Spandel summed it all up this week with her statement that " writers who discover their own topics write with voice and commitment (18)." Okay, I buy that. I know that writing always moves along much more smoothly when I have something personal vested in the basic ideas behind the piece. Isn't it funny though, that Spandel basically accuses the teacher who opened her eyes to this idea of losing interest in the class? She claims that "love mellowed Mr. Graphite to the point of oblivious nonchalance"(15) and the class began writing powerful, personal essays. Am I supposed to believe that Spandel went back and checked her story? How am I supposed to know that her tenth grade version is correct? How do we know that the teacher didn't plan the school year this way? Maybe Mr. Graphite wanted his class to learn the academically excepted way of writing first (to please the school board, maybe?) then, when he was confident his class could do so, he gave them freedom. After all, a true tyrant out to suppress creativity would never allow lyric writing in high school English, right?
My point is that writing about a "personally important topic" is nice, but not always feasible. Yes, I have been tortured as much as everyone else with incredibly boring topics. Sometimes it has been excruciating, and sometimes I have found something beneath it all that sparked my interest. Some of my favorite essays have started this way. It is important to learn that there is a time and place to write about basketball, and a time and place to write about "life inside a pencil" (Spandel, 15).
For example, next time your boss asks you to write a memo about the importance of paper towel conservation in the office, tell him you would rather write about your next vacation spot. Sometimes, we have write because someone else said so, and that is a fact of life. Should students be sheltered from this reality? What if the administration of your school doesn't support this type of writing activity?
I like the idea of the I-search. I think it is a great alternative to research, especially for high school kids. It will be interesting to try.
1 comment:
By "alternative" to research, I do not mean "replacement for". Rather, I think both have their merits. An I-search might be a way to trick students into doing research. Like Chris and Nate, I think research has many important qualitie and should not be so easily cast aside.
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