Sheesh. After talking about lean writing, verbose writing, soundbite writing, warrant writing, personal writing . . . what to do . . . I wish I was just at the beach where I could think better . . .
Then I saw what I was doing and had a memory. (The class sighs. Dr. PD has a memory. Again.)
I was stuck. Chapter Three of my dissertation had my butt in a sling. Really. Nada. Books piled on the floor, some of which that had become make-shift coffee tables, were crunching in on me. I think they call this writer's block. I tried everything: wine, t.v., calling my bff and running it all down again, re-reading, screaming, pacing, and railing at the sky that I should have gone into another major. My dear friend and mentor, Frank Walters, ran into me in Haley Center and saw that we were quite near a fundamental breakdown and out of mercy sat me down somewhere on a bench. After the wailing and teeth grinding subsided a bit, he offered his well-earned, academic-type advice:
Write crap. (Language cleaned up here for formality purposes.)
Not out of self defense, not as a last ditch effort, but very much ON PURPOSE. Aggressive crap writing. Take that.
Right, I'm with you. An English prof saying write poo? Seriously? What I would have given to have heard that all along.
And so I did. I wrote a load of ka-ka. Laughing all the way. Somewhere along page twelve, I had an idea. My muse grabbed my brain and went: Have you thought of this? Brilliant. Yes. I couldn't stop. And it wasn't ka-ka.
Here's the thing: I had forgotten it was a joy ride, screams and all, and had made it straight up work. Now. That's not what we are in it for, is it? Turns out, I can revise crap and make it gold once the muse starts singing. (P.S. That chapter is still my favorite.)
You ever notice how that paper with all the angst and sweat that you thought was crap got an A? You ever notice how that one that was perfect got a B?
We've talked about risk taking. Yeah, yeah. Gotta stay in the parameters of the assignment, research the field, cite correctly . . . but once you get that, you got it. Sometimes, the risk is worth it. (Says the girl who included The Da Vinci Code in her dissertation.) But wait: isn't this the same as our daily, grinding lives? Lesse--don't speed, don't drink too much, go to class, don't be late for work, brush your hair . . .
Where is the muse here? Does she get to sing off of paper or are we all a bit too pansy to try that out? I'm thinking here that really being awake, really throwing it out there in our lives (even though it may start out as crap) could lead to our favorite chapter, the love of our lives, the job that makes it all worth it, a lesson of unfathomable proportions. Can we revise crap? As long as it's not in print yet, I think so, and that print is pretty much the tombstone, yes?
I wrote this purposefully forgetting rules of grammar and propriety (except for not saying the word shit, which I just gave in on) in order to get something out. I know where the edit button is. Sometimes you just gotta say . . .
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ReplyDelete"Don't know what you're made of 'til the one thing that you want
ReplyDeleteIs coming with the dawn and suddenly changes
Monday syndicate meets everyone the same
All we've lost to the flame, listen to me now"
--The Fray
Dr. P, I feel like I have writer's block on the reg. So, unfortunately I understand your stress all too well (perks of being a science major i guess, bleh).
The only way I can ever truly get joy out of writing is to just put my hands on the keyboard, take a deep breath, and write a load of bullshit. Sometimes it works, usually I end up having to erase it because it has nothing to do with my topic. Oh well. I do what I can.
I think teachers have instilled too much pressure with writing in our heads. There's no way to really relay what we want to say or even have fun with writing really, well until this class anyways. God forbid I ever said "bullshit" in a high school paper. All hell would've broken loose.
Anyways, I feel like if were always pushed to have that "perfect A" paper, then we over analyze everything we say. And then that paper that could've been an A simply slips down to a B. Depressing, right? Happens all to often though.
Being able to say what I want is exhilarating! Cheesy wording yes, but so true. I feel for once that I can let loose and let my fingers just do they work! Woo hoo! Take that high school english teachers! When you take the stupid structure out of writing everything gets better: our personality shows; we can write like TRUE writers, even those of us that english really has nothing to do with our majors (example A: myself).
Thankfully, I now understand what everyone was so gung-ho (spelling?) on blogging. It's a chance to free your mind and ACTUALLY WRITE. Not the structured crap we've had drilled into our heads. When you let go, you realize that everyone is a writer, yes, some better than others. But everyone can become someone else through words. I love it.
