Some People are Just Born Good Writers

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In today’s world, writing is highly important since it is so widely used on a daily basis. But it isn’t as easy to do, simply because there are a lot of bad ideas out there that tend to make it difficult for some. Jill Parrott, in her essay “Some People Are Just Born Good Writers” (in the book Bad Ideas About Writing) argues that the idea of the title is a bad idea because it puts inexperienced writers in a bad mindset where they think they can’t improve their writing and make themselves believe that all good writers are just born being able to write well. But, she says, this bad idea shouldn’t let inexperienced writers be kept from writing, because there are solutions out there in order for them to improve and not to feel so discouraged about writing.

“struggling kid writing” by Getty Images/VStock RF. Calvert Education ttps://www.calverteducation.com/parent-teacher/teaching-a-child-who-hates-writing

Jill Parrott, the author of “Some People Are Just Born Good Writers”, suggests on what inexperienced writers can do so they do not get in that bad mindset of labeling themselves as being a bad writer. “Persistence emphasizes that experience is more powerful than unchangeable ability, and challenges help move writers forward rather than delaying their progress.” (Parrot 73). Here, she says how being a persistent writer is key to improving one’s writing. Persistence and going back over previous work will improve future projects because then the writer will know what mistakes not to make. It’s like anything else in life where practice makes perfect, a writer can’t expect to become better if they don’t practice and keep trying. One can’t expect to be able to write an amazing paper without having previous experience and having grown from the mistakes they made previously. As the writer looks back at previous work, they must be able to take any feedback, being bad or good and use that as another way to keep improving.

As writers continue to be more persistent with their writing and growing, they often tend to realize how the writing process they use works and/or if it’s actually working for them. Every writer goes through the writing process when writing something and in order to not get in the mindset of “Some People Are Just Born Good Writers” the writer has to find a process that fits them. Peter Elbow, author of “Writing Without Teachers”, suggests using a certain type of model of the writing process in order to make things easier.” If on the other hand you adopt the developmental model of the writing process, you might well try to write it four times, not once, and try to help the piece evolve through these four versions.” (Elbow 33). In other words, as someone might spend hours just working on one draft and killing themselves to make it perfect then just revising and editing it at the end, the writer should write that paper multiple times. As they re-write it, each time they keep fixing it up and seeing if the last draft was going anywhere or if they can use any of it and keep going from there. In the end, as you write each draft, the paper is going to keep growing and should make writing a little less of a headache for those writers that find writing difficult.

As any writer is writing their paper and follows the previous suggestions in order to make the whole writing process better, a very important thing the they must also do is to include his or her voice in their paper. Voice is very important to have when writing something because it’s what draws the readers attention. “When teachers talk about the good qualities of student writing, one of their favorite terms is “voice.” Good student writing has it; bad student writing doesn’t” (Hashimoto 70). In other words when writing in academia having one’s voice present is a must because it’s what separates good writers / students from bad ones. Voice gives a type of energy to the reader such as humor, rhythm, flow, or individuality that makes them feel like the writer is actually talking to them. Without a present voice, the paper might seem dull to the reader and they might become uninterested.

All inexperienced writers such as students who wish to become great writers must always seek to improve. By sticking to the bad idea that some people are just born good writer does the complete opposite of that. That will just get the writer stuck in a bad mindset where they think they can’t improve. But, by being a persistent writer and taking any feedback and using it to improve their writing will help of keeping them out of that said mindset. As persistence is always important, the writer must figure out a good writing process for them in order to make writing less of a hassle. As stated, using the developmental model can help ease that struggle. As the writer is putting the paper together, they must remember to include their voice. This is highly important because with this they can catch the reader’s attention and make them want to read their work. Practicing all three will help the writers work and should shed light on them with some hope that they can improve and become the great writers they’re aspired to be. “Good writers are not born. They are learned” (Parrot 74).

 

Works Cited

  • Ball, E. Cheryl; Loewe, M. Drew. Bad Ideas About Writing. Parrott, Jill. “Some People Are Just Born Good Writers”. Pp. 71-75
  • Elbow, Peter. Writing without Teachers, Oxford University Press, Incorporated, 1998. ProQuest eBook Central, pp. 30-60. https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/gsu/detail.action?docID=516289
  • Hashimoto, I. “Voice as Juice: Some Reservations about Evangelic Composition.” College Composition and Communication, vol. 38, no. 1, 1987, pp. 70–80. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/357588.

A Better Idea…

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Students embarking on their journeys through what one might call “studenting” have come across many different rules and regulations that govern the art of writing. Throughout the years, many of these laws seem to become more malleable, while others seem to stand true, or to be completely wrong.

“The Journey” by Andrzej Sykut is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

In the book Bad Ideas About Writing, author Jennifer M. Cunningham takes the time to address one of the ideas behind writing that is known by many, but proven to be incorrect. The title of her essay, and the topic that she covers, is the idea that “African American Language is Not Good English.”

“Mistakes, Wrong” by Joe The Goat Farmer is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Simply put, Cunningham works to prove the inaccuracy of the bad idea through explaining how the language isn’t even a part of English itself. She has studied the African American language from a linguistic perspective and has come to the conclusion that it is its own form of communication, separated from the English language. With the help of Lisa Green and John Rickford, Cunningham and her colleagues present what they think a better idea might be: African American Language is not English. All three cooperate in proving that this idea is better, because the other is completely invalid.

“oh, about three feet” by McBeth is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

In Cunningham’s chapter of “Bad Ideas About Writing,” she explicates her perspective of the African American language in many ways. One of the most notable, is when she speaks about the linguistic aspect of AAL. She states, “Understood from a linguistics perspective, African American Language combines an English vocabulary (the words used) with an African grammar (the way the words are ordered and conjugated) and phonology (the way the words are pronounced)” (Cunningham 88). Cunningham further explains that, “In that way, African American Language is not good or bad English because it is not, linguistically speaking, English” (Cunningham 88). In other words, because of the fact that it is essentially a remodel of English that is functional on its own, it cannot be categorized as good or bad English. It simply is not English at all. Therefore, it shouldn’t be treated as such. With Cunningham offering this point of view on such a unique subject, she took her ideas and backed them up substantially. 

“Facts about Languages” by Elaine_Smith is licensed under CC0 1.0.

One of the most important avenues for the development of her ideas comes from Lisa J. Green’s book, African American English: A Linguistic Introduction. Green uses her writing to explain her personal views on the subject of African American English, or AAE, and Cunningham takes advantage of her similar opinions. While studying Green’s book, one will notice how she holds the same vision that African American English should be approached from an angle that is unlike that of the English language.

For instance, in her book, Green states,“The entries in this lexicon are also English words that occur in other varieties of American English, but they have different meanings and may be used in different linguistic environments” (Green 13). What she’s identifying is the reason that most people will judge AAE from an English perspective, rather than its own unique perspective. The African American language has similar words to the English language, and so those who don’t understand the linguistic environment in which those words are being used may mistake them for the wrong message. Therefore, to eliminate the confusion of meanings, the two languages should be treated as individual.

