September 12th Blog

"[Students] need to observe writing in action so they can begin to understand how process can work and can look" (Spandel 41). I think this is very important for students to grasp writing skills. The process of just telling them about or having them write over and over can only go so far. But to actually show them... now that's another story. It's like someone trying to describe Las Vegas to someone. You can talk about all the neon lights, the free drinks, the gambling, and all the other attractions, but until you actually show someone Vegas it's only then that they fully understand what it's all about. Spandel further explains herself by saying, "Writers need a classroom culture that supports writing, a culture in which everyone, including the teacher, is part of a writing community" (Spandel 41). I think this is very important as well. By having teachers practice what they preach, I think it would create a much healthier writing environment for all the students. Once they see that their teacher is doing the same thing they are, they might feel more at ease with whatever writing assignment laid in front of them.

As for the writing process, my favorite quote is " we need some clutter and mess when we write, for that's how writing in process looks. 'Tidiness,' Lamott says, 'makes me think of held breath, of suspended animation, while writing needs to breath and move' (29)" (Spandel 41). This reminds me a lot from when I was in high school when all of us had to write the exact same thing the exact same way. We didn't have any freedom to go through the writing process the way we felt most comfortable. There was a right way and a wrong way. Unfortunately for me, the right way was rather burdensome for me. For example, what is the point of writing an extremely detailed outline? Outlines were more of a headache for me than the actually writing assignment. What I ended up doing was writing the paper first and then going back to write the outline. It's the only way I could do it. Don't get me wrong, I do usually outline to help me organize, but I'll jot down a few notes on a piece of scrap paper. I don't outline every single sentence that I use in a paper. That's just a bit much for me. I think by giving students the freedom to choose what ever method works best for them will in the long run give them the best opportunity to produce their best work.

Random side note... Smith's book got me thinking, probably a little off subject, but he says, "Slow speech is not a sign that we are thinking more about what we are trying to say as much as an indication that we do not know what to say, or how to say it" (Smith 22). This whole section he talks about the rate of our speech and I was thinking how Central Pennsylvanians speak very quickly. He said average is about 200-300 words per minute which seemed like a lot to me, but as Central Pennsylvanians do we speak more than that? We are probably all used to how quickly we speak, but I'm sure when we've traveled outside this area or if there is anyone who is not originally from this area all accuse us of speaking fairly quickly. Does this affect our writing? Does this make us slur our writing skills as much as we slur our speech?