My love for writing was rekindled in my AP English class junior year of high school. For the lovely standardization situation, all of my teachers previous to that year wanted all of us (the sheep) to be cut from the same cloth. I guess it was easier to grade us that way. But in my AP class, our teacher gave us an assignment that changed everything.
ReplyDeleteIt was about mid semester, and we were working on a paper. Turning in drafts and whatnot as we went along. One day we came and pulled out our papers to work on them. Mrs. H told us to put everything away and pull out a piece of paper. All of us froze as panic took over. Was there a test we forgot about? We were stricken. She asked us to write us. Us on paper. She wanted us to admit who we were. What we were afraid of.
Can you imagine? High school students. Juniors. Asked to reveal who we were. To our teacher. And for a grade? Needless to say we were scared. Terrified. We had thirty minutes of class until we went to lunch with no talking. Just writing. So we began. I wrote what I was going through. It was a class five break down. Two AP classes. Two honors. Choir council and section leader. Theater (and dance captain). Show choir captain. National Honor Society. Crimson Society. Part time job. Community theater. Volunteering. And a social life. Ish. I was losing my mind. So I wrote. I vented. I got mad. I BSed. Cried a bit. I was in the throes of one of the best things I had ever written. Then we had to go to lunch. Mrs. H told us we couldn’t talk about what we were writing and to come back to class ready to share.
My stomach dropped. What? We had to share this? Absolutely not. It wasn’t done writing, it wasn’t finished and polished. None of us were done. She wouldn’t have it. So we went to lunch. I had a group of friends I sat with in the class. We sat together. We didn’t really eat. We sorta just looked at one another. Time came to go back to class. We walked slowly—heads down, stomachs knotted.
No one wanted to go first, no one made eye contact. It was the most quiet I have ever experienced in that class. Finally she started calling on people. It was rough. Seeing someone so scared to show who they were. Someone talked about being suicidal the year before. Someone talked about their journey in finding Jesus. We talked about death. About fearing failure. About dashed dreams and hopes. We talked about how hard it all was. We hugged friends. Cried and cheered with them. By the end of class we sat there, bleary eyed, a mix of relief and anxiety waiting on the verdict.
Mrs. H applauded us. She told us that we had found our voice. That if we could bear our soul to our peers, and come through the other side, we could do anything. We could write like that. We were astonished. For so many years we were writing what we thought our teachers wanted to read. They never said anything because it was easier to grade.
But now? Now, whenever I’m blocked, I word vomit. I don’t worry about grammar or any of that crap. I just write. And it always helps.
Never hold back.
Pk: that was an awesome story about how voice can truly come out of papers and writing. In the same way, I feel like everyone’s personality is coming out with the blog. With the ability to cover up who we really are (or some of us), we are able to be bold about who we really are and not be fake. We are able to have personality.
ReplyDeleteLike lehhhgo, I also have writer's block a lot. I just don't know what to right about. I think I have it right now. So what am I going to do about it? Write crap...as Dr. P called it. What exactly is writing crap? A lot of people claim that they just make up stuff for papers. I heard it all the time in high school and I hear it in college also. "I am just going to write some crap down." Now is that really crap? For some people, I would say that it IS really crap. (Sorry, some people just do NOT know how to "make up" stuff). Now what about those people that claim to "make up" stuff (write crap down) and get an A on the paper. In fact, they do so well that the paper gets some recognition in the class by the teacher and students.
In high school, I had a few friends like this. They claimed "crap" about EVERYTHING. (And it was actually REALLY annoying). Let’s call this friend X. Friend X would claim that she was going to fail this test due to not studying much, fail this paper due to not putting enough effort into it, fail this project because she did not spend enough time on it, and not get into X college because she was not smart enough. Let’s just say that this friend X would get 100's on every test, project, paper, etc. You name it, and she would ace it. Easily. She is also attending Cornell, an Ivy League school. (However, Auburn is better. WAR EAGLE!).
Now was her "crap" actually "crap" or greatness? It was greatness! The truth is a lot of times she did study a lot for everything. The times that she did not study or put in her total effort she would still make A's (probably 100's).
