By Steven S. Kapica Writing courses are not like other courses (or at least they shouldn’t be). In the writing classroom (we often call them workshops to connote shaping and crafting, actively working on something rather than passively ingesting content), you are not expected to learn something and then repeat it verbatim on a test. Writing doesn’t work that way. True, there are rules to writing, from basic grammatical principles to genre tropes, but college writing classes are not about rules. They are about writing. And students are expected to, well, write. A number of questions could (should) pop into your head after reading that last statement. Write. Okay. Write what? What kinds of writing? How much writing? And what was that about grammar, genre, and rules? The answer to the third question is simple: A lot. But I’d like to focus on the first two in this post. Take a look at this screenshot of a board from one of my classes: Divorced of context (what class?), you might struggle with understanding what’s going on, but if you look at the board long enough, you should see patterns, familiar words. Look a little longer and you might begin to parse out what the discussion was about (“methods of composing”?).
What will likely draw your eye, though, is the big squiggly line that runs from one end of the board to the other. It starts on the left with “not fully formed” (and just to the left of that, we have “idea/brainstorm”) and then it makes its squiggly way across and up the board to end in an arrow pointing at “finalizes.” The squiggly line is the process by which an idea makes its way to a formalized, finished (publishable) product. It’s a squiggle because writing’s path is never straight. Now. If you look past the squiggle to the other lines, you should see that on the left is “personal.” On the right, is “public.” This continuum is bisected by a line (the squiggle makes its way through that line, too). Almost looks like a sine graph, doesn’t it? This pseudo-sine graph is my way of explaining what writing is—it’s forms, functions, and methods. On the one side, is the personal (expression). Writing is an act of thinking and thinking is both idiosyncratic and personal. We may think the same things, but we do not think in the same way. When our thinking emerges in words, and those words collect into sentences (language’s organizing unit; see Stanley Fish How to Write a Sentence), we get something that is unique and (you guessed it) personal. What are the most personal kinds of writing? Journals and diaries. Bad poems we write in the throes of love (or rejection or despair or…). Deeply personal writing is rarely, if ever, meant to be anything but our own. It isn’t meant to be seen by others. And it doesn’t need to make sense to anyone other than us. It can break the rules because the rules don’t really matter when we are the only ones who will ever see it. Okay. Let’s leave the heartbreak and slant rhyme and flip to the other side of the spectrum: public. What are the most public kinds of writing? The news. Speeches. Textbooks, maybe. Public writing is meant to be consumed by lots of people. And because it’s meant to be read by lots of people, it has to be easily understood by all those people. Public writing, then, usually follows lots of rules. In fact, you might say that the rules exist because they are necessary in order to make what’s being said understood by lots of people. So. We have this spectrum: On one end, we have acts of personal expression; on the other end, we have acts of public discourse (communication). I argue that all writing falls somewhere on this spectrum. You can test this idea out. Where on the spectrum would you place the following texts?
Now. Where we place these pieces of writing (all of which fall within certain genres of writing—the personal letter, the news article, the scholarly article, the academic essay) depends, in part, on our perceptions of them (and their “audiences”). It also depends, in part, on writing conventions. But here’s the thing that you may not have noticed: Private and public are connected. To rely on a lame cliché, I might say they are “two halves of the same coin,” or “you can’t have one without the other.” If this is true (it is), then all writing is both personal and public. Difference lies in how personal or how public the writing is. And that difference often manifests itself in rules, conventions, genre tropes, and audience expectations. Huh? Look back at two of the texts listed above: letter to your mother; academic essay. On the surface, these two texts are immediately recognizable as different, right? You’re not (I don’t imagine) going to write an essay for your organizational management class like you would write a letter to your mother, right? Why not? This may seem like a dumb question, but it’s a question that relies on your sense of audience. Your mother is not (I hope) your organizational management professor. Her expectations for your writing are different than those of your professor. If you turned a letter to your mother in to your professor, he might laugh at you. If you sent your mother your organizational management essay, she might throw up her hands in exasperation. And that’s not because she might not know the content/subject area you are writing about; rather, it’s because her expectations are for something more personal. Your mother might not care about organizational management; what she wants from you is the personal stuff (how are you feeling, are you getting enough to eat, do you miss me?). Switch the genre expectations for each of these modes of writing and both audiences will not be satisfied. This silly little comparison, then, goes a long way toward explaining the roles audience and genre play in writing: Audience matters almost as much as purpose… When students receive poor grades on essays for college classes, it often has to do with mismanagement of audience expectations. If your writing is too informal, for instance, then your great ideas might be overlooked because of your professor’s style expectations. This is unfortunate, but it happens. It’s like receiving a package in the mail and judging the contents by the looks of the box. If the box is all smashed up, you might assume that its contents are likewise smashed and/or broken. However, you might open the box and discover its contents are unharmed. An essay with excellent ideas and insights might, on the surface, look broken because the grammar is poor, or the formatting is off, or, God forbid, sources aren’t properly cited. Don’t get me wrong, often that busted up package does, in fact, contain broken goods. Professors might be occasionally, marginally justified in complaining about the appearance of your writing—about those broken rules and lack of consistency with regard to conventions. But those are easy fixes, especially when you understand that “correctness” is not a matter of mastering one standard to rule them all, but a matter of navigating (and writing to) audience expectations. Just remember: When you’re writing a college essay, you’re not writing a letter to your mom. Instead, you’re writing to her judgmental ass of a boyfriend who’s never really cared for you… Know your genre(s)… I’m a film buff. If I’d had more self-confidence, more faith in my talents, more chutzpa, I would have pursued filmmaking instead of what I do now. Like legions of kids enamored with the magic of the silver screen, I wanted to write and direct my own movies. I love them all—the good ones, the bad ones, and the bad ones that are so bad they’re good. What does any of this have to do with college writing? Simple: The concept of “genre” is most recognizable in film. Have you seen The Avengers? You have? Okay. What kind of film is it? I’m not even going to dignify that question with an answer it’s so obvious. And that’s the point. If you’ve ever watched any movies, you’ve experienced the power of genre. Consider: Would you put The Avengers in the same category (genre) as, say The Purge?! One is a superhero action film; the other is a horror movie. And while each may have moments that transcend their genre’s, they mostly follow the common tropes of their respective genres. The same is true with writing. Genre matters. A formal lab report is going to have different genre expectations than a personal narrative. If you’re struggling to write to/for a specific audience, then consider the features of the genre your audience expects you to be writing from within, and let those guide you.
