On Writing and Writing Instruction

After Geoff Sirc's lecture last week, I left the building feeling a certain sense of wonder, a certain sense of awe. As we walked away, I voiced aloud my revelation that writing is nothing more than an expression of the human experience. Robin corrected me: it can also be a creation of human experience.

Two things have happened since then:

1) I followed up with Geoff. He agrees, though I changed my definition ever so slightly to say that writing is an act of expressing or creating the human experience. Obviously, we have our agreed-upon understanding of genre--this one "looks" like an essay, that one "looks" like a cover letter--but, at the core, all we are doing is acting out our ideas using symbols that represent those ideas. Self reflection followed. I realized that I have been writing words first, with the infusion of my ideas coming only second. I have been writing according to the rules I thought I knew--the grammatical, syntactic, and stylistic expectations I thought my professors had of me--with the infusion of my own ideas coming only after, if really ever.

2) I followed up with Mitch Ogden in the Writing Center. I asked Mitch about my "revelation" and he filled me with confidence by replying that I am not alone and that I am well on my way to articulating this idea. We talked about writing. We talked about the history of writing, its development of genres and place in academic, professional, and philosophical writing. Inspired by Geoff's justification for using lists and Courtney's use of Montaigne, I began to demystify writing in my own mind.

I talked with Mitch about my writing, and was relieved to learn that my mistakes are the very same he sees in academic writing more often than not: students understand that they are taught to begin with a thesis statement, they work out the problem as they write, and they arrive at a sound--sometimes revelatory--conclusion at the end. The problem is: that very conclusion should be the thesis statement. The problem compounded: who in the hell wants to rewrite an entire paper based on their conclusion after days or weeks of research and writing or after pulling an all-nighter just to get the damn thing done before the 9:00 am deadline?!

Mitch then talked about a paradigm shift in writing instruction. Still marginal, the idea is that we ask students to begin with a topic--not a thesis--and then spend time (days? weeks?) working with them to develop and explore research questions based on that topic. Take time in class to read over research questions. Make it an assignment to submit three or five of them with a paragraph or two of explanation or proto-research for each research question. Work with the students to help them see their thesis (formerly conclusion) develop before their eyes, before they even begin writing their "essay." Show them how to incorporate the research they've already done in constructing their argument. Actively guide the students' process and understanding where before all we had was a last-ditch effort to critique the final product leaving comments that may or may not ever be read, understood, or investigated (in order of descending probability). Do the work with them that they are often left to do on their own.

There's more, and we can talk about it, but two things happened on the way to class today: I fell in love with idea of my ideas and I found a way to help inspire my students to do the same.

p.s. I still have many fears about sharing my writing: did I spell the big words correctly? Did I use them properly? Are my descriptors over the top or lame? Still, I see now how I have begun to express my idea. That's kind of a big deal. I'll get the rest of it in the second draft.