Tag Archives: teaching writing

December 5, 2014 · 4:12 pm

Digression Again: Struggling with Writing

I’ve been researching how people learn to write and what can stand in their way. My interest in this topic stems, first, from my own experiences as a college writing teacher (with a PhD in “composition studies”), and second, a book project I’m working on for college students facing their first college writing class, whether as recent high-school graduates or returning adults.

A lot of research indicates that, as with many other cognitive functions, early experiences matter. This seems to be particularly true for writing. After all, writing is not “natural.” No one is “hard-wired” to do it, as we all seem to be for speech. Neuroscientist Stanislaus Dehaene explains current theory suggesting that our brains must redirect neural pathways “designed” for other functions into the unnatural and unevolved task of connecting visual images with the sounds that then translate into the words we’re familiar with. The earlier we recognize that these visual stimuli are important components of our environments and have meaning, the more likely this process will occur when our brains are most plastic, most ready to manage this redirection. Intuitively it makes sense that people who had the richest literacy experiences from the earliest ages will have the most time to hone this use of their brains.

It’s also clear that writing makes huge demands on our cognitive resources. I’m reading research that indicates that even such tasks as typing, when they’re not largely automatic, steal working memory and cognitive energy from the higher-order processes that go into more complex writing tasks. And when we’re dealing with multiple tasks with high cognitive load, like accessing new, complex material, something has to give.

So my conundrum: Do I tell potential readers of my book on college writing that if they missed out in those early years, they’re doomed?

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November 16, 2014 · 4:53 pm

Digression: What is “College Writing”?

In the course of a project I’ve been working on, a book for people about to take their first college writing course, I’ve been doing some reading to locate the personal experiences I’m drawing on in the continuing conversation among college writing professionals about what a college writing course or major ought to be and do. One source I’ve found usefully provocative is What is “College-Level” Writing?, edited by Patrick Sullivan and Howard Tinberg, both community college professors. High-school and college teachers, students and administrators have contributed.

No Definition for College Writing?

I wonder how surprised most readers would be to learn that the collection begins with the premise that there’s no agreed-upon definition for “college-level” writing. Contributors do seem to resist the idea that writing is de facto “college level” because it is written in college. But many also resist the idea that there should be some set of specific criteria that student writers have to meet if their writing is to be acceptable college work. The perceived danger is that locking college writing to “standards” will drive it the same way “standards” have driven high-school writing: toward shallow and reductive formulas that privilege being able to follow a set of steps over thoughtful analysis of a topic. (George Hillocks’ The Testing Trap: How State Writing Assessments Control Learning, is a lucid exploration of the effects of various rubrics and standards on how teachers teach and how students write.) The writers in this volume tend to agree that college writing should be more flexible, more responsive to the different writing situations students in college will encounter.

So What Is College Writing. . . . ?

And this view of the difference between college and high-school writing points to a consistent thread of consensus among the contributors (and among my colleagues, with whom I shared many discussions of our program and the kinds of writing it was producing). What made me want to insert this post into my narrative of my own struggles was an essay close to the end of the book. By Chris Kearns, then an assistant dean of student services at the University of Minnesota, this essay advocates for what I would consider an absolutely essential component of successful college writing, Kearns writes:

[C]ollege writing proper begins whenever an undergraduate takes the first consequential step from self to other on the grounds of care for one’s audience. This is best done by opening oneself to the fact that meaning does not belong to the writer; it unfolds in the shared space of acknowledgment between the reader and the writer. (350)

This is remarkably in tune with my favorite quotation about writing that I’ve published in these posts at least twice, the quote from the reading historian Alberto Manguel that “[a]ll writing depends on the generosity of the reader.” This idea, Kearns points out, runs counter to the romanticized view that the self-regarding individual is the font of expressive genius. Kearns contends, rightly I think, that we cannot imagine this unfolding of meaning between reader and writer as a linear process of following steps or using the right toolset, and, moreover, it is difficult to explain as a concrete process, which is a possible reason so many college students find that magic something that their college teachers “are looking for” so amorphous and elusive.