So what am I saying? Writing crap can actually lead to ideas like Dr. P said. In fact, I am proof. I had no idea what I was going to write about when I sat down and just started writing crap. (I did go back and edit a little bit). By writing down random thoughts, other random thoughts come to mind. By writing down questions, other questions come to mind. Then answers come to mind!! Then you have a direction! Then you keep writing! (Sorry I am getting carried away a little). Do you see now? Crap is not just crap. Write down a little crap to get started. Eventually you well be surprised by what you are writing. I am!
Everyone has their own voice, their own personality. This makes them who they are. It’s so easy to stand up for what you believe in and having your own voice throughout life, but writing is a different story for me.
ReplyDeleteI’ve never been able to find a voice in my papers. My papers have always been the standard five paragraph papers with three reasons in my thesis defending my stand. Always having the perfect citations and flawless grammar (thanks to my Mom). All throughout high school English teachers have drilled us with grammar worksheets and how to “properly” write a paper. No voice, just straight facts. It’s been that way as long as I can remember.
I remember walking to Dr. P’s class the first day. I didn’t know what to expect. She walked in and told us all about how she was laid back and not a structured teacher. I didn’t know what to think because structure is all I know. She told us she wants us to enjoy writing. Hearing that was a foreign concept to me. Why would a teacher want us to enjoy writing? I was nervous about this though. I didn’t want people to know how I feel and then judge me for it. But I rolled with it and tried to just let go. To my surprise it was so much easier than I thought. Just getting to free write and not worry about the citation of something or having a flawless paper is so refreshing. I love getting to free my mind.
THANK YOU DR.P FOR LETTING US BLOG, instead of doing the usually structured paper!!
Pk- I would DIE to have a teacher like that in high school. Someone to actually let me enjoy how to write and find my voice. What a great story!
ReplyDeleteI have always written the first thing that came into my head. I hate writing with structure. Brainstorming, outlines, rough drafts. I hate all of those words. They make writing feel like a job or a “mission.” Why? People like having fun, all the time. People like doing work, sometimes.
ReplyDeleteIn high school, and throughout this semester, I have seen how some people struggle with writing. I don’t understand where the lack of ideas comes from. I can sit there and think about nothing with the best of ‘em. But, there are times where I have so many ideas in my head that I cant stop writing papers. I have found myself forgetting to put things in because my brain is moving faster than my fingers are on the keyboard.
Maybe it’s how I was raised. I came from parents who believed in “selective discipline.” What I mean is that they would pick their battles. I think it’s by getting away with the little things that made me so willing to take risks and be willing to fail and start over. I grew up with a lot of pressure, too. I learned I had to be selective when I chose to take calculated risks. If I failed, not only would I be disappointed, but so would my parents because they ultimately gave me the opportunity to venture outside the box. I thank my teachers in high school for being dicks sometimes. They made me a better writer. My writing changed every year. I picked up something new and shed all the crap I had used to make an A in the class. This is the only record you’ll ever find of me admitting that. I wrote down so much nonsense for the 4 years before I got to Auburn.
I feel like everyone claims this award, but I was the king of writing bullshit.
I gave up caring what people think about my writing a long time ago. Don’t get me wrong, I still like to get good grades, but I don’t care if they like it or not. I am very opinionated and hotheaded. I don’t care because I have confidence that my writing will make an impact on someone’s life. If I write something that makes people think, I have accomplished my goal.
Writing shouldn’t be a chore. It should be fun. People shouldn’t be looking for ways to get out of it, but rather to do more of it. After all, writing it the only medium that has lasted since the beginning of time (other than the spoken word). It makes such an impact on us that we have to talk about it.
Sistaaa_friend (I just had to say it like that!) I completely agree with you about Dr. P. Quite frankly, she scared the crap out of me when I first met her. Seriously, her and I could not be anymore opposite. I had never had a teacher who encouraged me write for fun. It had always been about the perfect sentence structures, the correct grammar, and the extensive vocabulary. But she pushed me wayyyyy out of my comfort zone into a whole new style of writing.
ReplyDeleteThe whole experience had been difficult to say the least. Just like lehhhgo, I will experience writers block EVERY time when I’m writing. But it I feel like I experience it more often than anyone else. Literally every five minutes I will find my self stumped again, struggling to find the words to voice the point I am trying to convey. In fact, it’s already happened at least four times since I began writing this blog. Sad. Writing is a struggle for me. It is a meticulous task, drudging along one…word...at...a...time. I dread writing.
