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.