Kearns points out that this process requires writers to inhabit three consciousnesses: that of writer, reader, and a third “critical reader” who experiences both perspectives and engages with the tensioned interplay between them. Kearns calls this process “recursive,” by which I interpret him to mean that one begins with an idea or a point, which then blooms in the space in which it is offered, is molded by the critical reader, and then returns, changed. This process repeats as long as a piece of writing is still attached to us intellectually and emotionally, even if it has left our hands.

This is about college writing, but I think it is about all writing that means to do more than sit in a drawer. Readers are the most surprising people. They never give you back what you think you gave them. And when you get back their gift, you–even if you resist–are what has changed.

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October 15, 2014 · 12:59 pm

Paying for It: Story I

For “book doctor” services, I mean.

I apologize for this long post. This story turned out to take a long time to tell. I apologize as well for what may be my most carping posts, as I have disastrous encounters to report. So you may want to wait for a sunnier discussion. On the other hand, yet again, you may find my mistakes instructive—even though they do tend to fall into the category of “what was she thinking?” if I do say so myself.

At least in each case I wasn’t out more money than I could afford at the time. And I did go into each with the attitude that the money was all I really had to lose.

The first episode occurred when King of the Roses was in its pre-agent, pre-St. Martin’s state: stacks of boxes of typed-upon sheets, not quite as imposing as the purported five feet of manuscript that constituted the original draft of Gone with the Wind, but nothing you could tote in a shopping bag, either. I was very young (excuse).

I met this man at the conference my local university regularly hosted (now defunct, sadly—it was a wonderful conference). I don’t recall exactly how we made contact; I must have approached him after his session. I don’t remember exactly how much I paid, but it would have been less than $500. Of him, I can say this: he was conscientious. He did what he said he’d do, in a timely manner. He read the whole book and regularly sent me sections festooned with comments. Recently, in the process of dumping piles upon piles of old rough drafts, I came across the pages he had edited. I set them in the “save even though you know better” stack, to look back at one day. Did anything he told me help me? Possibly. Good advice, in whatever form, is worth reviewing. It’s so hard to come by.

The bait was his assurance that, once we had chiseled the book into shape, he would put me in touch with the New York editors with whom he had professional relationships. Who wouldn’t spend $500 on that?

What rises to the top, probably flushed out by the memories of what finally happened, are not deep, global insights that would eventually make that book publishable; no, they were idiosyncrasies that left me about where I’d started, still wondering whether my ambitious plot (yeah, they’re all ambitious, more’s the pity) was working and what to do if it wasn’t.

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October 13, 2014 · 12:26 pm

Okay, So What Did I Learn about NOT Writing a Failed Novel?

I’ve already written about some of the things I learned: Listen to your characters. Assume that you’ll be the one bailing when the ship starts to sink. Be in a position to pull out (e.g., have a day job) if there’s no hope: you gain nothing by having a bad book to your name. Use the resources available to you if you’re lucky enough to have some: for example, if dangerous channels need to be navigated, let your agents steer; that’s what you’re paying them for. Give editors the benefit of the doubt (just as you should your writing teachers: writing—and figuring out what to tell people about their writing—is HARD).

But here are Nos. 1, 2, and 3:

  1. Get feedback
  2. Get feedback
  3. Get feedback

Of course, that lesson learned begs several questions.

  • Where can you get this magical feedback?
  • Can feedback really make your book work?
  • What is good feedback? How can you recognize it?
  • Should you be a slave to feedback (after all, it is your book)?

One thing at a time.

How to get feedback? I’m offering my experiences, interested in hearing from others. Maybe you’ve been where I have, maybe you’ve been somewhere better. I haven’t yet participated in online groups; when I do (soon), I’ll report on that.