This blog has some truth to it though. When you’re writing crap, at least you’re writing. As cheesy as this sounds, the writing center actually taught me a valuable lesson this year. The man told me that it’s easier for him to revise a load of crap, rather than forming something out of nothing. Writing anything when you have a blank piece of paper to begin with is the challenging part. Revising it is the easy part.
So really, just write crap. That might be the best advice I’ve ever received from an English teacher, thanks Dr. P. Whatever you do, just keep writing. It might be crap, or it might turn out to be something brilliant. My dad always used to tell me this when I wanted to give up on something hard:
“Every accomplishment starts with the decision to try”
You have to try. Write crap. Try again. Write more crap. And keep trying; never stop trying.
I am right there with lehhhgo. I feel as though I have writers block every time I am asked to do any sort of writing. It takes me hours upon hours to even get my first sentence down on the paper. It has never been something that I have found enjoyable and I think that falls back to my time in high school. Majority of the papers I had to write in high school were boring and I could not relate to them at all, which lead to it being that much harder to write. I feel as though somewhere the real meaning of writing got lost. There were too many times in high school where my teachers would make me right a paper on a topic that I knew nothing about or on a book that I had no even read. It’s impossible to write a decent paper in those types of situations. If I was asked to write a paper on something that I was actually interested in, I think I would find it a lot easier to actually complete the assignment.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I’ve never fully understand the idea of writing crap. I guess maybe it’s because I think too much and too detailed about it that it is hard for me to even complete a sentence. Writing is something that I wish I could conquer, but it is just one of those things that do not come easy to me.
On the other hand, I think a person writing crap can actually be helpful. It allows the writer to just free hand and get their thoughts out there, and sometimes it helps to see you thoughts somewhere else besides in your head. And to your question about revising crap, I think it is possible to. Unless the paper is done and in print, it is still a work in progress and there are still changes and improvements that can be done. A lot of time it takes actually starting off with crap to find where you actually want to go with the writing. It is a lot easier to sit down and write something when you’re not under all the pressure of it being completely grammatically correct and being an awesome paper. It may take a person to write freely multiple times to be able to find where they fit as a structured writer.
Lehhhgo, I agree completely with what you wrote. My major also, civil engineering, has nothing to do with writing. It usually takes me hours and hours to write a paper because I end up erasing the whole thing or rambling on about a different topic. Up until taking this class all I cared about what following those “rules” that English teaches instilled upon us in order to get an A on our paper. The 5 paragraph essays, the thesis sentence having 3 topics that you’re going to write about. Now all that could be fun if you were writing about a fun subject that interested you, but most of the time I dreaded writing assignments.
ReplyDeleteComing to college and this English class I had no idea what it would be like. All I could think was great instead of having to write 3 pages for a paper I am going to have to write like 8 pages every time. I honestly dreaded this class. Now having taken it I am so glad. It is one that I look forward to coming to and honestly I cant say I like writing now but I can say that it has become more enjoyable to me. Being able to write a blog and freely express what you have been trying to say for so many years in all your papers is something that I find very beneficial. I am pretty sure every student in the class will say that being able to write just bullshit for a purpose teaches them a lot more then a standard 5 paragraph essay. Austin when you started talking about how sometimes you have to start off writing crap in order to get somewhere, it got me thinking and I completely agree with it. A paper is never good the first time you write it. You always have to do at least 3 reviews and editing before its complete and even then its not perfect. It may sound like I’m saying just to write crap all the time it will make your writing better, which is not completely true. Having writers block to me is a normal thing for every paper and sometimes to get over that you just need to start off writing crap to see where you want to go.
The idea of writing crap is new for me. I am the perfectionist type, but with a “do it once, but do it right” kind of attitude. Once I start a paper, all I can think about is finishing so I don’t have to look at it ever again, but if I get stuck I don’t want to start over. (Basically, what I am saying is that I hate writing papers.) Maybe if I just wrote everything and anything that popped into my head and somehow expanded and connected it to my thesis I could become a better, more in depth writer. This post is some good food for thought for my next paper.