“Languages” by ialja is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Just as Jennifer M. Cunningham developed her ideas from those of Lisa J. Green, Green generated her own ideas from those of another author. John R. Rickford, author of chapter one of Making The Connection, uses his writing to look at the African American Language, and make conclusions based on the results that the language provides single-handedly in the education system. When speaking about the use of Ebonics in developing better success for African American students, he explains that “Methods of teaching reading and writing that take the language diversity of African American students into account have shown greater promise than those that do not” (Adger 15). In saying this, he is acknowledging the idea that the African American language plays a substantial role in the success of African American individuals. It offers something that the English language cannot offer itself.

All in all, his conclusion not only supports Green’s idea of how AAL can it function on its own, but it also explains how it functions cooperatively alongside the English language, rather than stuck inside of its boundaries.

“Contented” by wajakemek | rashdanothman is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

In conclusion, all three authors have come together to generate a new idea, formed from an existing bad idea about writing. Jennifer M. Cunningham, Lisa J. Green, and John R. Rickford present the better idea that African American Language is not English, rather than “bad English.” In the light of this, it’s clear that the culmination of ideas between authors tends to become a force to be reckoned with. What other common ideas can potentially be proven wrong by the likes of writers across the globe? Can student writers have the same collaborative impact?

 

Works Cited

Cunningham, Jennifer M. “African American Language is Not Good English.” Bad Ideas About Writing, edited by Cheryl E Ball and Drew M Loewe, West Virginia University Libraries, 2017, pp. 88–92.

“Lexicons and Meaning.” African American English: a Linguistic Introduction, by Lisa J. Green, Cambridge Univ. Press, 2009, pp. 12–31.

Rickford, John R. “Language Diversity and Academic Achievement.” MAKING THE CONNECTION, edited by Carolyn Adger et al., ERIC Publications, 1999, pp. 1–30.

 

Toni White BIAW

 

Geoffrey Carter wrote an article called “Writer’s Block Just Happens” in the book Bad Ideas About Writing. BIAW author Geoffrey Carter, Donald Murrary from ‘When Writers Can’t Write’ and David Barthelme from ‘Not Knowing’ all believe that writer’s block has a solution they do though disagree on the solution. According to Geoffrey the concept of Writer’s block is “overblown”. It’s a common misconception that writers go through period of ‘writer’s block’  where they simply can’t write and it the worst time of their life. Writer’s block is not something to shy away from or just happens out of nowhere. There are solutions for writer’s block. Anyone can develop a process to help them get out of writer’s block. To do this, writers need to get to know  their writing process and what works for them. Every source has a different way to conquer the delay known as writer’s block. Murray believes that its a part of the process is to be delayed while writing and it isn’t smart to “write to write”. He sourced David Barthelme that believes that writing without knowing what apart of what makes writing magic.

Explanation

The differences between the solutions  for writer’s block connects them all at the main idea of the existence of solutions for writer’s block. Ideally, Carter’s solution gives the writers a chance to expand their writing in a unique way, “by playing with words and names. Doing so, I believe, negates the very problem of writer’s block.”(Carter 101) He doesn’t believe that writer’s block should actually affect the amount of work you can produce. His idea for fixing writers block is challenging yourself with using different words to create different concepts and overcome  writer’s block. “Whether the patient was calling Bergler out as a burglar”(Carter 101) Professor Carters idea of how to solve the writer’s block contrasts from Murray idea. “We delay writing until we can find the need to write.” (Murray 3) When writers are struggling to write they shouldn’t write is the idea that Murray is trying to convey to the readers. This contradicts Carter because he gives writers a quick fix for the block but Murray just says embrace it. Barthelme on ‘Not Knowing’ “without scanning process engendered by not-knowing, without the possibility would be no invention.”(Barthelme 510) In other words not knowing where the writing is going can be beneficial and even assist at moments when feeling lost in your writing. The concept of not knowing creates inventions and things unexpected.

Geoffrey V. Carter addresses his reader “As a writer myself, I know that writing doesn’t always come easily. Fortunately, I’ve always been good at researching things before I really start writing.”(Carter 99) In other words writing will not always be simple but it is very important for writers to actually research and prepare themselves for what the task ahead. This idea agrees with Murray in a one way of saying writing won’t come fast and easy all the time. Some writers don’t accept that and expect for writing to be a constant thing with the flow of tons of ideas 24/7. “Amateurs try to write with words; professionals write with  information. They collect warehouses full of information, far more than they need, so much information that its  sheer abundance makes the need for meaning and order insistent. (Murray 2) The point of researching and having prior knowledge is important before immediately writing, it also suggests that the lack of research can  prohibit writing. 

Writers are destined to be stuck at some point and Barthelme feels strongly that it’s normal. His book is written where he is actually writing a story, while demonstrating his process of writing at the same time. The way he formatted his chapter in the Georgia Review made it difficult to find the places where he described his thoughts about ‘writer’s block’. It was very abstract like he never explicitly  said writer’s block but to infer he was talking about what he does when he doesnt know whats next in writing. “Let us suppose that someone is writing a story. From the conventional signs he takes an azalea bush, plant it in a pleasant park… what happens next? Of course I don’t know. It’s appropriate to pause and say that the writers who, embarking upon a task, does not know what to do.” (Barthelme 509) He starts an actual story to show the process of adding more to whatever you are writing. He later on talks about how if writers are  immediately ready to write and always knowing what’s next it is no longer art but “Journalism and sociology.” This is not the type of writing that Barthelme wants writers to do. He believes it should be more organic/natural.

Conclusion

Writer’s block is not something that just happens. It can be solved and there isn’t one correct way to avoid it. Every person can find a process that works for them when they don’t know what to write next. Carters article is a composition of anecdotes where a writer found themselves blocked and how they found their way out. “I want to mention how it reinforces some of the other strategies for overcoming writer’s block that I’ve come across”(Carter 100)  It gives writers multiple people and theories to relate to. This provides support for the idea that there is a solution to the problem of writer’s block. BIAW provided multiple ways to overcome writer’s block. Murray and Barthelme and Carter share ideas on what writers block does to a writer but they all fortunately give writers different ways to fight it or even accept it.

Toni white BIAW

Geoffry Carter wrote an article called “Writer’s Block Just Happens” in the book Bad Ideas About Writing. BIAW author Geoffrey Carter, Donald Murrary from ‘When Writers Can’t Write’ and David Barthelme from ‘Not Knowing’ all believe that writer’s block has a solution they do though disagree on the solution. According to Geoffrey the concept of Writer’s block is “overblown”. It’s a common misconception that writers go through period of ‘writer’s block’  where they simply can’t write and it the worst time of their life. Writer’s block is not something to shy away from or just happens out of nowhere. There are solutions for writer’s block. Anyone can develop a process to help them get out of writer’s block. To do this, writers need to get to know  their writing process and what works for them. Every source has a different way to conquer the delay known as writer’s block. Murray believes that its a part of the process is to be delayed while writing and it isn’t smart to “write to write”. He sourced David Barthelme that believes that writing without knowing what apart of what makes writing magic.

