Nicholas

Show or Tell: An old ass article addressing the Unteachable Dark.

 News Item  No Responses »
Nov 132015
 

Show or Tell by Louis Menand

-The New Yorker

My news item post is about an article in The New Yorker called “Show or Tell”. I’m not sure this is technically “news” per se, but it is definitely a valuable read for anyone who plans to take a workshop in the MFA program. I’d argue that it is worth reading for MA students as well, considering the conversation on the teachability of creativity (ie The Unteachable Dark).

To summarize: Menand poses the question “Should creative writing be taught?” Not exactly a new question, but absolutely a pertinent one. He traces the lineage and growth of MFA programs from the 1960’s and essentially shows that although writing programs seem self-serving, they give writers a context and exposure to their audience. This is a good article for anyone who isn’t exactly sure what they are trying to get out of their MFA/MA experience and I think it addresses “The Unteachable Dark” issue quite nicely.

I have spoken to a few other MFA students in the program about this in various forms, but basically I think we are here more for the exposure to each other rather than the exposure to specific material in the classroom – which opens up some interesting conversation on the way we view/approach Freshman writing.

 

Below are some notable excerpts. Enjoy!

“Workshop protocol requires the instructor to shepherd the discussion, not to lead it, and in any case the instructor is either a product of the same process—a person with an academic degree in creative writing—or a successful writer who has had no training as a teacher of anything, and who is probably grimly or jovially skeptical of the premise on which the whole enterprise is based: that creative writing is something that can be taught.”

“Academic creative-writing programs are, as McGurl puts it, examples of ‘the institutionalization of anti-institutionality.’ That’s why institutions love them. They are the outside contained on the inside.”

“University creative-writing courses situate writers in the world that most of their readers inhabit—the world of mass higher education and the white-collar workplace.”

On Revision: “It’s a method that generates copy for a class to chew on, but writing that way is like throwing a lot of bricks on a pile and then being asked to organize them into a house. Surely the goal should be to get people to learn to think while they’re writing, not after they have written.”

Testing the Waters

 Classroom Praxis  No Responses »
Nov 132015
 

As Emig suggests, writing is a unique and introspective method of learning. Over the course of the semester, I have been trying to implement a method of instruction that utilizes this very simple principle (even more so after we discussed it in class). Emig makes a differentiation between writing and talking that I think can be bridged in a very practical way. At the beginning of every class in which I plan on having a discussion, I try to show some type of YouTube clip or the like and have my students respond in a freewriting exercise. They know that this will not be collected. Afterward, I ask students to share their thoughts on the issues and the conversation usually commences from there.

The important part (I think) here is that students are given an opportunity to chew on the subject while they write. In freewriting, they are becoming comfortable with the topics and perhaps more importantly becoming aware of their own true opinions of the issue. “Perhaps because there is a product involved, writing tends to be a more responsible and committed act than talking,” suggests Emig. I see the value in allowing students to commit to their thoughts/feelings on a particular topic in order to open up their confidence in talking aloud during conversation. Otherwise, I think students feel as if they are shooting from the hip and don’t want to embarrass themselves publicly. Therefore, freewriting becomes a form of testing their own waters. The discussion, then, will hopefully lead the students to further chew on these ideas and move into a more solidified, thorough understanding of their ideas. 

[There is something to be said about Process/Post-Process here that I am probably only hitting on the surface level.]

Chalk and Lines

 Pre-class Reading Response  No Responses »
Nov 062015
 

“Situatedness… refers to the ability to respond to specific situations rather than rely on foundational principals or rules” (Breuch 130).

Reading through Post-Process theory reminded me a lot of listening to astrophysicists talk about the speed of light and what it would be like to actually travel that fast. I’ve heard it described as “following the line of chalk.”

If we start to think about where writing happens on a very physical level, it has always already happened; we don’t have writing until it is physically written. The Post-Process idea seems to be focused on the impermanence of time and space, suggesting that the context and conditions of writing are always shifting therefore the writing itself will never be “complete”.

Seeing writing as public, interpretive, and situated places all writing on the other side of the chalk – on the edge of the speed of light. Nearly all of the conditions laid out in Post-Process are constantly changing based on audience and the writer’s relationship to the audience in both time and space. And it seems that the teacher’s role is to hold the chalk. We adjust our teaching styles to the situation and context of our experience.

Professor Schwartz shared an anecdote with me a few months back about the way he used to teach Composition. He would come into the class with nothing prepared and build a lesson based on whatever was around in the classroom (e.g. if someone left a worksheet from a previous class). This might be an example of Post-Process teaching, although I’m not sure how effective it actually was.

