My highlighter got a workout

Like many of you, I still do not have the Smith book yet but I did find that the reading in 9R was extremely helpful. While I was an undergrad at Hartwick the EDU courses that I took spent a lot of time spilling philosophy but not creating any concrete examples of how to put these ideas into practice. The idea of the teacher completing the assignments as the students doesn't seem revolutionary but I cannot recall a teacher or professor ever beginning and completing a writing assignment as we did in any of my experiences as a student or in the many hours I have observed teachers. At best, a teacher would bring in a copy of their final product, reinforcing the focus on product, not process.

I believe that Erin also highlighted the Henry Miller quote that "most writing is done away from the typewriter, away from the desk" (45). I couldn't agree with this point more. When I have a major assignment looming (as I do now) I don't sit down at the computer and begin to write. I get my best ideas at the gym, in the shower, or just as I am about to drift off to sleep. As tired as I am, my brain seems to be the most active just as my head hits the pillow. The classroom environment, however, is not the best for fostering writing. Spandel stated that students "need an environment in which the process can flourish" (41). Most students don't do their best writing sitting at a desk in those uncomfortable metal chairs, their neighbor to their right scraping their chair against the floor while their neighbor to the left coughs and sniffs. Spandel provides some great examples for creating an environment that encourages writing but one thing that I think isn’t mentioned that should have been is GET THE STUDENTS OUT OF THE CLASSROOM. Again, this isn’t a revolutionary idea but I don’t believe that it is done often enough. My freshmen year I had a great composition professor who got us out of the classroom as often as possible. I will never forget the time that he surprised us with a mile hike at 8:30 in the morning to the practice football field to compose a short story about anything we observed along the way. Later we shared our pieces and it was some of the best writing that most of us had done all semester.