Explanation

 

The differences between the solutions  for writer’s block connects them all at the main idea of the existence of solutions for writer’s block. Ideally, Carters solutions gives the writers a chance to expand their writing in a unique way. “ by playing with words and names. Doing so, I believe, negates the very problem of writer’s block.”(Carter 101) He doesn’t believe that writer’s block should actually affect the amount of work you can produce. His idea for fixing writers block is challenging yourself with using different words to create different concepts and overcome  writer’s block. “Whether the patient was calling Bergler out as a burglar”(Carter 101) Profeesor Carters idea of how to solve the writer’s block contrasts from Murray idea. “We delay writing until we can find the need to write.” (Murrary 3) When writers are struggling to write they shouldn’t write is the idea that Murrary is trying to convey to the readers. This contradicts Carter because he gives writers a quick fix for the block but Murray just says embrace it. Barthelme on ‘Not Knowing’ “without scanning process engendered by not-knowing, without the possibility would be no invention.”(Barthelme 510) In other words not knowing where the writing is going can be beneficial and even assist at moments when feeling lost in your writing. The concept of not knowing creates inventions and things unexpected.

 

Geoffry V. Carter addresses his reader “As a writer myself, I know that writing doesn’t always come easily. Fortunately, I’ve always been good at researching things before I really start writing.”(Carter 99) In other words writing will not always be simple but it is very important for writers to actually research and prepare themselves for what the task ahead. This idea agrees with Murrary in a one way of saying writing won’t come fast and easy all the time. Some writers don’t accept that and expect for writing to be a constant thing with the flow of tons of ideas 24/7. “Amateurs try to write with words; professionals write with  information. They collect warehouses full of information, far more than they need, so much information that its  sheer abundance makes the need for meaning and order insistent. (Murrary 2) The point of researching and having prior knowledge is important before immediately writing, it also suggests that the lack of research can  prohibit writing. 

 

Writers are destined to be stuck at some point and Bathelme feels strongly that it’s normal. His book is written where he is actually writing a story, while demonstrating his process of writing at the same time. The way he formated his chapter in the Georgia Review made it difficult to find the places where he described his thoughts about ‘writer’s block’. It was very abstract like he never explicitly  said writer’s block but to infer he was talking about what he does when he doesnt know whats next in writing. “Let us suppose that someone is writing a story. From the conventional signs he takes an azalea bush, planta it in a pleasant park… what happens next? Of course I don’t know. It’s appropriate to pause and say that the writers who, embarking upon a task, does not know what to do.” (Bathelme 509) He starts an actual story to show the process of adding more to whatever you are writing. He later on talks about how if writers are  immediately ready to write and always knowing what’s next it is no longer art but “Journalism and sociology.” This is not the type of writing that Barthelme wants writers to do. He believes it should be more organic/natural.

 

Conclusion

 

Writer’s block is not something that just happens. It can be solved and there isn’t one correct way to avoid it. Every person can find a process that works for them when they don’t know what to write next. Carters article is a composition of anecdotes where a writer found themselves blocked and how they found their way out. “I want to mention how it reinforces some of the other strategies for overcoming writer’s block that I’ve come across”(Carter 100)  It gives writers multiple people and theories to relate to. This provides support for the idea that there is a solution to the problem of writer’s block. BIAW provided multiple ways to overcome writer’s block. Murray and Barthelme and Carter share ideas on what writers block does to a writer but they all fortunately give writers different ways to fight it or even accept it.

 

Connor Mason’s Blog for “Bad Ideas About Writing”

                                                                                      Introduction
In the blog “Bad Ideas About Writing” Quentin Vieregge states that one of those bad ideas is believing that the five paragraph essay writing method is rhetorically sound. Authors Robert Connors and Lil Brannon express the same sentiments in their blogs. They all contend that the five paragraph method is grossly overrated by many educators and overused in primary and secondary schools. Vieregge, Connors and Brannon all believe that by using the method students spend more time trying to stick to rigid guidelines and producing models than creating in depth independently thought out papers. A better idea to this bad idea is for teachers to use other less formulated approaches to writing in the classroom that are less restrictive and more widely used in colleges.
                                                                                    Explanation
The five paragraph method consists of an introduction that usually has an attention grabbing hook and a thesis that states the argument, three paragraphs that support the thesis and a conclusion that restates the thesis and closes the paper. Using this method, students are usually given a topic to discuss using the formula. Quentin Vieregge says that students aren’t taught to think and feel fully but “rather they’re taught to learn their place as future workers in an assembly line economy: topic sentence, support, transition, repeat.” (Vieregge, 211) He says he and other opponents believe that requiring this repetitive approach restricts writers from expressing themselves in other ways and “all but guarantees that writing will be a chore (for students.” (Vieregge, 211) A writer trying to replicate a model won’t use their skills to expand, explore and explain with enjoyment, he said.
College professors want their students to think more critically and creatively and actually enjoy the process of research and writing. “Most college writing instructors have eschewed the 5PM, contending that it limits what writing can be, constricts writers roles, and even arbitrarily shapes writers’ thoughts.” (Vieregge, 209) According to Vieregge, college professors aren’t looking for robotic writers but writers who can independently express themselves with creativity and clarity. They also want students to be able to express themselves using different writing techniques.
Most great philosophers and writers don’t write in using one particular format, so why is just one taught in high schools and four year colleges? What reasons would these teachers have in teaching an arbitrary format to young developing writers? Defenders of this method may say things like “Skilled writers use templates all the time; they actually enhance creativity; and they’re meant to guide and inspire rather than limit.” (Vieregge, pg 211) and “The 5PM gives the writer a starting point, it’s like the skeleton of the paper.” Vieregge says skilled writers may use some sort of templates but they don’t use the five paragraph method nor is it certain that they even approve using them.
Some five paragraph proponents have also argued that the model helps students who lack structure and for in their writing. Not according to Lil Brannon who says students who use this method aren’t really learning to build upon a structure but to simply learning to imitate one. “Students learn that writing means following a set of instructions, filling in the blanks.” (Brannon, 3). Instead of creative structure they are learning apply formulaic writing formats to their discourse. This can be seen in lower academia where students are given step by step instruction. They must master one skill to be declared ready for learning more complex material. The writing process becomes more robotic than fluid and grades are given on the basis of one following rigid directions rather than true comprehension and free expression.
Children who learn to conform to these set of guidelines are seen as smart while those who don’t are often branded as slow or in need of special education. These so called “struggling writers” are put into these remedial classes where they are still programmed to learn the five paragraph format. Brannon states “The deficit model labels these same children as remedial or even having learning disabilities.” (Brannon,18). This way of evaluating writing skills is both damaging and discouraging, Brannon states. process discourages individuality and creativity of young and impressionable writers.
According to Robert J. Connors this process has been going on since the early 1900s. Connors gives a statement which shows the prior usage of templates similar to the five paragraph method. He says “The first—which was the rise of single mode textbooks, especially those dealing with exposition. The second was the appearance of the new sort of textbook which I like to call “thesis text.” (Connors, 18). The text explains the history of books that demonstrate how to use single discourse templates. Out of all of them, the five paragraph method was the most popular since it gave teachers the belief that it was the best way of helping students formulate coherent paragraphs.

