on the floor and complete several breathing exercises to open our minds and to become more in touch with our senses. It seems so obvious to me now that such a method would have a similarly positive effect as a prewriting exercise.

I also was struck by Spandel’s pointing out the fact that in order to help our students to become more reflective thinkers, we need to slow down the pace of class dialogue. Many teachers are afraid of silence and, therefore, give students little time to think after posing a question. I still experience this at the collegiate level. In a recent literature class, after posing a rather vague question comparing two characters in a novel, our professor proceeded to get rather frustrated after only five seconds of silence. In order for students to think at a deeper level, teachers cannot be afraid of silence in the classroom.