My final essay is too long to post here. If you're interested in reading it, you can download the full essay.
My exploration – and exploration it has most certainly been – throughout this unit has been challenging, nebulous, and changing. Like any good exploration, I have followed what has seem to be the most profitable path at the time – and sometimes this has stood me in good stead, and sometimes it has not. But regardless, this journey has done what all good journeys do: it has broadened my horizons, challenged my preconceptions, and forced me to both clarify and re-evaluate what I think. This winding path has led me through several of the questions that our class set out to tackle. I began with the link between writing and the community. I wended my way through the muddy waters of how writing has traditionally been defined and thus taught, and touched on the way in which meaning in writing is created. And now, in the end, I find myself at the question, “How can we motivate our students to write?” It is only by undertaking the journey that I have that I believe I could have reached an answer to this – an answer which I now attempt to reproduce.
Let me start, as is logical, at the beginning: with what I thought first upon being asked these questions; with the beliefs that were stretched and moulded and refined. My initial impressions focused on the idea of writing as a collaborative process, of writing being something intimately and inherently linked to community and a sense thereof. Writing, I decided, has an inherent sense of “I want to say something to someone”; it’s speaking (in a broadly defined sense) not just to make noise, but to communicate; to say something to someone. It has a purpose. This idea prompted me to question: How does that purpose inform the process? How does the differing purpose of various forms of writing inform the sometimes differing processes we must use to create an end-product? And how does this sense of an audience when we write contribute to the idea that writing is collaborative? Now, at the end, I would like to clarify further: that the purpose is not merely to communicate to an audience. The purpose is the audience, and the audience is the purpose. To whom we write is why we write.
Continue reading: download the essay.
Monday, November 9, 2009
Thursday, October 22, 2009
What I Think
From today's tutorial:
I’m looking at the idea of how writing is taught in classes, looking at Steve’s concept that he was talking about how writing is often taught as a noun, as a thing that can be pulled apart into components and analysed. I’ve been a serious writer for about three years now, I’ve had short stories published, and I’ve found in my own personal experience that I’ve derived the most enjoyment and meaning, and I’ve learned the most both about writing and about myself, when I focus on the process of writing.
So that’s been the aim of my research. I’ve read a few articles that discuss this also, looking at the idea of the process of writing. It’s closely related to writing for learning, I suppose, and for me the quote that really sums it up that I heard a few years ago is, “How can I know what I think until I see what I say?”
I really thing that it’s in the process of writing that we learn most about ourselves and our subject matter – paired also with conversation, which links to another tangent I’m looking at, which is that writing is collaborative.
Essentially, I’m positing that the writing process is inherently communicative and is a process of discovery.
As well as this, I’ve been looking a little at reader response theory. This is a theory that suggests that the full meaning of the text can never be embodied either by the text itself in isolation, or even just by the writer. Text only has full meaning and reaches its capacity when it’s read; there are always gaps in the text that the reader has to fill, that they fill based on their own experiences and background – which is why you can get different readings and interpretations of the same text – and this creates a kind of two-way communication whereby the author and the reader both share in the creation of the meaning of the text.
This really impacts the conception of the whole writing process, and is something that I’ve learned in simpler terms myself in writing: you can never put everything in. When you’re telling a story, you always have to make decisions about what to include and what to leave out – where to leave the gaps that the reader will fill.
How you choose to create those gaps, what you find significant enough to include in your text, will depend solely on your purpose for creating the text – and your purpose will depend on your audience.
This circles back to my idea that writing is inherently communicative – you’re always writing to someone, even if that someone is yourself.
This has all sorts of implications for the idea of writing to learn: in the process, because you’re making decisions and letting yourself flow while you write, writing to discover what you’ll say, and in the reading of what you’ve written, when you fill in the gaps that you left, when you create the meaning of the text in a specific and holistic way for you.