                                                                          Conclusion
Our school systems are being greatly hindered by this seemingly reliable writing format. Connors states “These teachers believe they are being “good teachers,” putting their faith in the institution of schooling and helping their students, they believe, secede in it.” (Connors,19) Teachers spend more time teaching a format than actually teaching students how to write. They are doing students a disservice. The testing industry pressures teachers heavily to give their students guidance and structure so the five paragraph method seems convenient. This method makes it easier for teachers to determine and generalize their students weaknesses when writing is complicated and vast, especially for beginners. Teachers just grade by finding topic sentences, counting the sentences in each paragraph and looking for a definite thesis. This grading process completely ignores the writer’s message and meaning. This leaves students thinking this writing method is appropriate and standard. Then these students bring the five paragraph method way of thinking and writing to college but they receive poor grades from their professors who are confused on why the students are writing in a format their rubric didn’t ask for.

                                                                               Work Cited
Connors, Robert J. “The Rise and Fall of the Modes of Discourse.” College Composition and Communication 32.4(1981): 444-55.

(Wickenheiser, Natasha. “Lil Brannon Et Al., ‘The Five-Paragraph Essay and the Deficit Model of Education.’” Scrapbooked Inquiries, 18 Apr. 2016, scrapbookedinquiries.wordpress.com/2016/01/19/lil-brannon-et-al-the-five-paragraph-essay-and-the-deficit-model-of-education/.

Textbooks, Open Access. “Open Access Textbooks.” Bad Ideas About Writing | Open Access Textbooks | WVU Libraries, textbooks.lib.wvu.edu/badideas/index.html.

Better Ideas About Writers

Stereotypes are fairly common in the world, but what about stereotypical thoughts about writer? Acknowledging writers in a positive manner is better than the negative stereotype because some believe that writers are mythical, magical, and damaged. However, they should view them as super-exceptional people because those specific stereotypes cause writers to lose confidence within their career, lead to manic-depressive illness, or even hinder their writing. I will discuss the bad ideas about writers and how people should change their perspective on them within the expansion of this blog because it can be life changing.

 

Better Ideas:

Throughout the reading of “Bad Ideas About Writing”, a book about writers being mythical, magical, and damaged stood out because writers are human beings and have feelings too. The stereotype can be effective not only to them, but to their supporters as well. “The idea that writing isn’t just easy, it’s magical work done by super-exceptional people” (Holbrook and Hundley, pg54). This quote is a preferable perspective because it gives artists credit for acknowledging how writing can be intricate at times, but they still overcome those obstacles. Not only that, but with them being super-exceptional people, their work is very outstanding or just not typical. Holbrook and Hundley did not want people to only think about just the writers, they want us to think about unseen artists like editors, agents, assistants, and even the spouses who handle much of the business behind the scenes. Believing that the specific people listed do not play a role in the business is not the best thought to think of. 

The super-exceptional writers could also be seen as working stiffs because in the words of Holbrook and Hundley, “Some analyze common themes circulating about writers and then strategize ways to combat them” (pg58). Piirto also said, “Successful writers are resilient, they learn to take rejection and criticism as part of the life-long writing process”, which is why some writers are not phased by the stereotypes, but some are. For the ones who are, stereotypical thoughts interfere with their self-esteem and they do not want to create writings anymore which is why it is a bad idea to think these negative thoughts about writers. Rusch advises writers who wants to give up on pursuing their work because of negative thoughts about them to see their work as part of a career where they improve through continued effort, ongoing practice, and frequent submissions. It is also better to recognize the troubling day-to-day pace of writing because for some authors, to sit down and write, the words are slow to come and they are not always good which could be less motivational for them. According to Holbrook and Hundley, some writers are often advised to workshop their manuscripts-in-progress, but the workshops can be detrimental and that could affect their health whether it is mental, physical, or emotional.

Becker, G. writes about how people believe that genes are responsible for manic depressive illnesses when it comes to some writers health, but it is what the people are saying against them that is affecting them mentally. Speaking on writers in a negative manner could take a toll on them and affect their work, specifically women because they are already seen as the minority in the writing world. Jane Piirto speaks on how people believe that women can not cope with combining a career in writing with their nurturing role in the family. For some that is true, but not for all, because the award-winning women writers who have a child or children demonstrates that it can be done. For example, a successful novelist is Stephenie Meyer for her book series “Twilight”. She published the books throughout 2005-2008 while raising her 3 sons. She displayed that women can balance out writing and nurturing their family, and none of her children were at least 10 years old when the first book came out, so the fact that she was taking care of toddlers and profited $125 million USD says a lot about determination.

How would you feel if you were a hardworking writer and people criticize you and your work just because? Now that you know more about the stereotypes of writers that seems to have no concern publicly and the better ideas, has your perspective about them changed? To judge someone and not know them well is not good at all, a better idea is to never judge a book by its cover.

 

Want to learn more about writers?

References:

 Teri H., Melanie H., “Writers Are Mythical, Magical, and Damaged,” Bad Ideas About Writing. (2017). Vol. 47 Issue 1, p53-59

Piirto, Jane. “Themes in the Lives of Successful Contemporary U.S. Women Creative Writers.” Roeper Review, vol. 21, no. 1, Sept. 1998, p. 60. 

Becker, G. “Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament – Jamison,KR.” JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES, vol. 32, no. 1, pp. 51– 56. 

Picture Sources:

“Author Stereotypes And Other Strangeness…” https://coffee2words.wordpress.com/2013/02/10/author-stereotypes-and-other-strangeness/ Accessed 30 Nov. 2019

“Bipolar disorder.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bipolar_disorder Accessed 30 Nov. 2019

“FORMAL OUTLINES ARE ALWAYS USEFUL”

 

                   Most high schools in the United State focus on formal outlining as a way of organizing students’ papers or essays. According to Kristin Milligan, in her essay “Formal outlines are always useful,” in the book Bad Ideas About writing, believes that “formal outlines are always useful” is a bad idea about writing because she believes it inhibits the development of writing skills of students. In Wavoord Barbara E. et al’s article of “Functions of outlining among college students in four disciplines” looked at the role outlines play in students’ work, especially how students can incorporate different writing strategies with the outlines. In Flower and Hayes’ article of “Problem-solving strategies and the writing process” focused on the writing process which highlighted individual differences of students and how they approach writing as a communication problem to be solved. From all these sources the better idea about writing here is that students should adapt the use of outlines with other strategies to enhance the development of their writing process. “Formal outlines” are not supposed to be mandatory. Rather, they should be made flexible such that students can easily adjust and adapt the use of it as and when necessary. This essay tends to focus on students and teachers, as they are the main users of mandatory outlines for them to embrace the idea of adapting the use of outlines to suit each students’ individual differences of the writing process.
                 Formal outlines just help students to organize their ideas quickly without going into details or helping them to develop these ideas to make a better argument or take a position on the topic they are writing on. The formal outlines given by teachers just focus students’ attention on the organization or how the essay should look like after they are done, which just makes the outlines a priority rather than directing their focus towards the writing process. According to Milligan, “instead of only choosing a familiar and mandated organizational form, students should be allowed to use the strategies that work best with their own intelligence to foster their growth” (Milligan, 164). Based on this idea, it would be more beneficial if teachers would always consider the uniqueness of their students when assigning papers to them. Individual differences and how each student approach learning, or writing plays an important role on the extent to which teachers make outlining of assignments mandatory for their students. One major thing teachers need to consider is, to make assignments open enough to cater for the different learning characteristics each of their students come on board with so that they can learn to adapt and incorporate different strategies in their writing process. This is to help students develop their writing skills and improve upon their writing process and be able to make a better argument on a topic without just concentrating on meeting the assignment requirements. 