ReplyDeleteLike others, I feel that I have found my writing voice through blogging. Everyone knows what a standard paper should look like: thesis statement, supporting paragraphs and conclusion. But not every student knows what it 'feels' like, that is, until you have taken this class.
I really liked what you said, lehhhgo. Blogging has been a great way for me to find my voice without worrying about structure. And I also love how your username got me rapping Chris Brown’s “Look At Me Now”- just sayin.
You know about that saying that goes something like 'you don't know your limits until you cross the line'? Well I guess writing "crap" parallels that in a sense. Too many times, we as students are too focused on one objective, and that is to write well to get that A. This is actually a restriction for many of us. We step away from many roads because we're so centered on making that grade. Thus, we find ourselves locked in a corridor, unable to escape because we're just too scared to cross that 'line'. As Dr. P encourages us to "write crap", she is setting us free from the limitations we have come to know by heart so that our papers are set apart from the mundane, 5-paragraph essays that our other COMP II peers are probably writing at this minute.
ReplyDeleteOr I could be completely wrong and she's simply talking about getting out of the writer's block.
I used to be incapable of finishing a paper until the hour before it was due. “Oh, this is due online at midnight? I should have it finished by 11:37 for you.” “Class is at 1:00? My paper will be printed by 12:42.” No matter how early I opened that blank Word document, it stayed that way until I reached my deadline. The words just wouldn’t come – I was too afraid of writing something crappy to even know where to begin. Once the deadline started encroaching, I knew I would be forced to write something down. Procrastinating meant I wouldn’t agonize over the exact phrasing or content because I knew there wasn’t time for that kind of self-induced stress.
ReplyDeleteI won’t pretend that I don’t still procrastinate. I’ve merely gotten better about the amount of work I put into an assignment before the deadline gets too close. So when did my work ethic change? Honestly, it wasn’t until after I took a year and a half off from school. When I came back last January, I began to view my education as a full-time job and not as something optional. I stopped skipping classes, I made sure to keep up with my reading, and I refused to let myself get behind on assignments. When it comes to paper-writing, this means I sometimes have to write poorly, write something crappy, write something terrible – as long as I’m writing something. I’ve learned to convince myself that anything is better than nothing. I can always go back and edit what I have, but you can’t edit an empty page. Whenever I feel myself getting stuck, I skip to a different section and just start writing. I always save my introduction and conclusion for last, and while those are usually the crappiest sections, I know that crap is better than nothing.
As a perfectionist, this can sometimes be a hard pill to swallow, but I know that I can’t make my paper better until I have something written.
At my high school, writing was everything. It was the focus and crucial point of everything we did. We didn't take history tests or science tests, we wrote paper and paragraphs and essays on the concepts of history and the concepts of science. We wrote and we wrote and we wrote, all the time. If i wasn't writing a paper on Moby Dick i was writing a paper on the effect of the enlightenment on France and Britain (who cares about that, honestly). Who cares to read 6-8 pages on the effects of the enlightenment or architecture on people 1000 years ago? Im sorry, not me!
ReplyDeleteThats why writing became boring to me. I dreaded going home and writing papers about things i didn't give a crap about. i remember this specific 8 page history paper my junior year. My history teacher would always give me 89's, always. I seriously poured my life into this one paper, revising it over and over and over again. Making sure my thesis statement had supportive evidence and each paragraph had a perfect topic and transition sentence. I got a 90. All that work for one point. What did i learn from that paper? That i hated writing even more because i couldn't ever get it just right. In high school writing was structure. Writing was perfect words and perfect organization and let me tell you i suck at both of those techniques. My teachers would always tell me this needs to be more organized, it needs to flow more, wheres the thesis statement and your three points?! Those questions still ring in my ears, SHUT UP ALREADY!