I know that this is broad and nebulous, and I’m going to need to find a way to cut this all down and contain it for the essay. I initially started out looking at the idea that writing was communication with a purpose, and that it should be writing-as-a-verb we teach in schools, not just writing-as-a noun. I asked questions such as, “How does the purpose inform the process?” and “Does this idea that we write for an audience support the idea that writing is collaborative?”
I think now that I’ll focus mostly on the first of these. In the course of my thinking, I’ve decided that what I was really trying to say in that second question is that I think the process of learning the process of writing works best when it’s collaborative – but that writing itself isn’t necessarily so. We learn the process of writing by testing it out on our audience, and that part is collaborative – but the act of writing not necessarily so.
However, the purpose absolutely informs the process, and this is the part of the idea that I think is most relevant to teachers of all disciplines.
I’m looking at the idea of how writing is taught in classes, looking at Steve’s concept that he was talking about how writing is often taught as a noun, as a thing that can be pulled apart into components and analysed. I’ve been a serious writer for about three years now, I’ve had short stories published, and I’ve found in my own personal experience that I’ve derived the most enjoyment and meaning, and I’ve learned the most both about writing and about myself, when I focus on the process of writing.
So that’s been the aim of my research. I’ve read a few articles that discuss this also, looking at the idea of the process of writing. It’s closely related to writing for learning, I suppose, and for me the quote that really sums it up that I heard a few years ago is, “How can I know what I think until I see what I say?”
I really thing that it’s in the process of writing that we learn most about ourselves and our subject matter – paired also with conversation, which links to another tangent I’m looking at, which is that writing is collaborative.
Essentially, I’m positing that the writing process is inherently communicative and is a process of discovery.
As well as this, I’ve been looking a little at reader response theory. This is a theory that suggests that the full meaning of the text can never be embodied either by the text itself in isolation, or even just by the writer. Text only has full meaning and reaches its capacity when it’s read; there are always gaps in the text that the reader has to fill, that they fill based on their own experiences and background – which is why you can get different readings and interpretations of the same text – and this creates a kind of two-way communication whereby the author and the reader both share in the creation of the meaning of the text.
This really impacts the conception of the whole writing process, and is something that I’ve learned in simpler terms myself in writing: you can never put everything in. When you’re telling a story, you always have to make decisions about what to include and what to leave out – where to leave the gaps that the reader will fill.
How you choose to create those gaps, what you find significant enough to include in your text, will depend solely on your purpose for creating the text – and your purpose will depend on your audience.
This circles back to my idea that writing is inherently communicative – you’re always writing to someone, even if that someone is yourself.
This has all sorts of implications for the idea of writing to learn: in the process, because you’re making decisions and letting yourself flow while you write, writing to discover what you’ll say, and in the reading of what you’ve written, when you fill in the gaps that you left, when you create the meaning of the text in a specific and holistic way for you.
I know that this is broad and nebulous, and I’m going to need to find a way to cut this all down and contain it for the essay. I initially started out looking at the idea that writing was communication with a purpose, and that it should be writing-as-a-verb we teach in schools, not just writing-as-a noun. I asked questions such as, “How does the purpose inform the process?” and “Does this idea that we write for an audience support the idea that writing is collaborative?”
I think now that I’ll focus mostly on the first of these. In the course of my thinking, I’ve decided that what I was really trying to say in that second question is that I think the process of learning the process of writing works best when it’s collaborative – but that writing itself isn’t necessarily so. We learn the process of writing by testing it out on our audience, and that part is collaborative – but the act of writing not necessarily so.
However, the purpose absolutely informs the process, and this is the part of the idea that I think is most relevant to teachers of all disciplines.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
More Cumulative Thoughts
So, it appears that I believe that the audience and purpose of a piece of writing (noun) are integral considerations in the process of writing (verb). How a reader responds to a text adds meaning and value to the writing (noun), and the possible ways that this interaction may play out should therefore be in the forefront of the author's mind when writing (verb).
This is how I believe the purpose of the writing informs the process.
I still need to do a post on learning the writing process, and the collaborative manner of this learning. Noting this here so I remember - but now, to bed.
This is how I believe the purpose of the writing informs the process.