                   Being aware of one’s own writing process is very helpful when one is writing a paper that is somehow complex, and he or she is able to strategize to incorporate different strategies into the writing process. The use of mandatory outlines tends to hinder the development of this writing skill since most teachers don’t take individual differences into consideration when assigning writing papers. Every writer has their own writing process and a continuous practice helps them to improve upon these processes. Writing is a messy practice that needs to be seen as a communication problem. In solving this problem, students need to incorporate different strategies in their writing process which the use of formal outlines tends to hinder. Opening up the writing process for students to become aware of their individual differences helps them to strategize when they become stuck at a point in writing a paper. According to Flower and Hayes “an even more compelling way to organize a paper is to simply follow the pattern of your own discovery process” (Flower and Hayes p.459). This means that the when students become aware of their own writing process and what works for them would mold them to become better writers. This self-awareness can help them to adapt their strategies when faced with complex situation of generating an idea as they work on their papers or essays.

                   The use of mandatory outlines tend to hinder creativity in students’ paper, especially not being able to address their readers and turn their attention in a particular direction and being able to sustain it throughout the writing process. Creativity here means students are able to adapt their writing skills or combine it with other strategies in developing one’s ideas in such a way that it arouses the interest of their readers to keep reading till the end. The flexibility in the use of outlines can be demonstrated by students as they interestingly combined this with other writing processes when assignments papers are open enough, Walvoord et al acknowledges that “students used to outline recursively, interspersed with other writing strategies” (p. 416). The use of outlines recursively encourages students to explore multiple writing strategies at every stage of the writing process that can help in their personal skills development. Milligan also pinpointed that “when students decide to adapt outlines to benefit their personal writing method, it reinforces the fact that writing is recursive and a non-linear process” (Milligan p. 165). Using outlines recursively brings out quality in student paper which tends to foster this creativity and focuses students attention on developing their ideas in an interesting way that  helps them to approach their work with authority and voice without just writing their paper in a linear hierarchical structure just to meet the teacher’s expectations.

                   In conclusion, the aim of this paper is not to write off the use of formal outlines rather to promote the adaptation of outlines in combination with other writing strategies to enhance the writing skills of students. Though formal outlines are good, teachers should not encourage students to stick to this style of writing but should urge them to be more dynamic with their writing skills so that they can be able to handle any kind of writing assignments, even the most complex and frustrating ones, “in doing so, there’s possibility that students’ beliefs about their writing efficacy will increase” (Milligan p. 164). With the hope of increasing flexibility and opening up the writing process to promote self-awareness,this would also help students to become more confident in their writing skills, even those that lack the ability to change their tactics when faced with frustrations of trying to generate an idea especially when they have less or no idea about the topic they are writing on, “although the writer has alternative procedures she or he may not have enough self-conscious awareness of his or her skills to invoke them when needed” (Flower and Hayes p.451).  This awareness can bring to bear in the minds of students that writing is an important skill they can master. Further research can be done by analyzing the effect of individual differences on the writing process.   

 

CITATION

Milligan, Kristin. “Formal Outlines Are Always Useful.” BAD IDEAS: 163.

Walvoord, Barbara E., et al. “Functions of Outlining Among College Students in Four Disciplines” Research in the Teaching of English (1995): 390-421.

Flower, Linda S., and John R. Hayes. “Problem-Solving Strategies and the Writing Process.” College English 39.4 (1977): 449-461.

 

Are Writers Born Or Made?

"Instead of obsessing over the things you can't change, focus on what you CAN: Your attitude, mindset, and energy. -Mandy Hale" by deeplifequotes is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

“Instead of obsessing over the things you can’t change, focus on what you CAN: Your attitude, mindset, and energy. -Mandy Hale” by deeplifequotes is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

“Some People Are Just Born Good Writer”
There is a notorious imagination that flair is something people are either born with or without. Many people have faith that victorious writers are those who were born with a unique blend of creativity. The idea that some people are born good writers discourages people who want to learn to write, and with this thought, they never try to write. Jill Parrott, Katherine Brooks, and Dr.Carol Dweck all believe that the only way for people to become good writers is for them to overcome their anxiety towards writing. A more practical idea is that Good writers are only made through a growth mindset, dedication, and determination.

About Writing, Jill Parrott says that “improved writing can be taught to writers at aIn her essay “Some People Are Just Born Good Writers,” in the book Bad Ideas ll levels, but we must first debunk the deeply held idea in the collective psyche that only some lucky people are good writers” (74). The author Jill Parrott is persuading her readers towards the right mindset revolution. The right mindset is fundamental to anyone who desires to become a good writer. Writing is always about the process. Like thinking, It pauses. It changes. It starts again and again. Writing takes practice. Good writers are not born, they are learned. One of the authors Neill Conor is emphasizing his ideas about writing is that “writing is thinking to believe that in your head something that feels clear is thinking is a very dangerous thing when you try and put it down on a page when you try and layout your ideas in a structured order that someone else can digest and you realize you can’t so it’s the weakening of thinking not writing, writing is thinking” (Neill, Conor). People with good growth? mindset believe that their abilities can grow with effort, as effort creates ability. They understand when they are learning or doing something challenging, like writing something. They know that hard work can help them accomplish their goals. On the other hand, people who believe that they are born without talent, they become demoralized, never even make an attempt, and also they don’t seek out opportunities for improvement. And this is because of the immature mindset that causes writing anxiety.
And what is writing anxiety and how to overcome it?. All these things are pretty-well explained in Katherine Brooks’s article, “Writing Anxiety and Job Search.” She believes that fear is what holds most people back in their writing, and anxiety is based on a lack of knowledge, way of thinking. Too much agitation will avert people from doing hard work. As she says in her article, “Instead of avoiding writing, seek out opportunities to improve your writing generally. Look for writing groups or writing institutes to develop your skills. It will build your confidence, and as your confidence grows, your anxiety will decrease” (Psychologytoday.com). Once they learn to write can let go of that fear and use opportunities to improve their writing style. Good writing needs dedication perseverance, and confidence is often viewed as an essential characteristic of successful writers. By taking feedback from people, peer review is also a necessary part of being a good writer. But bad writers already have a plan to not doing these things, and then they are always left behind due to fear of writing and fixed mindset that either people are born smart or they are not. She also introduces a book that helps people overcome their fear, anxiety, and depression “Self-Coaching: The Powerful Program To Beat Anxiety And Depression” by Joseph J. Luciani. The author Katherine Brooks is convincing her readers that their mindset is everything. If they work on a growth mindset then they will fight with their writing anxiety.

