Teaching Writing

  Blog #4    Nixt This week’s reading in Lindemann raised some questions for me as a teacher and as a student.   Lindemann quotes the authors of “Student’s Right to Their Own Language” with “past change is considered normal, but current change is viewed by some as degradation” (p.66).   I respond to this with another quote from Lindemann of “On matters of divided or disputed usage, it’s best to give student writers options” (p. 69).   This idea of right versus wrong that Lindemann addresses in this chapter covers centuries of this conundrum: how we study, how we create the materials of what we study such as basing our model on that of Latin and Greek, how we look at linguistics – prescriptivist or descriptivist – how we accept writing in our classroom – the example of dove vs. dived.   Add to this the ideas of sociolinguistics and intersectionality and the interplay and influence of the self on written and oral expression and we have more questions...

Lindemann, on page 184, writes, "But we can also supplement traditional textbooks, handbooks, and dictionaries with other materials that stimulate an interest in style. Newspapers, magazines, advertisements, editorials, cartoons, memoranda, reports, and junk mail offer countless possibilities for discussing the purposeful word choices writers make." This really stood out to me as something I will definitely use in my classes because I love the idea of showing students how rhetoric is used in the so-called "real world." Nearly every day I get junk mail and ask myself why they are sending this to me (today I got one for a café that sold turkey sandwiches [I'm vegan] that didn't have an address listed). I think there's so much to be said and shown via newspapers and magazines, which I will use in class, but the junk mail is such a good idea. Now, instead of taking the pile of junk mail directly to the recycle bin, I can show them to my students and we can a...

 Chapter 8 resonated with me a lot. Especially the part where it said how it explains how the writer is ultimately promising something in their essay, and if they don't fulfill their promises (context and organization wise) then it confuses the reader. I had never really thought about it like that before. The writer and reader have a specific relationship that depends on one another to create and experience more writing. It kind of cleared up something I seemed to missing in my essays, because while I tend to do very well on them, I couldn't understand what about it (I had assumed it was the context) was resonating or doing well for the reader. After reading this chapter, I will definitely be looking out to what I want to promise the reader and make sure that I fulfill that promise, because I tend to want to anyways in my personal life so it is definitely something I can implement in my writing as well and hopefully take it to the next level.

                      Some of the things I have been thinking about  and wondering  about this week are:   - Chapter 8 of the book provides a meaningful explanation for the purpose of teaching students how to properly form and format their writing. Teaching students how to use certain forms of writing can be a hinderance to their growth in writing because students then only stick to that form of writing. Their writing style and writing content often suffer since they try to fit their topic and their writing voice on the topic into a set format.    However, it is still important to teach students forms of writing because it gives them ideas for how to write coherently and how to structure their ideas well. Their ideas will become more connected and written better. We can show students a good  amount  of different forms of writing so that they  are able to  write well for any to...

 When reading Amy Hodges's text last week it made me reflect on my own unstructured writing process and that if I had to "teach" someone how to write I probably would have a difficult time in doing so. Hodges clearly lays out techniques that would definitely help a new writer! The technique that I use the most is "Talk It Out" and "Just Write" although that seems to work well if the writer has a specific topic or subject. For my free writes I try to pick a vague topic then try to squeeze as much feeling as I possibly can on paper about that topic. I include my personal opinion, experience, knowledge, preference....everything that I can possibly write about that topic. Hodges idea of making a list would be great for new writers who would feel intimidated or unsure of what to write about. I would assume students may feel discouraged if they don't have tips and steps to take when initially writing. Overall, Hodges outlines valuable steps that I probab...

 Hi Everyone,         Taking it back a week to Hodges’ essay about Invention within the entire writing process. I had no idea there was so much invention involved past the beginning invention. I wonder if this is because I did not notice that I always use invention the entire time, or I really did not use invention the entire time. I will pay more attention this week, while I kill myself writing 4 papers. I will definitely intentionally use invention ideas to “Discover my tactic,” but I will challenge myself to actively use invention tactics during the revision as well; revision I thought was synonymous with proofread, but now see that it’s not. (Hodges 64) I also wanted to try the tactic of talking it out, but I find it difficult as I am not really surrounded by people I can talk it out with. I had already wanted to try it because in one of the breakout groups in class, Hannah said that she does this before writing a paper and I thought it ...

 As I was going through chapter 8., I was going over how discourse is shaped. The first thing that is discussed is form. I find that interesting since we, as writers and readers, hardly pay attention to how form is developed. As Lindemman states, it begins through reading printed material, through nature (interestingly), art, and social and religious rituals. I wanted to inquire further as to how nature is one of the contributing factor of form. Firstly, because it really is something that should be natural and perhaps, unruly. For me, it causes me to pose the question on whether form can be truly be found in nature? Another thought I had as I was reading, is why did we develop these patterns and categories that lead to relationships and decision making.  Lindemman highlights that form trickles through by language: "In spoken English, the sequence of sounds, their arrangement into words and sentences, even the way we take turns in conversation "compose" speech into compr...

