In an attempt to ferret out the final winner in my personal contest of research paper topics, the attempts at free writing and clustering were helpful - but not in the way I expected. What they managed to do most effectively was help me discern what it was that I actually wanted to write about. As I sat staring at a blank document, I experienced a fairly definitive feeling about what I did (and did not) want to write about. That was extremely helpful, because up until that point I was quite torn between them. So I started with clustering and basically ended up with two columns - one a pro and one a con about one of my topics. It wasn't particularly helpful in terms of delving deeper into the topic, but it cemented my choice. Then I tried free writing, and it was basically a reiteration of the brainstorming I had done earlier. So while the processes weren't all that effective, the thinking around them was.
The Heuristics list of questions was quite tedious and seemed at the outset to be busy work at best. After a few minutes of ennui and distraction (more about that in a minute), it became very apparent to me that I would never get even close to completely answering the list in the time allotted. Therefore I jumped around in the questions until I found some that were relevant - under the subcategory "Testimony". At that point I felt the paradigm shift from Lindemann to Crowley, with my reasons for writing about my topic of choice shifting because "the notion of a subject makes no sense in ancient rhetorical terms unless we think of it as an inextricable part of a rhetorical situation (Crowley, Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students, 32)." Lindemann's first question in the subtopic, "What do people say about [grammar] (Lindemann, A Rhetoric for Writing Teachers, 119)?" shifted my thinking process to Crowley's Stasis Theory, "Determining the point of disagreement is an obvious starting place for rhetorical invention, which is always stimulated by some difference of opinion (33)." It was the first point in the exercise where I finally felt like I was thinking along appropriate lines, but sadly, it was also about the time the exercise ended.
In the final summation of the class exercises, my assessment of the value of it for future use in my own classroom is that it needs to be situational - cut and pasted to suit the students involved, the focus of the prompt, and the time allocated for it. They are useful techniques, but I would edit them to fit. I like the clustering exercise as a modified brainstorming activity, which would work for early writers. I think that free writing is very difficult for early writers - and would actually be most useful as a very first stage - what are some things I would like to write about? - rather than a secondary one. The Heuristic approach is a little more universally applicable, but I would probably narrow the questions to a few, meatier, ones - perhaps through combining them - unless I was working with VERY young writers with short attention spans. Then I would give them one group of them and let them go at it.
And now about distraction.....I am a notoriously holistic person, and in any situation I am a scanner of whatever is going on in a room. I have very limited filtering capacities, which can be a good thing in terms of awareness but is horrendous when faced with the need to narrowly focus attention. For example, on a test last semester I had the misfortune to sit next to a student who clicked her pen non-stop throughout the entire exam, while that excruciating ventilation noise in CRT 124 was roaring. Across the room someone was tossing her long hair back about every thirty seconds with a wild motion of her head. I was driven to near hysteria trying not to notice. So in a classroom situation where I need to focus on free writing and just keep going - well, I can't. I saw a figurative squirrel jumping out in every corner of the room tonight and my focus was shot. I will always be a dreadful classroom writer. I need solitude, and peace. Perhaps a cup of coffee.
Therefore finishing up this entry is delightful - because I now have all those things and my focus is Herculean. I will continue to give my best efforts to public writing exercises, but it will, I fear, be for naught. I also think any future student of mine who has any sensory or attention issues will struggle with classroom, public writing.
Ah, what a pleasure to read such clear and attentive prose, Peg. I apologize for all the distractions in class last night, but do appreciate that you are alert enough about your own processes to know that you do need quiet and time away -- something that I hope you will bring up in discussions in the future (as well as questions about how to take what we discuss and practice in class and modify it for students of different ages and levels of attention).
ReplyDeleteAlso important is that you note how you do not have to color within the lines with these various pre-writing activities but can use them to think about your project from other angles. How might you present these approaches to less confident writers so that they could learn how to use the approaches to fit their own particular circumstances?
I will end by noting that I myself use freewriting throughout my writing process, whenever I hit a point I cannot untangle or get beyond. Sometimes my "freewriting" consists of going for a walk and talking to myself (as others described in class) but often it is simply changing where I am writing, taking out a blank page (or screen even) and just writing what comes to the top of my head. This can even happen when I think I am almost done and need to figure out a conclusion. So, for me, these inventional approaches can be useful all the way through to when I send off a final manuscript... but I have had to learn to identify when I need to do this.
No, I will truly end by noting how happy I am you are in class. Your thoughtfulness, good humor, and obvious concern for learners is infectious, and will help this class be a good one. Please keep me posted on how well class is helping you think about these matters you want to be learning. Thank you, Peg.