Without the belief that improvement is possible, there is very little chance that a writer will progress. It is the foundation of the growth mindset. Dr. Carol Dweck is a psychologist and growth mind expert who says in her article that “Growth mindset is a belief that intelligence and skills can improve” (mindsetworks.com). She demonstrates that people with a growth mindset believe they can develop talents and abilities through learning and hard work. And they are overwhelmingly happier, healthier, more prosperous, successful in school, business, employment, life. On the other side, some people with a fixed mindset believe that they have unchangeable talent and abilities. A growth mindset encourages creativity, and a fixed mindset holds people back. Potential is based on the amount of drive and determination they bring to accomplish their writing goals.

Dweck says that people can create a growth mindset by continuously learning new skills, and by being willing to try new things. She interprets growth mindsets with a figure of circles chain in which a person sets learning as a goal, has faith with this thought that he can get smarter, and efforts make him stronger and by spend more time and work harder. He will get higher achievements. She demonstrates fixed mindset and growth mindset by showing two brain pictures which show that if a person has fixed mindset than his intelligence is static, he avoids challenges, gives up quickly, sees effort as worst thing, ignores useful negative feedback and in the end feel threatened by the success of others. On the contrary, “A person with a growth mindset his intelligence can be developed, embrace challenges, persists in the face of setbacks, see efforts as the path to mastery, learn from criticism, and in the end, find lessons and inspiration in the success of others” (mindsetworks.com). So According to her, the mindset revolution matters if someone wants to be a good writer growth mindset can lead them to more significant achievements.
All novice writers and student writers whose desire to become good writers firstly must debunk the bad idea that successful author is born with talent and replace their fixed mindset with a growth mindset. As Dr. Carol Dweck says that with the growth mindset they understand in a better way about how writing works as a process and increases confidence in their abilities as a writer. And this confidence helps weaker writers to become better writers. As Katherine Brooks says in her article that by expanding mind it builds confidence in writers and this confidence overcome their writing anxiety and when people overcome writing anxiety so they would easily understand that “Good writers are Not Born, They are learned” (Jill, Parrott). Three different authors observed over the year that bought all of them to admit on the idea that good writers are only made through a growth mindset.

Works Cited:

Parrot, Jill. “Some People Are Just Born Good Writers.” Bad Ideas About Writing, edited by Cheryl E. Ball and Drew M. Loewe, Digital Publishing Institute, 2017, 71-75.
Brooks, Katherine. “Writing Anxiety and the Job Search.” Psychology Today, July 30 .2010, psychologytoday.com/us/blog/career-transition/201007/writing-anxiety-and-the-jobs-search.

Dr. Dweck, Carol. “Decades of Scientific Research That Started a Growth Mindset Revolution.” The Growth Mindset – What is Growth Mindset – Mindset Works, www.mindsetworks.com/science/.
Neill, Conor. “How To Improve Your Clarity Thought (Writing is Thinking). Youtube, March 07, 2017. www.youtube.com/ConorNeillPremiumContent.

 

WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT READING AND WRITING???

                     

3d human with a quesiton mark.

what is reading and writing??

    The ability to read and write is called literacy. Which is the most important skill that one can learn because it’s used in so many places like in schools, work, home and everywhere you go. I did a lot of research about reading and writing and I had different but at some extent same perspective from different authors and what they think about reading and writing. From the book, Bad Ideas About Writing, I read one from the many sections of the book “Reading and writing are not connected,” (38-42) written by Ellen C. Carillo. From this section of the book, according to the author she believes that is a bad idea to continue privileging writing at expense of reading. This is a bad idea because reading and writing go hand in hand, and they are related so teachers shouldn’t focus only on one. The author also says that in public debates about the best way to teach literacy at the college level that people fail to acknowledge is that reading, and writing are connected practices and, as such, the best way to teach them is together. In other words, Ellen C. Carillo thinks that is a better idea to teach reading and writing together because they are connected and benefits are greater than when taught separately,  like the author said, “Although writing is more often thought of as a creative act, reading is just as creative. When one writes, one is creating meaning by putting words and ideas together. When one reads, the same thing is happening” (40). Research has shown that when students receive writing instruction, their reading fluency and comprehension improve however, without strategies for reading course material and opportunities to write thoughtfully about it, students have difficulty mastering concepts. This shows that reading and writing are connected, and they should be taught together without neglecting one.

                      

“why is the kid struggling to write??

You may ask, does every scholars or authors think the same way Ellen C. Carillo think is a better idea about reading and writing? For in depth about this question, I scrolled through the For further reading of, ‘Reading and writing are not connected’ written by Ellen C. Carillo, and  I found two sources that I decide to do a further research on and try to find what the two authors think is a better idea about reading and writing. These two sources are, Robert Scholes’s “The Transition to College Reading” and “A Relationship between Reading and Writing: The Conversational Model1” written by Charles Bazerman. In Robert Scholes’s “The Transition to College Reading,” he focuses on how to deal with the problems or deficiencies in the preparation of college students in literature courses. The author gives advice to student, stating that they need to connect the development of reading and writing skills to the real world. Just like the author of “Reading and writing are not connected,” Robert Scholes swears that reading is neglected by many teachers and they only focus on teaching writing only. On the other hand, in the Article “A Relationship between reading and writing” written by Charles Bazerman was mainly about how reading and writing relate to each other. it talks about how a lot of people don’t understand the relation therefore causing a lot of struggle when writing. it also talks about a writing method using ancient antecedents and how it disciplines a person’s writing because writing in content disciplines requires mastery of disciplinary literature (59). When people think of reading and writing they are aware that they connect but avoid the real reasons why. There are steps that one must go through, that the author feels show great importance. One thing in the article that caught my attention was that the amount of information that people know about reading and writing effects how they write in subjects such as history, biology, and philosophy (61). He also talks about the many splits in writing that can make it more complex, in thinking about reading and writing in a broader view so that people can make connections (62). Basically, these three authors have the same point of view when it comes to reading and writing. They both believe that is a better idea that teachers should teach reading and writing together because they are related to one another thus, one can’t be a good writer without being a good of a reader. Reading and writing both play a role of someone’s level of literacy. I remember in my elementary grade years, I spent most of my time reading books and the more I read the more I became good at it. As a result, I started learning new vocabularies and structure of writing like how to put thoughts together and flowing in a logic way. My reading perfected my writing.

                                        

i read and i write

reading and writing where is the big deal?

