"My purpose was to capture a physical state or movement that carried a strong subjective impression, an accomplishment which seemed supremely worth struggling for. If I could fasten the mind of the reader upon words so firmly that he would forget words and be conscious only of his response, I felt that I would be in sight of knowing how to write narrative. I strove to master words, to make them disappear, to make them important by making them new, to make them melt into a rising spiral of emotional stimuli, each greater than the other, each feeding and reinforcing the other, and all ending in an emotional climax that would drench the reader with a sense of a new world. That was the single aim of my living."
Leaving Wright alone for a moment and considering the readings for this week, each author presents real-world activities for teaching voice and organization. While I generally find myself in agreement with Dornan et al., one of their proposals for the classroom left me scratching my head . . .They suggest, "projecting a paper on the overhead and inviting students on an 'error hunt' to produce an error-free final draft in Standard Edited English." Hmm . . .they also said that this activity would be "fun" and noted that students, "kept inching their moveable desks further and further forward to make sure they caught everything and engaged in some good-natured arguing about spelling." Really Dornan? Did that really happen? Where you able to captivate a middle school classroom with an projection of a paper and an erasable marker? Okay, okay, they continue with activities that I plan on adopting in the future.
The standout reading for me this week was Harper's "The Writer's Toolbox". I was excited to read about the "tools" she designed with her students so they would not only have a shared language, but concrete strategies to apply to their writing. Her methods break the writing process down into manageable structures that when applied breathes life into what is otherwise uninspired writing. Her Snapshots and Exploding a Moment ideas will make students excited about writing, reading and editing
. . .though probably not as much as an 'error hunt'.
For Wright, writing consumed his very being. His words ceased to be individual patterns of thought and became a powerful vehicle to convey understanding. How do we get our students there, where writing is not work, but a salve to be spread on the wounds of injustice, a tool for change, a window to the fundamental elements of their subjective realities? Culham, Harper and Dornan all have their theories on voice and organization, but until writing becomes a visceral enterprise, full of guts and passion, we are just putting frosting on mud pie.
My Link is to Paul Shambroom's website. Currently on display at the Weismann, Shambroom's work explores the dynamics of power in present day America. Some pretty chilling snapshots . . .
3 comments:
Hey Chris-
It's Emily, in case my name doesn't show up. So that thing in Dornan, the "error" hunt on the overhead, I actually experienced that...IN MY SENIOR YEAR OF COLLEGE. And yes, it was pretty boring, but I did notice that when it was my turn to have my paper edited on the big screen in front of God and everybody, I paid a whole lot more attention. And it did end up helping my writing, I think. Also, the whole Black Boy thing, and inspiration and all that, I read this book in undergrad that talked about the gall that writers have. It's by Stephen Dobyns, who is a poet, and he talks about the arrogance and narcisism (I know I spelled that wrong) it takes to be a good writer. In all, he says that writers have to have the gall to believe that the world cares what they have to say, even in the face of distinct evidence to the contrary. In my opinion, this gall reaches it's peak during adolescence because adolescents are so obsessed with themselves, and therefore, we as teachers, have got a great opportunity to take advantage of that. Unless, of course, we use an overhead projector to inspire them to come up with "fascinating ideas".
I love how you start out this posting with the quote from Richard Wright. His discussion of using words to cast a spell in a way on readers so that they only think of the content and not the words, really speaks to me in terms of what Romano, in his book on MultiGenre writing, calls "narrative knowing." It is a different way to "know" truth, a way not possible to convey in expository writing.
Thanks for sharing the Wright quote and your questioning of Dornan's depiction of the "error hunt." My experience has seen students excited about looking for grammar errors but only when candy prizes were involved.
Have a good week. --candance
Well, I don't have Richard Wright's inspiration in mind when I think of student potential. We want to be alert to the signals of students pregnant with genius, but you can't really build a curriculum around that.
The error hunt can be fun. It works best if you write the sample yourself, 'cause then it can be funny instead of merely tragic or boring. But will the desks march forward to salute? Hey, one day some of us will retire from the classroom so we can write books about how great we are in the classroom. Hope we tell the truth.
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