Grammar Mistakes

In class today we talked about grammar and common mistakes. I identified my most common mistake as the ambiguous pronoun reference. I have a lot of trouble with making sure that the pronouns that I am using are clear. I always think: well it makes sense to me so why shouldn't it make sense to everyone else? I just hate it. Why do I need to make it clear which he I am talking about. I think it is pretty obvious if you read the sentence. Oh well, at least I know that it is something I need to work on, doesn't mean I have to like it though. We also talked about the thesis statement and how central it is to a paper and how important it is to have a clear thesis. I think ambiguous pronouns can definitely contribute to making a thesis unclear, so I'll try to avoid that. Specifically, we talked about how a thesis should make the reader question some previous belief they may have had, but they shouldn't have to question what you are trying to say in your thesis. We also discussed whether your thesis should be the most precise accurate thing in your essay or whether you should leave some room to explore and maybe go off in a different direction. Our discussions definitely gave me some things to consider further.

Professor Interview

Today I had my meeting with my core professor to do the interview for the digital story project. We had some really good conversation about the process of writing. We talked about several things that we have touched on in class, one being that she is a part of a writing group of professors at Richmond and they get together once a month to exchange writing and peer review it. Professor Dolson said something about this when she told us that most teachers are totally fine with the idea of exchanging writing and ideas. Also, I asked her whether or not she thought that ideas are formed by writing or that writing is formed by ideas (we touched on this a bit in class) and she said that she definitely thinks that people learn from writing. She said that the majority of the time she isn't even sure what she will write until she writes it. This was something I thought a lot about at the beginning of the semester. I talked about it a bit in my bullshit post and I was glad that she agreed with me and my lack of ideas when I first start writing is not just laziness. Anyways, we had a very good discussion and I think it will definitely be good content for my digital story. I am a little worried though about how I will put these questions and answers together in the form of a story though. If anyone has any ideas about how to do this or how they plan to do it I would definitely appreciate some tips because I'm not really sure how to start.

Class Performance Thus Far

We were just asked to think about how we have done in class so far and if we are satisfied with our performance. I honestly am not all that sure how I am doing in class. That seems like an easy way out of putting real thought into this, but I am actually serious. Since we don't have very many concrete grades, I have no idea what I am going to get in this class or how well I am doing. I don't have that many blog posts to this point, but I think that is because I put a lot of thought into each post. The last one I worked on for several days before actually posting it. In that regard, I think there should be some sort of point system for quality of posts rather than just quantity. If I had wanted to write 20 blog posts that I didn't put much thought into just to get all the possible points, I easily could have. But, for me, these posts should be about more than just doing as many as you can, they should be about putting real thought into the things that we discuss and read in class. Because of this it is a little bit frustrating to me that the point system is based on number of posts rather than how much deep unique thought has gone into each post. I suppose there wouldn't really be a very concrete way of measuring this, but still I think the quality of posts should hold some value when it comes to our grade in this class. I think I talk a good amount in class and make comments that contribute to the conversation, so in that sense I know that I am doing well. It's just the whole point system regarding the blogs that I am a bit worried about. Oh well, I guess from this point on I'll just have to make a point to post more, even if the thought isn't fully developed yet. As a writer though, I admit that I do have a bit of trouble doing this. I don't exactly enjoy the idea of publishing something that doesn't really mean anything or just to get a few extra points in a class, but I think I'll have to get over my perfectionism when it comes to writing and just start posting more.

Written Literature vs. Multimedia

Last week in class we discussed the pros and cons of multimedia having a larger role in classrooms and in the world. In 20 years will the next generation even be reading books (in the traditional sense) or will the concept of a bound book seem ludicrous to them? Will everyone have a Kindle or an iPad and never hold a newspaper or a book in their hands? We talked about this a little bit in my journalism class last year with regard to newspapers. Most newspapers in the past 20 years have seen significant decreases in their number of newspaper subscriptions as people have switched to the easier online versions of them. But, the question is, in this transition from print to multimedia what, if anything, is lost? If you were to read the newspaper every day online or every day in print would it really make a difference? As long as the content is the same it shouldn't. But, there is certainly something to be said for sitting down in the morning, flipping through the newspaper and passing the different sections around the kitchen table. Though I can't exactly pin down what is lost in the transition from print to electronic or print to books on tape, it seems to me that somehow in this switch, the life is drained out of the content. This may be because I have grown up with books and newspapers in my hands and have yet to come to terms with the Kindle or the iPad as replacements for my childhood memories. Maybe nothing is really lost at all as long as the content remains the same, but I am afraid that as generations to come rely more heavily on multimedia instead of print, some of the joy of reading will be sucked out of the world. For me I guess it comes down to tradition. I've always reveled in thoughts of reading the same book to my children that my mother read to me or passing the sections of the newspaper around the kitchen table in the morning with my family. I hope these feel-good traditions aren't wiped out as new cool technology takes their place.