    In conclusion, I agree with all the three authors and my thoughts on what step should teachers take is advice on “reading and writing are not connected,” Ellen C. Carrillo said, “We are all encountering more text and visual images than ever before. There is a great deal at stake if we don’t take the opportunity to teach active reading alongside writing. Instructors need to teach students different strategies for reading the complex texts they will encounter throughout their academic careers and in the world” (41). Also reading and writing develops a communication skill.  All students deserve higher literacy level that’s why they attend schools for education and teachers should be able to provide a better way of teaching. Instructors might also provide a strategy such as reading like a writer, wherein readers notice the choices a writer has made and understands the relevance of those choices to their own writing.

 

 

references:

 

 

         

                

Writing Knowledge Transfers Easily

Image

Mang Ti 1
English 1101 (Group $0)
Research Project
December 5th, 2019
Mti1@student.gsu.edu
Writing Knowledge Transfers Easily
Ellen C. Carillo, the author of “Writing Knowledge Transfers Easily” thinks it is a bad idea to think that the writing knowledge transfer easily, because she mentioned the phrase, “Judd’s experiments in 1908 indicated that transfer was possible, but it would take nearly a century for those who teach and study writing to begin thinking about what to do about this.” (Carillo 35). This is saying that it is possible for writing knowledge to transfer but it is not going to be easy. It’s going to take a lot of time and effort. In other words, while writing transfer is possible, it’s not automatic, but students’ ability to describe and generalize their writing knowledge can promote transfer, and reflection on the writing process plays an important role in developing this ability.
Carillo also mentioned that “writing professors Anne Beaufort and Elizabeth Wardle both found in their research that even when students described their first-year writing courses as valuable, they were largely unable to generalize its teachings and thus imagine how that writing connected to other courses.” (Carillo 35). What Carillo tries to say is that not to mention the easiness of the writing knowledge to be transferred, most students don’t even remember what they learned in their first-semester composition class. So, according to Carillo, it is a bad idea to think that “Writing Knowledge Transfers Easily.”

“Mistakes, Wrong” by Joe The Goat Farmer is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Further Reading 1, David Perkins and Gavriel Salomon’s article, “Transfer of Learning” help me massively while I try to understand the source, Carillo’s bad idea
about “Writing Knowledge Transfers Easily.” “Talk of transfer is always at least implicitly contrastive: it assumes learning within a certain context and asks about impact beyond that context. (Perkins and Salomon 3). What they’re trying to say is that to transfer knowledge means to share or disseminate knowledge. It means to provide a lot of effort to problem-solving. It means to apply your knowledge to the problem solving depending on the situation.
“Transfer of Learning” helps me understand why Carillo thinks it is a bad idea to think that “Writing Knowledge Transfers Easily”, and what a better idea than to think that “Writing Knowledge Transfers Easily.” It provides the idea of what it means to transfer. The better solution for this bad idea would be up to create and organize writing knowledge and ensure its values for future uses. Students must be able to apply their writing knowledge to the upper level of writing. They must be able to change their writing style regarding the requirements due to their audiences’ demands. In other words, students must be flexible with their writing style according to the writing situation.
Further Reading 2, which is one of the references of “Transfer of Learning”, “Situated Cognition and the Culture of Learning” by John S. Brown, Allan Collis, and Paul Duguid help me understand the source (FFR1). The article provides a lot of excellent information on topics like Situated Knowledge and Learning, Learning and enculturation, Learning Through Cognitive Apprenticeship, and Apprenticeship and Cognition. The topic that helped me understand the FFR1 the most is Situate Knowledge and Learning.
“Situated Learning essentially is a matter of creating meaning from the real activities of daily living situated learning suggests that learning takes place through the relationships between people and connecting prior knowledge with authentic, informal, and often unintended contextual learning.” (Brown, Collis, and Duguid 37). What it means is that situated learning, on
the other hand, suggests that learning takes place through the relationships between people and culture. Knowledge with authentic, informal, and often unintended contextual learning. According to Brown, Collis, and Duguid, situated learning is also referred to as Situated Cognition which is a theory that emphasizes that people’s knowledge is constructed within and linked to the activity, context, and culture in which it was learned. So, those two things mean the same thing. Examples of cognitive learning strategies would be helping students find new solutions to problems. Encouraging discussions about what is being taught. It is helping students reviewing notes or going over what’s being taught. Testing students to justify and explain their thinking.
The FFR2 help me understand the FFR1 by mentioning the situated action. Situated Action is “the idea that human activity is based on a swarm of contingencies, that nothing can be understood without first understanding its context. It is a critique of cognitive science in that it denies that human procedures are replicable.” This means to be able to transfer knowledge is to understand the context first. This phrase explains the whole situation of transfer knowledge. We must inputs effort to understand the context to be able to transfer knowledge. One thing to keep in mind is that writing knowledge does not transfer easily. It takes effort and time.
Work Cited
1. Ellen C. Carillo, “Writing Knowledge Transfers Easily” WVU Libraries. (2017)
2. David N. Perkins, Gavriel Salomon, “Transfer of Learning” International Encyclopedia of Education, Second Edition Oxford, England: Pergamon Press. (September 2, 1992) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/2402396
3. Brown JS, Collins A, Duguid P 1989 Situated cognition and the culture of learning. Educational Researcher 18 (1): 32-42

Need more reading and writing

“Writing Knowledge Transfer Easily” yesterday not be what we think is going to occur. Therefore, we as student get stuck in writing before we even start writing and see what the results looks like. Reading and learning may be different subjects. As an introductory college students taking normal classes, it is important to obtain knowledge, which will be helpful and useful for their next writing courses or to apply those knowledge into more advance classes. Why don’t we just start learning to transfer and move forward to motivate ourselves without thinking about what we can do and can’t do? It is possible to improve writing knowledge transfer in students’ ability. Along the way two other sources will be mentioned.

According to Carillo, he mentions the word “Automatically.” He describes that student don’t automatically transfer what they have learned from one class into another. Student struggle by taking require introductory courses. Students benefit from struggle as it help them to learn their lesson. A students can accomplish writing knowledge transfer by continuing to write, never giving up. For example, let’s say a student doesn’t know how to write the alphabet but he wants to learn how to write, he realized that he can start tracing over the letter, so that later he can quickly write on a paper without looking. This means he is a capable learner and can transfer his writing knowledge. Everything started with just putting the pencil on the paper and starting to write until the edge of the paper.

Furthermore, there are a variety of ways that students may navigate to promote themselves as transfer learners. One of my second sources shows different way of transferring method. According to, “Transfer of Learning, High road and Low road transfer.” Salomon and Perkins (1989, Perkins and Salomon 198). High road transfer is not in general reflexive, but it demands time for exploration and the investment of mental efforts and low road transfer is too mediated by external or mental representations but is a relatively reflexive process. In this case two road can work as a team by getting connected with each other. This is another way in which student can transfer their learning ability. Flexible is another key word for students to be motivated by different learning styles and requirement. For example, “In many situations, transfer will indeed take care of itself – situation where the conditions of reflexive transfer are met more or less automatically “(Salomon and Perkins, p8).  Situations come from different angles therefore a student must be influenced by the expert.