 Hey guys!  A few of the readings made me consider implementing in future teachings. If I would have been taught not to worry about markups or think about writing, I believe that would have made me struggle with writing growing up. Freewriting was always a task but wasn't something I took too serious since I never really saw the point of writing with no purpose (when I was younger).  As I continue to learn over my career in linguistics and writing, freewriting only helps the process of writing. I believe I would make similar topics to what  I am writing about; it will only help me. Talking about writing and ways to correct or suggest things and styles to my students is super interesting and helps me open up my mind on the overall process. 

 Hello everyone,  I found this weeks readings very informative and many of the things we read are stuff I see myself implementing in the future when I become a teacher.  It's quite interesting to see how many different types of "invention work" exist. There is a grand variety of them. I wish as a student, I was exposed to this and my teachers had us do some of these. I feel like they ultimately really help students think, organize, plan, and practice. This week I found the pie method to be very cool and intriguing. It is an interesting model to show students how every sentence, paragraph, piece of composition helps organize and affects the larger whole structure. I loved this model because it is  very fun and different model that many students will have fun with and will enjoy. I also feel like this model is very beneficial and crucial to pre-writing because it helps and makes students think about how everything leads to the final product and the bigger whole. I...

Hi everybody! This is Ryan. Last night Dr. Cauthen told me to post this to the blog. Last year I had an essay published in Los Angeles Times' "L.A. Affairs" column. The story is now part of a book published by Los Angeles Times that is out this month and to promote the book the paper last Saturday ran what it called "10 of the best L.A. Affairs columns of all time." The link is below. My story is second ("The date was going great, until I asked for a kiss). https://www.latimes.com/lifestyle/story/2021-02-10/the-new-la-affairs-book-is-here

At the top of page 131, Lindemann explains how artists create forms and later writes how "we begin building a repetoire of forms for poems, dialogues, explanations, and arguments." The previous life as a musician taught me this. I learned to play guitar and bass by learning other people's songs and in doing so the songs I wrote sounded like the bands I liked (even though this similarity wasn't intentional). I learned how to play by mimicking the bands I liked, which is how I learned how to write. I found writers whose words sounded the way the words in my head sound and I mimicked their styles. I'd like to think my words (and songs) have deviated from this mimicry, but the influences remain. I found this practice helpful for anyone learning an art. If you're learning how to play guitar and you want to be in a punk band, there's no better teacher than Johnny Ramone. If you want to be an essayist circa 2021, David Sedaris is a good place to begin. This idea ...

  Blog #3   Nixt   In a reading for another class, I came across this quote by Thomas Jefferson:                “new circumstances…call for new words, new phrases, and the transfer of old words to new objects” (Kovesces, p. 37). This immediately brought to mind the idea that different writing forms require different formulas.   There are many innovations to use to stir the ideas to life within the pre-writing stage.   Just as there are many paths through the stages of writing, revising, editing and so on.   Even though Jefferson, in this book on American English by Kovesces, is referring to the creation of new words for places, people and things that the early settlers encountered, I felt that this quote can serve this dual purpose of referencing writing stages and the many paths toward writing.                ...

Hello, One concept that loomed over my head while engaging in this week's reading was metacognition, or "thinking about thinking" as my university supervisor explained to me once. I think back to my years in high school and college when writing essays was a process more so about getting a work accomplished well than understanding the process of how I plan to achieve my goal. In "Understanding Composing," Perl address how, for some writers like Anne, "rereading occurs after every few phrases; for others, it occurs after every sentence" (364). This quote resonated with my process because I am 10/10 exactly like Perl says, pausing after every phrase and sentence like a car who's engine is on the edge of dying, stopping abruptly. Skrt-skrt-skrt.  Part of the reason why I feel I need to stop and re-read again and again is related to my own felt sense , this feeling of satisfaction and "mmm yes, this is it" kind-of feeling that perfectly captur...

               Here are a few things that I have been thinking about this week from the readings and class discussions:   -In the book, the author mentions that students tend to write how they think they want them to write. They try to mimic academic writing or use the teacher’s writing as a guide for how to write instead of writing to develop their own style. We can teach students to write for themselves and for audiences other than the teacher. -When teaching writing, we should reflect on our own writing and writing experiences to see what areas we can improve so that we can pass this on to our students. We should see what we can change that is in place for teaching writing in the classroom. We should still be writing even though we are teachers.   -Students should write for each other and discuss their writing with one another. Writing is not an isolated activity but a social one. I like the idea of working alongside a student as...