In researching the theory of giving a response and never use “I”, an article by Kimberly N. Parker. I’ve found that this can make students feel silenced. Students are taught this theory early on, but the “Bad ideas About Writing” (pg. 135) article shows no adequate reasoning behind the theory or an deepening understanding as to why. As a young student being taught this, it raised questions I’m sure others are wondering. Well how do I give a correct response out of 1st person? Why leave me out of the response sections? Isn’t personal response your connection to the passage? If teachers could educate students how to leave an authentic response for literature and still make a connection with self, this would instead be a better idea. A response a occurs after reading and somewhere between self and text connect then a student can explain who they got to this conclusion.
The problem with leaving “I”?
In researching the articles by Kimberly Parker, she wrote the article, she explains Restricting students to write without self can make students not feel the freedom of writing. writing should be about self-expression, while given evaluation of the text. When” I” can’t be represented what else is to say how we connect. It Leaves open that space to say did I really learn anything here is there anything attaching me to what I just read. How can a professor expect students to have a response when “I” is forbidden with no substitution?
Many students will be taught this during their transitions of institutions, that expressing themselves through their lives in response to literature isn’t acceptable. Within in these restricting guidelines often taught early on, Parker continues to explain how writing can become a disembodied task to only complete and devoid any joy or connection of feeling. It can become vague and distant. Student have a disconnect with writing because they feel it’s not about them.
In Bird by Bird, Anne Lamont expresses how she found within her students, they were rather just trying to make an assignment deadline and making sure their papers are perfect for standards than learning and implicating creativity. Its only to finish a standard but not educating them into being experienced writers. This fights against having students learning what their writing style or seeing themselves as their own personal writers. Its them expressing through someone else or writing like someone else. It can cause a delayed chance to develop as a new writer if a student can be told to stop writing as you experience but how the standard is set for you to write. it’s more of a representation to leave yourself out and your voice won’t be represented.
With a lot of these preset standards, student may feel pressure to always stick with these standards to make everything perfect. Anne Lamont speaks on this on pg. 28 of her book, Bird by Bird. She speaks by saying “Perfectionism will ruin your writing, blocking inventiveness and playfulness and life course”. Perfection is the robbery of creativity. Focusing too much on the guidelines of structure and standard can leave a paper, sometimes vain. Organization is a key to a great paper, yes, but too much pressure is often applied to the standards of papers, which can cause lack of originality or skills. Allowing your understanding to be open and unrestricted you can discover new treasures about yourself as a writer. Under all the mess and plies, while cleaning things up you can make something new.
So, if we can’t write in first person how do we respond?
Lucy Calkins, Art of teaching reading and writing, Gives us some steps of personal response in an article on pg. 518. Personal response involves first hearing and then now showing how you are affected by it. Reader’s linger over the readings and still bring through a relation of one’s own life. You must get a sense that you first get it and there is a response to give. In order to show how prior experience can serve as a source for envisioning and comprehending a text, a reader can share his or her thoughts.
After taking in the steps when the can answer the questions of:
1. can you tell a story from this?
2. How can you explain seeing it in this way?
3. What does these sections say about these texts?
4. What does the section say about me the reader as a person?
Writers need options for how to say what they want to say and not be silenced. It is important to help young writers to understand who they are as a writer and help guide them to use writing as a creative process for liberation’s and self-explorations. Anne Lamont also wrote a writer’s job is to see what’s hidden within a page, to see maybe bleak unspeakable things, and turn it into words that will adjoin others into a place of unity in understanding. Writer are first to discover then figure out a way to get their audience on the same page with them. expounding on the journey it took them on and getting them to the same destination
Work cited page:
Parker, N. Kimberly, Response: Never use “I”, bad ideas about writing, wvu,2015.
Calkins, Lucy, Personal Response: The art of reading and writing, New York: longman,2001.
Lamont, Anne, Finding your voice, Perfectionism: Bird by Bird, New York :Pantheon Books, 19
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