Here I am, Library again, but a different place than usual as it was particularly packed that day. It's also important to note that on Tuesdays it's just easier for me to stay on campus all day, and that's when a lot of these process journal entries and analyses were done, but I was actively going to Norma's, the coffee shop, at least once, if not twice, a week.
Our prompt for this class was to discuss a text I've mentioned previously, “Teach Writing as a Process Not Product,” by Donald M. Murray, as well as Janet Emig's "Writing as a Mode of Learning," as such our typical "Theory Application" section will be omitted, as I discuss these theories within my free write as well as the analyses/reflection.
09/16/2025
Free Write in Literary Composition Class
The idea that one can be educated through writing, as well as their writing being allowed to develop on their own terms as a process rather than just being an ultimate product are both ideas I find have intrinsic value but I can’t fully recall a time where either were employed in my educational history besides maybe a few spare moments I will try to recount here: One thing is if we are writing research papers, etc., it is obvious one must dig deeper into different ideas they may have which does elicit some self-educating on behalf of the piece at hand. As far as my ability to write being developed through me just writing, I think a lot of that, for me, developed outside of the classroom, or if it was inside the classroom it was typically in more “creative” situations, all that to say: I was still operating on deadlines (inside class) so it required me to hurry the process along. Outside of that, there was emphasis only when I really came to college for having drafts done and then reworking those, etc. But when outside the classroom I was able to take my time while writing, and while I didn’t do it nearly as often as I would have liked, I did make it a point to have some finished pieces that, even to this day, I’ll go back and look at and tweak a little here or there as I have learned more, about the subject matter, about how I view the world, about what kind of writer I want to be, along the way.
This class carries an influence from Murray’s writing as a process through, what is most obviously, the process journals we are asked to produce as well as the multimodal essay we need to submit where we discuss our development as writers over the course of this class. Writing as a way to learn is also being employed because we are being asked to dissect and apply theories to our development which asks us to look inward while we are writing, and after we have written, to learn more about the process, as well as ourselves as writers.
Analysis/Reflection:
Today I have the unfortunate disposition of writing this from a corner of the library that is pretty well lit as that’s mostly what was available and I’m not loving it. I think I’m mostly worried about the glare from the screen impacting me despite my investment in blue light glasses. My headaches from staring at a computer screen for hours on end have mostly subsided so that’s nice. Today in class we discussed Murray’s idea that writing should be treated as a process, not a product, and Emig’s idea that learning can be achieved through writing. At their basis I find both of these concepts appealing, and true!
So I’ve started considering more how those have played a role in getting me to where I am today. While, on paper, I have all the indications of a more “formal” training when it comes to writing and literature, I think a lot of what I have learned I learned myself (because, full disclosure: I wasn’t really paying much attention in high school [not detrimental because it was easy for me to comprehend], or college attempt 1.0 [detrimental because it was hard and difficult for me to comprehend, it felt like my peers were speaking a second language in my lit classes]), or I took things away from the type of literature I liked reading: the Beat Generation (I know, forgive me), Vonnegut, Tom Robbins, but almost as important, if not more, the influence that punk had on me. Here were people not “formally educated” in the ways of music who were just doing a thing because it felt good and having success within institutions, community, and ideals that they constructed themselves. That has always resonated with me, as someone who has felt, and lived, “out of step” with a lot of societal ideas and expectations for a large majority of my life, and proudly so. But even then, I still have to play the game a bit. Much like punk still had to. It had to give some credence to melody, tuning, structure of songs otherwise it would have just been straight gibberish. Punks may dunk on the Beatles, or Mozart, but they also can’t deny that there’s probably a bit of that in there somewhere. Maybe it’s the same way I view literature. I found the stuffiness of “more formal lit” (there’s at least one former professor who I’m pretty positive carried a large amount of disdain for me given my disdain for things like Moby Dick and whatever other snooze-fest poetry was being shoved down my throat in that class) suffocating and so I rejected it, to my own detriment. Yet, there is value there, which I have learned as I’ve grown older, and as a person, but at the end of the day there’s still a nagging feeling inside me that “shit just doesn’t have to be this way.” I don’t want the boardroom presentation of literature, I want the “gutteral (being of, or derived from, the gutter)” one, the working class one, the relatable one. At the end of the day the best poets I know are the people I know, the best lyricists, the best musicians, the best content creators, because they are attainable, touchable, present. Hell, even the “celebrities” I enjoy engage in rejection of typical celebrity culture, whether or not they actually do that I don’t know, could just be good marketing (looking at you Bruce Springsteen). However, yes, all of those things derive from Shakespeare’s iambic pentameter and the Odyssey, and Beowulf, and even an encyclopedic recounting of the whaling industry parading as an allegory for something more, and on, and on. I get it. But I didn’t (don’t?) like it! All that to say, has my writing style just folded back into itself over and over again in some meta way that my brain can’t understand? Probably. Will I try to understand it? Definitely. It can only benefit me at this point.
Emig, Janet. “Writing as a Mode of Learning.” Cross-Talk in
Comp Theory, 4th ed., National Council of Teachers of English, 2024.
Murray, Donald M. “Teach Writing as a Process Not Product.” Cross-Talk in
Comp Theory, 4th ed., National Council of Teachers of English, 2024.
No comments:
Post a Comment