I am like goose12, the idea of writing crap is new for me too. But i have never loved writing more than i do now. I write what i think, i write what i feel, i write what i want. Isn't that essentially why people started writing in the first place? Since when did it become this structured, perfect thing that "oh wow you put a semi-colon instead of a colon" subtract 10 points from your grade! Thats not what its about. Its about what Dr. P has been teaching us all semester, its about the personality, the feeling the emotion. Its about sharing how you really feel with people who have been through just as much if not more than you have. Write crap, its so much better and honestly healthier for your soul than any european history paper. (still bitter)
I grew up loving to write. I always enjoyed the idea of having a voice and making what I write sound well-versed and fun. I always thought there was a time and a place to have a voice, and when writing an informative paper on the biological traits of fungi, a voice was simply not possible. I never enjoyed writing informative papers; I am the epitome of the artistic, prefers-English-over-Science spirit that loves the colorful subjects instead of the factual ones. So naturally, I haven't minded writing in this class.
ReplyDeletePk, your story of your junior AP English teacher is amazing! Being blessed to have such a great teacher that makes you think about just how great you can be is a fantastic experience. In my junior AP English class I had a teacher that encouraged us to write and be colorful, who made us think about what life is about, who often encouraged us to rethink the way our lives are run (often including a slash or two against the government), and who gave us a 'do not conform' theme of the year. She motivated us to write more, made class extremely interesting, and inspired us to work towards becoming good writers. Her class often ended leaving us quite contemplative, wishing class would continue so we could continue the adventure of composition. We were so excited to have her for senior year AP English as well and couldn't wait to get the year going so we could continue our journey in the world of writing. We wrote poetry. A lot of poetry. We truly enjoyed class and compared our experience to the Dead Poet's Society. We all loved writing now. We could express ourselves! Be artistic! Enjoy the words we had no idea we could create, words that we realized were beautiful and true, that we could not be more proud of! It was wonderful to see the encouraging comments of praise she would write on the back of our papers, letting us know how special our writing was and how it touched her. To me, receiving her approval was a great achievement.
Our teacher was hospitalized in the middle of senior year and had to attend therapy.
When she came back nothing was the same. Teaching us was now a chore; she wanted nothing more than to be at home wallowing with her cats, and we were in the way of that. Our grades went down, we got less and less cheerful words backing our checked poems and assignments, and we forgot about enjoying class.
Luckily, though, we had all found our voices. We didn't need her encouragement and her now degrading words to us didn't make us forget the voices we found. We now knew how to be real, how to simply write what was on our minds and create work that was truly meaningful to us. We began writing simple things, 'crap,' and our experience turned into finding ourselves. Losing the teacher that inspired this discovery was just another step in our writing journey. She inspired us, and now she couldn't stop us.
So writing crap?? This is such a new term for me it is unreal. I have never had so much freedom in my entire life and sometimes it is a scary feeling. I am so used to having such a structured five paragraph essay. We got the prompt, the rubric, had to brainstorm, write a rough draft and then the final draft. Nowhere in there did it every say just freely write about whatever comes to your mind. I absolutely hate writing papers. I have grown to be scared to write and mess up. I have never been able to express how I feel in a paper because I am always scared that it won’t be “grammatically” correct. Who cared about grammar!!! Not me!
ReplyDeleteI am also not an English major so being a structured writer is almost pointless. Personality is going to play a large role in my future. I think that is what most teachers don’t understand. They drill a hundred times into our head that we have to be so proper about everything but really we don’t. They have everyone too scared to say what they think…including me. I know I have always been one to never put personality into my paper until now when Dr. P has forced me to. I am so grateful for that because now I can let go and my writing has improved so much this year.
Just like several people have said, I was defiantly scared the first day of this English class. I did not know what to do without an exact replica of what the entire class was going to consist of. I know have learned more about writing than I ever have and it wasn’t even planned. I love being taught in fun ways and not having to listen to lectures that I zone out on anyways. This whole class has defiantly defined me as a new and improved writer.
KatHug- That seriously sucks that you had to write so much. I couldn't even imagine if my history tests were straight up explicit essays. I am really sorry you had to do that in high school.
ReplyDeleteI am pretty sure everything that I write is crap. I am not sure why, because I typically will get exemplary remarks on my essays, reports, yada, yada, yada. I never feel accomplished after I write my duties for my English classes, I feel like I am just stretching each idea to its max hold, and nothing good is coming out of it. Apparently I am wrong. There is a lot of good stemming from this climaxing pile of horse dung.
I usually procrastinate all my work, especially English (hehe..). I am typical. My work ethic sucks, unfortunately; I can't improve upon it. I blame my parents divorce. Gotta find an excuse somewhere.
