Sept 5th Blog

“All writing is a revision of inner speech for an audience and a purpose.” This James Moffett quote was given to us to discuss in class last Wednesday. It is a very perceptive observation of speech and its intention for self and/or others. The quote works because writing must first be conceived in ones mind, the inner speech guides us merrily or sometimes begrudgingly down the physical act of writing. Obviously unlike some types of art where maybe an artist can begin a piece total void of any idea or purpose and simply just begins or throws paint and is guided from that point. All writing begins with inner thought or speech and is then transmitted to its desired canvas. Inner speech is typically fragmented, does not use proper grammar and can sometimes be down right profane so it must be filtered and revised when it is being transmitted from mind to paper. The desired levels of filtration will in turn affect the audience and purpose. However the convenience of writing unlike some speech is that is can altered and remolded in the revision process before it is officially disbursed to the world. Speech can be retracted and one can claim that they were misquoted, but the original message is lost within the confusion. The revision of our inner speech through the writing process can then be revised once again through the editing process so that the desired audience and purposed is achieved to the authors or editors discretion.

The Hairston piece in WTL analyzes the “paradigm shift” that is becoming necessary in writing instruction. Hairston effectively uses Thomas Kuhn’s observations of the scientific paradigm structure as a model and catalyst to discuss changes in the teaching of writing. These shifts move at slow rates because much of what Hairston writes about is still apparently prevalent today (oh by the way her article was written in 1982). Hairston references a well-attended English conference at Dartmouth in 1966 where changes to the norms were recommended and were well ahead of their time and spot on in their foresight. While I am many years removed from grade school and have little to no recollection of how I was instructed to write, I would probably assume that grammar was stressed and the finished product was the ultimate judge in lieu of the importance of the writing process. I believe it is fairly obvious that teaching writing is a difficult task, also a time-consuming task and ultimately an expensive process (especially for school administrators). I have not experienced any unqualified professors with any of my 4oo level writing classes at Penn State. Dr. Kearney would have more knowledge of this but I believe all 400 level classes are instructed by appropriate PhDs. However on numerous occasions I have recalled hearing stories by some of the very same professors complain about the quality of work in the freshman English classes. There is no quick fix for the observed faults of the young writer, but rather a greater desire by school administrators to accept that change is necessary to spawn improved writing skills.

Murphy spoke about “teacher knowledge” in one of his passages in reference to the knowledge a teacher accumulates with experience. This was the supposed to be the theme of his chapter but somehow along the way I saw it differently. Murphy spoke of a quiet, almost invisible young student who wasn’t particularly active in his class and eventually dropped the class. Murphy only remembers one of her essays. Writing was able to trump her meekness and allow her the strength to speak about a story that previously she was unable to do. The emotions involved her story about discovering a dying seal on the beach even prevented her from reading it aloud. This young girl in the privacy of where ever she wrote the essay allowed her the comfort of releasing this story to its intended audience which in this instance was her grandfather. Her story is a wonderful example of the power of writing. It is such a nice example not so much because of its contents, but rather the freedom and power it afforded this shy girl who obviously could never muster the strength to verbally voice herself.