Reflection on Today's Writing Lab

Hi Everyone,

I just wanted to review what we did today in Writing Lab. We were exploring the idea of writing as a conversation--with texts (or whatever you're writing about), with others, and perhaps most importantly, with yourself. In getting your ideas out on paper, you are externalizing the internal conversation you had with the text when you were reading, and you begin to hear your own responses more clearly as you put them into words. Later, when others join the conversation (either in a class discussion, or when you engage with others' ideas in a paper), you respond to their comments and your thinking evolves.

The exercise we did on the Blog was in three parts. First, you chose a quotation that provoked a powerful response in you; you posted that quotation, along with a brief comment explaining why you chose it, and what it meant to you. In the second phase, you left that conversation temporarily to read what others had posted about their quotations, and you responded with a comment of your own. In the third phase, you went back to your original posting and reflected on it by explaining how your ideas developed in response to one or more of the comments.

The 3-part process in this exercise is a model of the 3-part process that you use whenever your are writing an essay in college. First comes "brainstorming"--finding a topic you want to explore (many of you used them as the titles of your first posts), finding texts that relate to that topic, exploring your first thoughts, but without necessarily knowing where you want to go with them. Then comes "drafting"--your first attempt at formulating a statement, developing an argument. The drafting process often involves what you were doing in the second phase of the exercise, too, that is, putting your ideas into a larger conversation (with other texts, and/or other writers). Finally comes "revision"--the moment when you go back to what you wrote at first, with a clearer understanding of what you really want to say, and rewrite with an imaginary reader in mind--a reader you want to engage, excite, convince.

My hope is that thinking of writing as process and as conversation will help free you from the fear that sometimes sets in when you face a writing assignment, such as a paper--the fear that whatever comes out of you onto the screen has to be "it," the full-fledged argument, the final word, and that some invisible Teacher-Reader is hiding inside your head, overhearing everything, poised to jump in and correct you. The more you get used to approaching writing as your own process, the more you'll be able to shut out those negative voices, and the better you'll be able to hear your own.

I'd be really grateful to get YOUR feedback on this writing lab: was the approach new to you in any way? what did you like best about it? what might have worked better for you? do you have any concerns or questions about writing that you'd like us to work on this week? You can post your comments on the Blog, or if you'd prefer to write just to me, my email address is dunn@vassar.edu.

Thanks, Leslie