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By Steven S. Kapica
Now that we’re officially going to begin the Fall 2020 semester, I want to share some thoughts about writing and digital learning. Success in a hybrid learning model requires good time management skills. Serial procrastinators will struggle. I know this from personal experience. So, as you begin classes, be sure to look at your courses schedules and devise a work plan for getting your work done. Then stick to it. The “bad” thing about hybrid learning is that you have much more control over how things proceed than in a traditional classroom setting where your instructors and professors retain most of the control (and rule the calendar with an iron fist!). When learning shifts into a hybrid or fully online mode, you are responsible for keeping track of everything and figuring out when to do your work. The (really) “good” thing about hybrid learning is that you are (wait for it) more in control of your work schedule, which means that you can work weird hours—you can make the calendar work for you (instead of having to be held to someone else’s idea of a “work week”). Make the clock work for you. If you’re a night owl, then settle in at night and work away. If you’re a morning person, then jump right in every morning, get your work done and out of the way, then go about your day. Regardless, just make sure you are keeping up with all of your work and keep a constant eye on deadlines. Don’t let things stack up. And when in doubt, email your instructors and professors. The “what” and the “how” You’ve watched my welcome video, right? No? Well, here’s a link to it again… From my video, you should know that the first-year writing sequence (either ENG 100/100L + ENG 112, or ENG 110 + ENG 112) is required for all KC degree seeking students. It is “required” because KC believes its graduates should be good writers and researchers. Actually, if you were to do a little research (ha ha), you’d discover that most (like 95% of) colleges and universities in the U.S. have similar requirements. In fact, there are a very, very few institutions of higher education that have no composition requirement at all—and even those schools still expect their students to be good writers. So you might say these courses are a necessary evil. There’s no way around them. And, frankly, as a scholar of composition and rhetoric (Ph.D.)—and as a long time teacher of writing (over twenty years)—I can assure you that these courses are worth the time and energy you put into them. (The reverse is true as well: If you don’t put much time and energy into this course, then the rest of your time in college will be an uphill battle…) I stand by these words: Becoming a really good (even great) writer will improve all of your course (and life) work. The critical/creative work of writing is the critical/creative work of thinking; the more you do it (write), the better you get at it (thinking). Writing. Research. Information literacy. These are the things you will focus on in your writing courses. And, well, it should come as no surprise that “reading” is also a major concern. You can’t have the first three without the hidden fourth. So you will read a lot, write a lot, and spend a considerable amount of time looking for things (and looking INTO things). At first, the reading and writing will be foundational—you’ll read things your instructors pick for you to read, and you will discuss/write about them. At some point, depending on your course(s) and instructor(s), however, the reading will shift from assigned reading to your pursuit of your own readings. You will do your own research and read the things you find. And then you will not only report back what you find; you will use what you find to say new and important things in your writing and presentations. Time Good writing requires an often unknown amount of time. Sometimes, it comes quickly. Sometimes you can knock out a good paper in no time. There are other times where you stare a blank computer screen for hours. Writing takes time. Good writing also tends to come from places other than the formal confines of an “academic essay,” which is to say that many writers do a lot of informal writing (like, say, posting on a blogs and discussion boards) before they start working on “formal” pieces. There is a lot of build up, a lot of writing through ideas, starts and stops, that can (and should) lead to the polished pieces that are your final, publishable essays. This is why I often use what I call “progressive assignment sequences” in my writing classes. We start with a little informal writing for idea generation. Then we take some of those ideas and explore them further (research). Then we take that research and write some more. Round and around we go until we have something worth formalizing in “academic” essays. This is what you will likely experience in your writing courses. Think. Write. Read. Write. Repeat. About that “Academic writing” thing… What are your perceptions about “academic” writing? In his chapter “What Is ‘Academic’ Writing?,” from Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, Volume 1, Lennie Irvin writes, “Your success with academic writing depends upon how well you understand what you are doing as you write and then how you approach the writing task.” That’s an interesting statement, right? Irvin’s point is a relatively simple one: You have to know what you’re doing (or what you’re supposed to be doing) in order to write well. That might seem obvious, but as he goes on to say, “Most people as they start college have wildly strange ideas about what they are doing when they write an essay, or worse—they have no clear idea at all.” I’ve been teaching writing long enough to know this is true. Most college writers (at the beginning) have heads filled with “dos” and “don’ts” about writing. An essay should be this… Don’t do this… Something about MLA format and plagiarism… All of that “stuff” in your head, oddly enough, tends to block out the most important thing: purpose. I have two mantras that I repeat to my students in a typical semester: 1.Have a point. 2.Know your audience. Most, if not all, (good) writing starts and ends with these two things. All that other “stuff” is distraction from the simple purpose of writing—to say something to someone(s). That’s it. I could say more, but I think I’ll stop here. If you have questions what I’ve said above, or if you have concerns about your writing class(es), please don’t hesitate to comment below (things worth discussing openly), or email me at [email protected] (things you’d feel more comfortable asking in private). Good luck and stay safe! Steve |
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