Do the goals of the student contradict the role of the writing tutor?

In class today we discussed the goals of the writer vs. the role of the writing tutor. It seemed that most people agreed that the goal of the student was to get an A on whatever paper they brought in and the role of the writing tutor was to make the student a better writer. These two things create a conflict between what we as writing tutors should be attempting to do in our sessions. On the one hand, we are there to help in whatever way the writer needs us to, and so if what they want help on is getting an A on this paper, isn't that what we should help them with? But on the other hand, we are all in this class because we care about writing in one way or another and want to make a difference in people's writing, so we feel a strong desire to make the person a better writer. So we are presented with the question of what should we really be helping them with? Creating a better individual paper or being a better writer in general? I think there is a fine line that we should walk when it comes to this delicate balance. We need to keep in mind that the reason that the student came to the writing center was for help with a particular paper, so we should remember that and do our best to fulfill that. We also should find some ways that help them with their writing in general. Last year, my core teacher would write comments on my essays that were about that particular paper but also about writing in general. She would for example circle a transition and tell me that it needed a little work and she would also give me an additional sheet about how to write good transitions. This was extremely helpful because it improved not only that individual paper but it also gave me a sense of how to avoid that mistake in the future. I think this is something that we should attempt to do in our consultation sessions. Not just circle something and tell them it could use fixing but also explain why and how that contributes to a better paper. Of course, we also discussed the possibility of the writer not being willing to fix their work or be a better writer, in which case, we may simply be out of luck. If someone doesn't want help there probably isn't much sense in continually hammering writing knowledge into their head. But, for those who genuinely want to learn and want to be better, we should give them the tools to improve in anyway we can, not just for that particular paper but in general as a writer. It reminds me of the saying, "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." Cheesy, I know, but I think that if we just give them the knowledge to do well on that particular paper, sure they will be better off for that paper, but they will constantly rely on someone giving them that knowledge and won't be better off in the long run. Though everyone can always use more improvement, as a tutor, I want to help get someone to the point where they don't need to come to the writing center anymore or as much. If in their sessions they learn something about writing and not just that one paper, they will be better off. So, long story short, there is a balance that we need to strike between helping with one paper and helping them become better writers, and this balance will most likely be different for every person that we work with.

The Inadequacy of Language

"Human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars."-Gustave Flaubert "Madame Bovary"

In my English 297 class we just finished reading the book Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert. One of the novel's motifs is the inadequacy of language and the way that it serves to trap people in words and emotions dictated by the culture that they live in. The protagonist is Emma Bovary, a woman of the middle class who lives in her own fantasy world of books. She is extremely idealistic and romantic and is constantly searching for the perfect man to sweep in and rescue her from her mediocre life. She cheats on her husband with two men, both of whom she speaks to in the same way with the same phrases and romantic jargon. Flaubert frequently points to the insincerity of her language and the language of everyone around her. This insincerity is largely due to the fact that they express feelings and thoughts in the same overused cliches. We discussed in our class how one of the fundamental flaws of language is our inability to ever say exactly what it is we are trying to say and exactly what it is we mean. Have you ever said something that came out totally wrong? Have you ever groped for some combination of words that could express a feeling so deep or a thought so profound and come up with nothing sufficient? It seems to me that this is something we, as future writing tutors, should really think about. We need to understand that there are some thoughts or feelings that perhaps cannot be accurately summed up with words or language. It makes me wonder whether, in my role as a writing consultant, I can ever really help someone to say what they are trying to say. I guess it all comes down to what we talked about during our first class, communication. We are constantly trying to find ways to communicate what we are thinking or feeling with other people and through writing perhaps we can find ways to bridge the gap between our language and our thoughts. Hopefully we can bridge this gap ourselves and more importantly help other people bridge this gap so that they can learn to convey their thoughts in a sophisticated and educated way. Maybe we will never be able to really say exactly what it is we are trying to say, but that is a challenge we need to take on, rather than settling for crude rhythms that are as empty as they are false.