But, this "crap" that the wonderful and creative Dr. P is talking about is much more than just well, crap. It is an outlet. Something to write and write about, until something manifests into what you were looking for.
My English teacher in high school (laid back, but still very structural when it comes to essay writing) somewhat let us write our personality into our assignments, but nothing compared to the chasm that we were granted for this class. I was able to explicitly represent my ideas, that initially I thought were just rants, into something I could actually appreciate; as in: Gay Marriage, thoughts of Occupy Wall Street.
For the first time, I could actually be cognizant of the work I have done, for better or for worse, it is a great feeling.
Here is a song that is somewhat related. I kind of feel like this topic is like making something out of nothing, so here is a classic rap song about perseverance. ( a little vulgar, but hey, its a great song)
Notorious B.I.G.- Juicy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yix96Oi_R_s
"You know very well who you are / Don't let them hold you back, reach for the stars."
I love this blog. So many times have I come to a point where I just say, "Screw it" and start going to town. It's always those papers which receive A's too and I just laugh. Sometimes I'll literally type the word "shit" a couple of times followed by a good, "aoisfhjoaudsfhaosdifja." That usually does the trick. ( revising "aoisfhjoaudsfhaosdifja" kinda sucks though). Joking aside, one thing that
ReplyDeleteDr.P wrote in the blog caught my eye. It was the part that talked about putting crap in (in life) and finding the love of your life, etc. It made me have one of those moments where you know there's an epic connection being made to something else but you can't properly describe it. It's like when one puts crap (work) in, good things come out and that can be said for just about everything (except for actual crap, nothing good comes out of putting that in anything). It's the same for writing. It's basically like taking a crap on the writers block and composting it into something good. Granted that was a tad gross, it gets the job done.
McGee- I completely agreed with everything you wrote. This class terrified me in the beginning of the year. I wanted to do as well as possible in all my classes and I had this nagging feeling this class was going to give me a run for it. I think one of the biggest challenges for me was forgetting about perfection and learning to just follow what my voice wants to say.
ReplyDeleteThis blog especially caught my attention because half of the time I begin to write a paper I get such bad writers block after the first paragraph that I usually give up until the due date is frighteningly around the corner. But what you said Dr. P is true. When you just stop thinking so hard about making your paper grammatically perfect you find that perfect is a lot easier to achieve. My experience throughout this class has proved to me how important it is to try and find your own voice and stop trying to be a replica of what you think is a perfect voice. I now welcome the crap.
I think I can agree with everyone else when I say that this blog has been the best writing experience ever. I have been able to apply all of the rhetorical concepts I’ve ever learned, and in a way that I have loved! Best English class ever y’all.
ReplyDeleteI was so excited the first week of class because I could tell that Dr. P truly loves what she does. It is so hard to find teachers now that truly reflect their love and passion in the classroom. My mom has worked for various school systems my entire life, including the Alabama Board of Education, and I feel like I have a different view on education than most people because of it. I see my mom try so hard every day to make a difference in kids’ lives, but it’s so hard, especially in her position, because she works in the central office instead of directly in the classroom. Right now she is a dropout prevention coordinator, and she tries to solve that problems that are making kids drop out. And I have told her, from direct experience as a student, it’s hard to give a shit when your teachers don’t! (Of course I cleaned it up a bit for her.) But it is so true. When all that is pounded into you is to reach the minimum to pass, to graduate, to get accepted to college, to get a scholarship, etc, etc, it can get really overwhelming. You are constantly being told you have to compare yourself to the nation’s scores, the nation’s averages, compete, compete, compete. It is a horrible system that is suppressing imagination instead of cultivating it. And I tell my mom, if you want students to have a passion to succeed, fill the classroom with teachers that have a passion to teach.
I can honestly say that my writing has flourished in the past semester, maybe not in technique, but definitely in passion all because of Dr. P. She reawakened an innate passion in all of us to make our story last, a passion that dates back thousands of years from oral tradition to what eventually evolved into the written word. Whether that writing comes out through “writing crap” or rigorously trying for hours on end at perfection, she has made us want it again. We’ve been walking through a desert of cookie-cutter K-12 education and she has quenched our parched imaginations with the sweet nectar of creativity. It’s teachers like Dr. P that make people want to learn for more than a future job, but for the personal satisfaction that comes from writing something as simple as an awesome sentence.