I still need to do a post on learning the writing process, and the collaborative manner of this learning. Noting this here so I remember - but now, to bed.
Review Five: New Relationships
Title: New Relationships With Content
Author: Zemanta
Category: Blog Post
Hyperlink: here
Publishing details: Education Week, September 14, 2009.
Summary (not more than about 100 words):
A fantastic article that draws on an article about blogging for an audience to inform the discussion of writing in schools. The author points out that in school, writing often revolves around the learning and recalling of facts - but that 'out there' in the world that we are notionally preparing students for, writing revolves almost entirely around its worth to the audience. Writing needs to be sensitive to its audience if it is to have any impact, and the author suggests that cultivating such a sensitivity in our students should be one of our primary concerns.
Contribution to our research project:
Again, this absolutely affirms my thoughts that writing has a purpose, and that that purpose is communication to an audience. Teaching our students how to realise this purpose, and to communicate to a particular audience, ought to be an integral part of teaching 'writing' in class. I also really like the hierarchy of reactions that the article gives, showing that readers can respond anywhere along a spectrum from 'spam' (ignore the writing as spam) to 'subscribe' (subscribing to receive more writing from the source). Useful concept.
Author: Zemanta
Category: Blog Post
Hyperlink: here
Publishing details: Education Week, September 14, 2009.
Summary (not more than about 100 words):
A fantastic article that draws on an article about blogging for an audience to inform the discussion of writing in schools. The author points out that in school, writing often revolves around the learning and recalling of facts - but that 'out there' in the world that we are notionally preparing students for, writing revolves almost entirely around its worth to the audience. Writing needs to be sensitive to its audience if it is to have any impact, and the author suggests that cultivating such a sensitivity in our students should be one of our primary concerns.
Contribution to our research project:
Again, this absolutely affirms my thoughts that writing has a purpose, and that that purpose is communication to an audience. Teaching our students how to realise this purpose, and to communicate to a particular audience, ought to be an integral part of teaching 'writing' in class. I also really like the hierarchy of reactions that the article gives, showing that readers can respond anywhere along a spectrum from 'spam' (ignore the writing as spam) to 'subscribe' (subscribing to receive more writing from the source). Useful concept.
Review Four: Reader-Response
Title: Reader-Response Criticism and the Synoptic Gospels
Author: James L. Resseguie
Category: Academic
Hyperlink: none
Publishing details: Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 1984 vol. 52(2):307-24.
Summary (not more than about 100 words):
While the key focus of this article is on reader-response theory as an alternate means of biblical interpretation, the introductory section and the first section on reader-response theory provide a neat overview of the subject. Reader-response theory focuses on the reader’s actions while reading a text; what the text does to a reader, and how the reader ‘realises’ the text to create meaning. The theory posits that any text is created with gaps in its meaning – a writer can never convey every aspect of any situation – and it is up to the reader to fill in those gaps, guided by the text. This means that any given reader can only interact with a text to the extent that they and the text share conventions relating to how these gaps are filled. However, although texts draw on a vast background of conventions – cultural, literary, linguistic – that aid the reader in determining how to fill gaps in the text, communication always entails conveying something new (else there is no point to it) so the text is a dual process of presenting the familiar conventions, and twisting them to make them appear new (defamiliarising them).
Contribution to our research project:
At first glance, this may not appear to have much to do with our current topic of investigation; it seems, on the face of it, to have much more relevance to the question of reading than to that of writing. However, I would like to suggest that as the two are inextricably linked, many implications can be drawn from a theory on reading that will inform a new concept of ‘writing’. Note particularly that the author emphasises that the creation of text is a dual process: that of presenting the familiar, and of making it new. This speaks directly to the idea of writing-as-process that I am exploring in my research. Note also the close link between the reader and the writer: the writer creates a text using the dual process that the reader will interpret, and through this interpretation, give the text meaning. Writing always has an audience, even if it is just ourselves, and it is not until writing is read that its full meaning emerges; it’s not enough just to reflect in writing – we have to read what we’ve written in order to grasp its full and proper meaning. Writing, therefore, is inherently relational, collaborative, and audience-directed.