I guess what I’m getting at (and what Breuch would probably agree with) is that this concept is better off as philosophy, the same way travelling at the speed of light at this point is better off as theory, or that following the line of chalk is better off as a metaphor. In a very practical sense, these ideas don’t do much in the classroom. Early writers need to believe there is a permanence/determinate value to their writing so they can build themselves up to understand why, in reality, there really isn’t anything permanent/determinate about it.

Inherent Voice

 Pre-class Reading Response  No Responses »
Oct 302015
 

So I guess this isn’t exactly a profound thought, but I am extremely interested in the distance between spoken language and written language – in terms of first year composition at least. Emig seems to comment that, since writing is a learned behavior and speaking is not (arguably), there are more opportunities for knowledge in the writing process.

I think on a more fundamental level our students find this separation of language challenging because they aren’t fully aware it exists. As young writers who haven’t really gained experience in writing yet, it becomes difficult for them to separate their thinking voice, speaking voice, and writing voice. I’d argue, based on stacks of Freshman essays, that these are all the same voice in most Freshman students’ view.

This is a huge area of frustration for us as teachers because we [unknowingly] have separated these voices and given them functions of their own. While all of these voices inevitably collide and work with each other to create language, I think an understanding of how they are different is ultimately the purpose of teaching “audience” in early composition courses. When a writer has an audience, we hope that they think about how they will address that audience – the same way a student would speak differently when giving a presentation as opposed to having a conversation with his/her friend over a beer.

Empathy for the Devil

 Pre-class Reading Response  No Responses »
Oct 222015
 

I find it intriguing that language – the words we know and associate to objects and ideas – is, in effect, a gateway to our humanity.  If I was capable of blacking my mind and voiding myself of thought to exist in this state of perpetual non-clutter (in other words, live without language), there would be no concern with being “human”.

After listening to this podcast I couldn’t help thinking about this in terms of a Garden of Eden type scenario. At times, they paint  this language-less world as a place of innocence and freedom. A place where people are in touch with nature and their physical self, largely because they have become unaware of how to make sense of the world around them. And slowly, learning language effectively births them into an awareness of themselves – like Adam or whatever (I think that’s how that story goes). The way it plays out in the podcast, it definitely feels as if they are okay with this sense of leaving the garden, as am I.

We use language to connect, whether it be with ideas or symbols or gestures. And these things ultimately end up defining our humanity – or perhaps we use them in order to define our humanity (I hope you see the difference). The ability to empathize is almost entirely a result of our ability to communicate through language. Placing ourselves in perspectives outside of our own would not be possible without a commonality of objects represented by words. Language is a manifestation of the invisible connections we make in our minds to the world around us. Thought becomes language becomes knowledge becomes power.

In the end, however, it seems to me that we have created a key to get back in the garden. Once you’ve grasped language and words to the point that they become a method of creation, you essentially allow yourself the ability to create your own reality. Now, I know this sounds like some kind of enlightenment spiel, but what I’m really talking about is how we use our thoughts (in terms of language) to reconnect with the innocence of the natural world (ie wind in your hair, sand between your toes, sound of waves breaking on the beach). With language we are afforded new, complicated, intricate and vivid experiences with/in nature.

It’s like we are in the garden, but the garden is in us. Too much? Yeah, too much.

Elbow Room

 Pre-class Reading Response, Uncategorized  No Responses »
Sep 252015
 

So I’ve read a little bit from Peter Elbow before and I’m often torn about his ideas. The big issue I have with this particular article is the assumption that having each reader/teacher interpret grades differently is a fault of the reader/teacher as opposed to the inability of the student to write for a particular audience.

When we teach aloud (in my opinion) we should give our students an understanding of who we are: our attitudes toward certain subjects/topics; our personality type; our history with writing; etc. I would argue that an extremely important take-away for young writers is how to write to a specific audience. IF they are writing to me, they should be aware of who I am.

This is why I believe in an extremely important bridge between in-class discussions and commenting on papers. If we depersonalize the audience, we depersonalize the writer. By keeping those two things very specific, we can help mold the writer’s ability to write toward specific audiences.

Elbow (as well as some of the other authors we’ve read for today) think that a variety of grading philosophies is somehow a detriment to the student. I think that it CAN be a detriment, but we have the power to utilize that as an opportunity for teaching how to write toward a specific audience.

A post-class post on post-writing

 Post-class Discussion Reflection  No Responses »
Sep 252015
 

I had a thought last Friday during class about the recurrence of this idea of invention in writing; the notion that we have to reintroduce creativity and inventiveness into teaching writing by means of a heuristic model, etc. After re-reading Lauer and trying to figure out what the fuck I was really trying to say in class, I saw that I was reiterating something she had already said in her piece. Essentially, the narrative form has been the driving force behind writing since the beginning. To get rid of the inventiveness of storytelling is to diminish the purpose of writing. I think Lauer would agree with me, and she would say that a heuristic model could help to re-introduce the idea of creative/inventive writing into academia, furthermore giving it a “gauge-able” (that’s not a word) quality. This has all been summary so far, I think.