I know because of this class I dropped the barriers I had created for myself and I can reconnect with a younger, more creative me that had a shared love for writing. I can almost hear my Nana saying again in her delicious New Orleans accent, “You’re gonna be my writer, dahlin’.” (I had to go phonetic on that one.) I can be with my Nana again and I can feel myself again. This class has taught me that there is no crap in writing…It reflects your soul. So just roll with it!
So I’m going to speak for everyone here again and say. Thanks for a great semester Dr. P. You are what great teachers are made of.
Like goose12 said, I am a perfectionist. I have never been too keen on the idea of writing crap to get my thought process started. I am the type to write, rewrite, and analyze every sentence of my paper in order to make sure it is absolutely flawless until I allow myself to move onto the next one. I have never looked at writing crap as a way to better my writing skills; I always thought it was a bad thing. My mom is a fantastic writer, and I have always attempted to find out the secret to her writing. One day I was experiencing extreme writers block, and I vividly remember my mom looking over my shoulder as I wrote. She watched me dissect every single aspect of each sentence to make sure I wouldn’t get any points off. After she had let this go on for about 5 minutes, she told me that the key to great writing was not to think about the sentence structure, the grammar, or anything like that. I just needed to write. Get all of my ideas on the page and after everything was there, then go back and revise. I thought she was absolutely insane. There is NO way this could work. I had forgotten about this little piece of advice until this class came along. I now realize that this was the best writing advice she could have ever given me.
ReplyDeleteI can completely relate to sister_friend with the issue of my high school teachers. All I have ever known is the fear of misplacing a comma or misspelling a word. No teacher ever encouraged me to write for the fun of it. If any of them had ever told me to include personality in my papers, I probably would have laughed. That is why I was so beyond petrified to write my first paper for this class. Personality? In a paper? Is that even possible? This is exactly what went through my head the first time Dr.P told us that personality was just as if not more important than grammatical accuracy in our papers. This was such a new concept to me. I had absolutely no clue how to do it, and I’m sure my first few attempts were extremely rough. I quickly discovered that the only possible way for me to get this personality thing right was to start writing crap. My crap. All the crap that was flooding my brain. The words of my mom came right back to me. I just began to write. I knew I wouldn’t even end up keeping half of it, but I could fix that later.
My high school teachers would probably die if they saw my writing process now. But they would probably also die (with joy) if they knew how much I enjoyed writing this way. I always dreaded writing papers because of the excruciating process I knew I was about to face. After learning to write crap, writing came alive. These were my thoughts, my words, my voice. This class has challenged me more than any class ever has in my life, and I could not be more thankful.
For me, it's not even just writing for which I'd write crap. (BAM for not ending in a preposition)
ReplyDeleteWhen I was younger I took so much pride in my work; if it wasn't my best, I wouldn't rest until it WAS my best. Then I got to high school. "Playing the game" is what we called it. Put in as little effort as possible for that A because GPA is what ranked us. Why care about learning? Screw learning, college admission committees didn't know or care how much you "learned", all they could see is your ranking and GPA. I'll never forget my AP US history telling us when talking about the AP exam that "Crap is relative." And I took that to heart (my friends even came up with the motto 'always meeting, never exceeding' when talking about my work ethic).
And now that I'm in college, not much has changed (outside of this class of course). There's still no real benefit to getting a 100 versus an 89.5, an 89.4 versus a 79.5, so why put in the extra study hours? This class allows us to speak and write freely, so "putting in the extra effort" doesn't qualify as effort at all.
Wow. Did I get off topic or what.
I guess this is a prime example of writing crap. Start with a memory and it goes somewhere, in a direction you never intended. If I can't even do THAT, then I listen to music. Masterful lyricism of Eminem. Power chords of Ozzy and Black Sabbath. Oddly soothing banjo music of Mumford & Sons. Maybe some hardcore techno. I can't really relax without my music, and I can't really write unless I'm relaxed.
I've loved these blogs over the past few weeks-- I feel like I actually am connecting and exercising that great emotion of empathy with fellow humans, despite whatever façade we may put on in class.
So Dr. P, I thank you.
Don't ever work for "the man".