Author: James L. Resseguie
Category: Academic
Hyperlink: none
Publishing details: Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 1984 vol. 52(2):307-24.
Summary (not more than about 100 words):
While the key focus of this article is on reader-response theory as an alternate means of biblical interpretation, the introductory section and the first section on reader-response theory provide a neat overview of the subject. Reader-response theory focuses on the reader’s actions while reading a text; what the text does to a reader, and how the reader ‘realises’ the text to create meaning. The theory posits that any text is created with gaps in its meaning – a writer can never convey every aspect of any situation – and it is up to the reader to fill in those gaps, guided by the text. This means that any given reader can only interact with a text to the extent that they and the text share conventions relating to how these gaps are filled. However, although texts draw on a vast background of conventions – cultural, literary, linguistic – that aid the reader in determining how to fill gaps in the text, communication always entails conveying something new (else there is no point to it) so the text is a dual process of presenting the familiar conventions, and twisting them to make them appear new (defamiliarising them).
Contribution to our research project:
At first glance, this may not appear to have much to do with our current topic of investigation; it seems, on the face of it, to have much more relevance to the question of reading than to that of writing. However, I would like to suggest that as the two are inextricably linked, many implications can be drawn from a theory on reading that will inform a new concept of ‘writing’. Note particularly that the author emphasises that the creation of text is a dual process: that of presenting the familiar, and of making it new. This speaks directly to the idea of writing-as-process that I am exploring in my research. Note also the close link between the reader and the writer: the writer creates a text using the dual process that the reader will interpret, and through this interpretation, give the text meaning. Writing always has an audience, even if it is just ourselves, and it is not until writing is read that its full meaning emerges; it’s not enough just to reflect in writing – we have to read what we’ve written in order to grasp its full and proper meaning. Writing, therefore, is inherently relational, collaborative, and audience-directed.
Review Three: The Twitter Experiment
Title: Some General Thoughts on the Twitter Experiment
Author: Monica Rankin
Category: Blog Post
Hyperlink: Here
Publishing details: University of Texas, Dallas - Monica Rankin's page, 2008.
Summary (not more than about 100 words):
A summary by Monica Rankin of how she used twitter effectively in her classroom to stimulate and promote discussion throughout the entire class of 90+ students. She discusses her original plan (to hold twitter-based discussions in the classroom in the Friday lesson of each week), the set up (eg projecting TweetDeck onto the screen so the class could follow the entire discussion), the 'best practices' (incorporating twitter as an extra tool and strategy into the pre-existing range of strategies, rather than attemping to use it in isolation), and the strengths and weaknesses of the strategy (tweets are short, and there is a small but significant time lag; the strategy allowed for much greater participation from the entire class).
Contribution to our research project:
This is a prime example of writing being used collaboratively to enhance learning. The whole concept of twitter is part of the mass of technology that challenges the definition of 'writing', and in this context also the definition of a 'discussion'. This emphasises the idea that 'writing' can be communal and collaborative, that it can be used to shape and form ideas, and that it doesn't have to refer exclusively to a complete, finished product that can be broken down into components and 'taught'.
I'd be very interested to see if anyone has done any research on the difference between conversations held verbally and via writing.
Author: Monica Rankin
Category: Blog Post
Hyperlink: Here
Publishing details: University of Texas, Dallas - Monica Rankin's page, 2008.
Summary (not more than about 100 words):
A summary by Monica Rankin of how she used twitter effectively in her classroom to stimulate and promote discussion throughout the entire class of 90+ students. She discusses her original plan (to hold twitter-based discussions in the classroom in the Friday lesson of each week), the set up (eg projecting TweetDeck onto the screen so the class could follow the entire discussion), the 'best practices' (incorporating twitter as an extra tool and strategy into the pre-existing range of strategies, rather than attemping to use it in isolation), and the strengths and weaknesses of the strategy (tweets are short, and there is a small but significant time lag; the strategy allowed for much greater participation from the entire class).