In the meantime, I’ve previously written about face-to-face writing groups, their virtues and limitations—especially for a novelist. It helps to speculate as well that a writing group can get too large. Yesterday ten people instead of the usual six or seven showed up for our regular three-hour session. People voluntarily cut their submissions in half, but we barely had time to nibble around the edges of what we wanted to say. But most cities have multiple writing groups, each with a different culture. I’ll never be without one again.

You can ask your colleagues to read for you: people whose expertise you recognize and whose views you respect—and who like the kind of writing you do and actually read in that genre. Beware: it’s terrifying. Continue reading →

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September 18, 2014 · 5:49 pm

What Not To Do: Don’t Write Alone II

In the 1980s and ’90s, there were no Internet forums for people to share their work.

There were writers’ groups. I just didn’t realize how much I needed one.

Having joined one during grad school and having now been a regular participant in a very good writers’ group in the city of my university employment for some years, I can compile lists of what to expect and what not to expect from a writers’ group. Since this is (at present, anyway) about what not to do, here is a do not:

Do not expect a writers’ group to tell you how good your work really is. Some people’s experiences may lead them to conclude that this advice is incorrect because someone in their group definitely DID tell them how wonderful or how lousy their work is. But in a good group, by my definition, you won’t find out the answer to that question.

Because in a good group, a) members support each other, which will lead them to say many nice things; and b) in a good group, members support each other, which will prevent them from saying many potentially painful but possibly true things. I believe that you can get enough uniform enthusiasm to persuade you that your group really does like what you’re doing, but with all due respect to the best of groups, like mine, group members are not agents or publishers and use very different criteria to click “Like.”

Do not number 2: Do not expect global feedback on your novel, especially if it is a mystery. Check back to see whether you agree with my reasons for this claim.

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September 15, 2014 · 10:36 am

No Writer Writes Alone. . . .

Maybe I got an unusual implicit education: that some writers are just geniuses, that if you’re one of these geniuses, your genius will show in the brilliance of your words. Or maybe I wasn’t the only one implicitly nudged to think this. I actually had a student write something like this to me at one point, in a creative writing class at my university: something along the lines of “writing is about showing your genius to the world.”

So, what if the world doesn’t acknowledge your genius? Is the world wrong? Or are you just meant not to write?

Here’s something I wasn’t trained to think in those days, a favorite quotation that I found in a wonderful book by the neuroscientist Stanislaus Dehaene, Reading in the Brain: The New Science of How We Read. It’s from Alberto Manguel, The History of Reading, and appears as an epigraph to chapter 1:

The existence of the text is a silent existence, silent until the moment in which a reader reads it. Only when the able eye makes contact with the markings on the tablet does the text come to active life. All writing depends on the generosity of the reader.

“All writing depend on the generosity of the reader”! Who woulda thunk it?

I suppose it does occur to most of us, in that we want that reader to lend–no, gift–us his or her attention. And what a precious gift. I told my students over and over, “When someone takes the time to read what you’ve written, they’re giving you something you can never give back: their time. Be thankful to anyone who takes the time to read your work with care and make serious comments, for better or worse.”

(Be thankful even to teachers who write comments on your text or about it. Sure, they get paid, but not nearly enough. Especially when you meet with a student in conference to discuss her writing and ask, “Did my comments make sense?” and the answer is “I didn’t read those.” In a way, that’s another blog. In a way.)

My point here, which I relearn every day, is that writing of any kind is something that happens between a writer and a reader. The trick is finding ways to make that between happen. And in the 1970s and 1980s, it was quite a trick. At which I failed.

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July 4, 2013 · 11:04 am

Coda to “I believe I’ve been gone for a while”

I had a conversation Thursday afternoon of last week with one of our part-time instructors, who, with an MFA, just got a full-time job teaching CW and will be leaving us. He is an exceptional example: lots of credentials and publications. He asked me how I balanced my creative writing and my academic life. I said, “I don’t.”

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June 26, 2013 · 12:28 pm

I believe I’ve been gone for a while. . . .

. . . . as will be obvious from the dates.

I find that I’ve had many (silent) visitors in the meantime.