HOWEVER, I started to look at the heuristics and the emphasis on prewriting – “the art of ‘what to say'”, “the stages of creativity” – and I think the emphasis is being misplaced. Why are we spending time trying to figure out how to teach creativity? Shouldn’t we be focused on how to teach the results of creativity? This is probably a revisionist philosophy. I guess what I mean to say is, if we tell our students “Hey, be creative by doing this and this and this…” aren’t we essentially destroying the nature of their creativity? I’m suggesting a more minimalist pre-writing philosophy and a more  productive post-writing philosophy.

The Unteachable Dark

 Pre-class Reading Response  1 Response »
Sep 172015
 

“But I believe that in most every intellectual endeavor, the extremes of its work come from an unteachable dark.” -Galchen

In an attempt to explain how writing can/cannot be taught, Galchen introduces this idea of the “unteachable dark” in reference to what we might consider natural talent. The idea intrigues me because the suggestion is that in order to reach “the extremes” (i.e. success/fame) one must tap into this unknown realm of greatness.

It seems that the conversation is always driven to the extremes. As if a simple understanding of how to write will never be sufficient through the eyes of the successful. As writers, we hold ourselves in such high regard. We talk about “the craft” and “the art of writing” like our shit doesn’t stink. But it does. It smells like shit.

I guess what I’m getting at is that the idea of teaching writing and the idea of teaching greatness are often blurred. Students who HAVE to learn to write are completely uninterested in “the unteachable dark”. We (teachers of writing and creative writers) look at writing under a microscope and often forget to take our eyes off the lens and adjust back to the world around us. I think that often we become part of the problem in allowing students of writing to tap into their own “darkness.”

INFORMATION OVERLOAD!!! Focus on your thesis! What’s with all the comma splices? Did you address the prompt? Dude, this isn’t 5-6 pages…

What I’m getting at is I don’t think we allow ourselves, at times, to step back and observe “the process.” Part of me (perhaps the cynical man I’ve become over the years) feels that the quality of writing will inevitably improve/diminish regardless of how much attention/feedback I give to the individual student. The other part of me (perhaps the writer that holds “the craft” in such high regard) wants to coddle each student and show them the intricacies of what they are doing right/wrong. But, either way, it is not within my power to access the “darkness” within them, if it exists at all.

 

Still not sure I’m doing this right…

Creative/Academic

 Post-class Discussion Reflection  No Responses »
Sep 082015
 

Hello all.

When I was doing my undergrad work in Hawaii, I took a course called Comp Studies that covered a lot of the issues we addressed as a class on Friday. I wrote this paper about Creative and Academic writing, the divide between the two, and ultimately how they cannot be separated because ALL writing is inherently “creative” writing.

After reading Freire and hearing what everyone else in the class had to say, I felt myself drifting back toward that same notion. At first I wanted to side with Freire – his ideas are compelling in the beginning. But as I read on, I just couldn’t get on board with the polarization of the two schools of thought. Freire wants to get rid of this “banking method” of teaching and embrace this “problem-posing” model. We figured out in class (I think) that he looks at students, the learners, as these receptacles for knowledge and completely dehumanizes the individual.

The idea is that each individual learns by having an understanding of BOTH his/her own background, upbringing, interactions with the world AND an understanding of the fundamental tools (historical methods) for writing, rhetoric, etc. Once these two understandings happen, the individual can then create.

And ultimately, that is what we are asking students/writers to do from the onset: create something new on paper. The parameters of which are defined by these historical methods. So my question would be, how can we tell students to create something, but not be creative when doing it?

In Hawaii, the schism between academic/creative writing is HUGE because nearly all teachers on the island are white and come from a Western cannon, while all the students are either Filipino, Native Hawaiian, hapa-haole, Micronesian, etc. There is this idea that “non-white” learners need the fundamental knowledge so badly that creativity is virtually non-existent. The result of this however, is a complete disinterest in the fundamental knowledge and therefore no learning or progress whatsoever when it comes to expressing argument/ideas on paper. As I said before, this is a prime example for how the two schools of thinking are imperative to successfully teaching.

In a practical sense, I think we can encourage creativity in lesson plans, writing prompts, reading responses, and just general class discussion. I say “encourage creativity” because I truly believe that, no matter what we do as teachers, the creative mind is active at some level in every thinking being. Figuring out how to utilize that idea is the job of the instructor/program.

I encourage everyone to watch Ken Robinson’s TED Talks on Creativity if you haven’t already.

 

Also, I hope this is what these posts are supposed to look like…

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