Blog Se7en

The story of Scott in WTL was heartwarming, to say the least. I adored the opening line of "The urge to communicate must be as basic a need for humans as hunger and sex." (49) Even the first example of the mute girl was an excellent supporting example. I like that Swoger refers to writing as a catalyst to learning, and that if approached the right way can do wonders for a student. I like that she also makes a point to stress an understanding of language, which the WTL text has a lot of and I find to be the most important thing when trying to improve your writing. If you have the time and care, you should look over what you write and make sure that each word counts and that the meaning or possible meanings the word or words you chose correct. Overall, I love that the underlying tone is that everyone has potential, and that the best thing you can do for a student is to guide them into tapping that potential and developing talent.

I like that Spandel reinforced the need for a personally important topic. The chapter fit in well with the i-search project. Spandel hit the nail on the head in saying "Writers who discover their own topics write with voice and commitment" and "When the voice is strong, the writing literally becomes and extension of self." (18) When you write on something you have a strong opinion about, or maybe even a passion for, your work is unparalleled. The chance to have the work be strong, even for a person that you don't know and wouldn't recognize the voice as yours, is quite an opportunity. And the choice to chose what you write is where the empowerment lies. Having done an i-search for Julie before, I can say as a college freshman I didn't like the option of finding my own topic to passionately research. If I remember correctly, I bombed it because I got hung up on the "interview" aspect of it. I got scared and flummoxed, and I didn't know what I wanted to research. And I really hate interviewing. Not to scare any of you away, but as a freshman that's how I felt, and now I'm actually excited to give this a better college try. This time I hope to be working off of stronger grounding in the subject I'm researching. And I hope to approach the first hand research more positively. And I hope to get a better grade.