Here’s what happened: Spring term was hell. Two faculty searches. Major curriculum overhauls (state-mandated). Two sections of research writing that, for the most part, were disasters (more on that down the road, at least if I can get to it before it all starts up again in August). Regular committee work; many, many student complaints to adjudicate in my role as a writing program administrator (co-administrator–thank God for my counterpart). Since classes ended in May, we’ve been frantically interviewing to fill our part-time slots for fall (we can no longer offer three sections due to the provisions about benefits in the ACA). Two months into “summer” with less than six weeks of relative peace left, I find myself back here with all sorts of promises to self about being more diligent. We’ll see.

Yesterday, I had a long phone conversation with a newly minted MFA in creative writing who wanted to make sure we had received her application for a part-time teaching position. Yes, we had; we’d filed it under “not qualified for our job.” She was delightful to talk to, but I doubt she was delighted with me.

She wasn’t qualified because the only thing she’d ever taught was a poetry class. I told her we need people with experience teaching college composition. We didn’t quite get into the details as to why that matters, but I did suggest the truth: it matters because until you’ve faced four papers in fifteen weeks (multiple drafts as well as various pre-writing work for each), you can’t know what teaching college composition will be like for you. We don’t have the time or resources to teach someone who’s never done it how to structure and conduct a college writing class. We look for people with backgrounds in college composition through their graduate work, or failing that, people who have taught enough to know what they’re getting into and who can “talk the talk” to us in an interview (“How would you structure an assignment sequence to move students from personal writing to academic writing?” “How do you see the role of grammar instruction in a college writing course?” “What do students need to be able to do when they leave a first-year writing course?” Etc.) While we do make mistakes, we can usually tell in the first few sentences of the answers to such questions whether we will be able to offer the applicant a job.

But I also told her she ought to consider very carefully whether, as an aspiring poet (I think she actually had been told in some contexts that she could earn a living publishing her poetry), she really wanted to teach.

I have mainly my own experience to go on. Yes, I have a relatively good job in that it’s secure (tenured) and pays enough for a safe life and some luxuries, and has good benefits. But it has meant the death of my own “creative” writing. I’ve published academic journal articles–I like writing them, and I’m good at them–but as I told the young woman, I haven’t seriously worked on my “own” writing in ten years.

I told her, “You need a job that you can walk away from at the end of the day. One you can tailor to your own work habits (evenings if you write best in the mornings and vice versa). One that makes minimal emotional demands on you. I told her, “If you teach writing, every bit of emotional energy you can generate will be invested in students’ writing–other people’s writing.” For me, only the release of summer allows enough of that energy to bubble up again that I can even do something like this. Once school starts again, my job seizes my life. A lot of it has to do with trying to get my mind around what “writing” “is” and “means” for people who’ve never written, who almost never read, who fear writing or have no experience of it as a way of getting things done in the world, for whom, sometimes, a sentence is a mystery. And who don’t realize that writing is work. I can’t make it easy for them. Not being able to make it easy for them makes it hard for and on me.

My experience doesn’t match everyone’s. We do have people with MFAs who continue to do their own work and who find that they LOVE teaching. That it energizes them, expands them. I told the woman to apply to the community colleges (which, around here, readily hire people with no experience) and see what teaching feels like. But in the meantime–I told her, and I mean it–jobs for MFAs are few and far between. We have ten people on staff who can teach creative writing, and they covet those classes. If we were to hire someone specifically to take them over, we’d hire someone very well-published with lots of publishing contacts who could professionalize our program. Not a just-graduated MFA. Many of our students want MFAs–for what? A lifetime of teaching first-year comp part-time for less than $15,000 a year?

I could go on quite a bit more. But I believe I had begun several stories. If I am a good girl, I will work on catching up on them. For now, to close: the aspiring MFAs in our program have no idea what “real” publishing is like. They don’t want to know. Maybe that is as it should be. Maybe no one would ever write a word if they did know. And that would be quite a loss.

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