Contribution to our research project:
This is a prime example of writing being used collaboratively to enhance learning. The whole concept of twitter is part of the mass of technology that challenges the definition of 'writing', and in this context also the definition of a 'discussion'. This emphasises the idea that 'writing' can be communal and collaborative, that it can be used to shape and form ideas, and that it doesn't have to refer exclusively to a complete, finished product that can be broken down into components and 'taught'.
I'd be very interested to see if anyone has done any research on the difference between conversations held verbally and via writing.
Random Rethinking Interlude
I took a brief moment to read through a couple of the summaries posted by my class members on the class ning, and the top few were all written by the same student, based on papers by the same author - and raised some interesting points.
What about journal writing?
The best journal writing comes from free reflection, from writing without self-censorship and conscious thought - but can that happen if we're focussing on our audience?
I think the answer is both yes and no. As I'm writing this post, I'm investigating, exploring. I'm not actually sure what I'm going to say from one sentence to the next. I'm freeing my subconscious to write pretty much unfettered - but at the same time, I'm conscious of the purpose of this exercise. I'm writing because I want to know more about a particular topic - I want to know what I think.
And I'm conscious that this is a public blog, so I backtrack for things like spelling. But the one doesn't interfere with or preclude the other.
However, thinking further, deeper - I think that this is a learned skill. Free writing was something I had to learn, practicing many times by just writing absolutely anything that came to mind, before I could slowly learn to discipline my mind to free write on a particular topic. As I've practiced this skill over the years - and I do practice it very frequently, several times a week - I've honed my skills, so that I can sit here and write this blog post as quite literally a stream of consciousness post, without editing for word choice or thought order, but just for spelling and typos.
I'm not blocking my subconscious from thinking freely, and examining freely, as I'm supposed to do in a journal entry. But at the same time, I'm intimately aware of the purpose of this piece of text I'm creating, and I'm creating it in order to see what direction it will take - and it will take a direction, because that is the point of it.
Journal writing still has an audience and a purpose, even if that audience is simply ourselves. I think we oughtn't to deny the importance of writing for the audience of self - nor ought we to deny that we are an audience for ourselves, and that all writing, any writing, is written to communicate something to someone, even if it's just gentle chatter between our conscious and subconscious.
Hmm. Interesting thoughts.
What about journal writing?
The best journal writing comes from free reflection, from writing without self-censorship and conscious thought - but can that happen if we're focussing on our audience?
I think the answer is both yes and no. As I'm writing this post, I'm investigating, exploring. I'm not actually sure what I'm going to say from one sentence to the next. I'm freeing my subconscious to write pretty much unfettered - but at the same time, I'm conscious of the purpose of this exercise. I'm writing because I want to know more about a particular topic - I want to know what I think.
And I'm conscious that this is a public blog, so I backtrack for things like spelling. But the one doesn't interfere with or preclude the other.
However, thinking further, deeper - I think that this is a learned skill. Free writing was something I had to learn, practicing many times by just writing absolutely anything that came to mind, before I could slowly learn to discipline my mind to free write on a particular topic. As I've practiced this skill over the years - and I do practice it very frequently, several times a week - I've honed my skills, so that I can sit here and write this blog post as quite literally a stream of consciousness post, without editing for word choice or thought order, but just for spelling and typos.
I'm not blocking my subconscious from thinking freely, and examining freely, as I'm supposed to do in a journal entry. But at the same time, I'm intimately aware of the purpose of this piece of text I'm creating, and I'm creating it in order to see what direction it will take - and it will take a direction, because that is the point of it.
Journal writing still has an audience and a purpose, even if that audience is simply ourselves. I think we oughtn't to deny the importance of writing for the audience of self - nor ought we to deny that we are an audience for ourselves, and that all writing, any writing, is written to communicate something to someone, even if it's just gentle chatter between our conscious and subconscious.
Hmm. Interesting thoughts.
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