Moreover, there are more methods that illustrate how students and transfer learning interact. “Similarity and analogical transfer.” (Vosniadou and Ortony 1989). In this source the authors provide several ways of transferring knowledge especially analogical mapping and relations of situation, etc. When we see the word “map” we know that there are multiple way that student can transfer learning. The part here is that learners can figure out by trying every direction as free-direction. For instance, here what the author mentions by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.: “Many ideas grow better when transplanted into another mind than in the one where they sprang up.” This text the readers might think of an instance of pure mapping by conveying the knowledge structure from the mind of planting, growing to the idea of development where they receive a completely new thought about the latter domain. But the result here is not as much conveying the new knowledge as it is concentrating the attention on certain parts of the existing knowledge.

As a result, every student likes to guide themselves into different direction to select transfer or learning and writing. These authors of the three sources that I have read describe transfer is not impossible but shouldn’t be taken for granted. Day by day we meet the requirement that we need in order to transfer ourselves into different positions. Transfer comes hard when we examine the steps. In this case we must keep marching forward. There is no end for transferring but there is unlimited performance that we can develop to obtain more knowledge from transferring. In education students can achieve plenty of transfer if there is a blueprint.

 

Sources:

Carillo, Ellen C. “Writing Knowledge Transfer Easily.” In: Cheryl E. Ball and Drew M. Loewe, (Eds). Bad Ideas About Writing. West Virginia University Libraries, Digital Publishing Institute, 2017, p34-37.

Perkins, D. and Salomon, G. (1992). Transfer of Learning. In: [online] Jaymctighe.com. Available at: https://jaymctighe.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Transfer-of-Learning-Perkins-and-Salomon.pdf

Vosniadou, S. and Ortony, A. (1989). Similarity and analogical reasoning. [online] Citeseerx.ist.psu.edu. Available at: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.320.7650&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Your Writing Is Your Voice

             Shay Elazab

             12/05/19

                        

“mystery-story-starters Atlanta GA” by agilemktg1 is licensed under CC BY 2.0

 

                        Writers are human too.  Some people or shall I say, high school teachers don’t want to see or read that in a piece of writing. Writers breathe, think, and feel just like everyone and that shouldn’t be hidden. As a former high school student, I was taught quite the opposite, where the piece of writing I create must be strictly formal and straight forward. In my opinion that idea basically wanted everyone’s writing to sound the same, emotionless and with no originality. High school teachers led me to believe that readers only look for professionalism. Now in college with the use of three enlightening sources in my research, has helped me to develop a deep understanding behind the writer’s presence, and how they should approach themselves in their writing.

I’ve read the essay Leave Yourself Out of Your Writing by Rodrigo Joseph Rodriguez, and just from the title that was clearly the bad idea about writing. It’s a bad idea for writers to leave themselves out of their writing. Further into the reading Rodriguez makes a great point of why it was a bad idea, without the writer’s presence their writing wouldn’t have deep meaning that would allow readers to connect what they were reading to the writer. Without conversating would leave readers to be disconnected from their writer.

                        Rodriguez made it clear in his essay that the writer’s voice is powerful and makes their writing much better when engaging with readers. “To more meaning through language, the writer must be present to the audience and mindful of beliefs to produce coherent, meaningful, and engaging writing for the reader.” (Rodriguez pg.133) The good idea is for writers to talk to the readers, by sharing their thoughts and ideas in a way to express themselves of their process of writing. The writing of one must sound like their own, with their questions, thoughts, and feelings. Conversating with readers through writing can allow them to have an insight of who they are reading from and not just feel connected to the writing but also to the writer. A writer’s voice can bring out the truth from their writing and is a strong factor that I’ve learned about writing from Rodrigo Joseph Rodriguez.

            The voice of the writer seemed too important when it comes to writing than I thought it would be. As I mentioned before, high school teachers taught their students differently, I remember when my English teacher used to say “No I’s in your writing” as if it was  wrong to mention myself in my own writing, that just sounds bizarre the more I think about it. I’ve always thought that was odd because it’s my own writing after all, no one else’s.

My curiosity led me to continue my research and I’ve decided to read the book The Art of Teaching Writing by Lucy McCormick Calkins. I’ve noticed that she was also on board with writers speaking in the first person, that it was a good idea for writers to put themselves in their writing. Lucy has studied through her teaching of writing that students tend to forget the importance of their voice, and how more meaningful there writing could truly be if it was in first person. “The writing still doesn’t feel quite like a memoir to me because it leaves it unclear how this broken arm episode reveals Jesse, how it is connected to him today.” (Calkins, pg.402) Calkins helps to teach her students that they need to be rhetorically aware for their writing to show a connection with themselves. It seems that writing is our safe place, where we need to write with our minds to allow those who read our work to understand our points in more depth to our meaning. Writer’s should have a voice in their writing because the readers are their “friends” and rhetorical awareness is another important factor that I’ve learned from Lucy Calkins reading, The Art of Teaching Writing.

Lastly, I’ve read Learning how to write secondary: How and where? by Arthur N. Applebee and he saw that it was best for writers to be more personal with their writing even though they were taught different. “Students saw little need to relate new information to other aspects of their experiences…” (Applebee, pg.81) Applebee shows his point of the student’s mind to not feeling the need to connect their writing, when they need to. It relates to what I’ve said previously, that most students learn different things where previous teachers made them believe one way of writing and not follow the other. Writers do still need to change their ways and welcome themselves to their writing because it’s only the writer’s job to bring out personality and originality in their piece of writing.

The end of my research, it’s safe to say that a voice must be heard in writing. Three different authors had their own experiences and learning practices that they observed over there years that brought all of them to determine, that it’s a good idea for writers to bring themselves into their own writing. Writers are human, their own person and what they do is breathe, think, and feel, and that’s what I learned to be expressed in writing. Your writing is your voice.

                                                              Works Cited

Calkins, Lucy. The Art of Teaching Writing. Heinemann, 1994. EBSCOhost, www.search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip,shib&db=cat6552a&AN=gsu.9922618813402952&site=eds-live&scope=site

Rodríguez, Rodrigo. “Leave Yourself Out of Your Writing.” Bad Ideas About Writing, edited by Cheryl E. Ball et al., Morgantown, WV: West Virginia University, 2017

Applebee, Arthur, F. Lehr, and A. Auten.1981. Learning to write in the secondary school: How and where. English Journal 70:78-82.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                Works Cited

 

Calkins, Lucy. The Art of Teaching Writing. Heinemann, 1994. EBSCOhost, www.search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip,shib&db=cat6552a&AN=gsu.9922618813402952&site=eds-live&scope=site

 

Rodríguez, Rodrigo. “Leave Yourself Out of Your Writing.” Bad Ideas About Writing, edited by Cheryl E. Ball et al., Morgantown, WV: West Virginia University, 2017

 

Applebee, Arthur, F. Lehr, and A. Auten.1981. Learning to write in the secondary school: How and where. English Journal 70:78-82.