These lessons and assignments draw upon concepts from visual rhetoric to help students become aware of the objects, spaces, and bodies that both help and hinder their writing processes. Through in-class activities and journaling, students be able to identify the elements of their environments that are especially conducive to the writing process.
In my own experiences teaching writing, at times I wish I knew more about how to coach students through the challenges they face when they sit down to write. My students will come to me feeling utterly and hopelessly confused about their draft and say things like, “I just want to start over.” To many students, the idea of starting over feels like writing suicide. But to me, “starting over” feels like nothing more than an opportunity to clear my mind and begin again in a less cluttered space. When students express feelings like these to me, I often tell them to try opening a new Word document. This is a strategy that I use as a writer to, like I just mentioned give myself an opportunity to think more clearly in a less cluttered, more open space. But when I tell students to open a new Word document, sometimes they react like I am telling them to re-do the entire paper. But I’m not.
In moments like these I find myself wishing that I had more of a vocabulary to talk with students about habits that both help and hinder their writing process. I want to be able to give them more concrete, real-life strategies for dealing with feelings of distraction, confusion, and writer’s block. I want more strategies than the suggestion to open a new Word document.
I know that there are things that I have to do or avoid doing to get through the writing process smoothly. I know that I cannot sit and stare at the computer for too long. I have to get away, walk around, and probably eat something. When I’m composing a paragraph, I separate it from the rest of the text in the document so that the writing before and after it does not distract me. Then I move the newly written paragraph back into the context of the paper to work on the transitions. I also know that I cannot be wearing pajama pants while writing, otherwise I will not get anything done. I know that the shower is a great place for me to come up with lesson plans. And I’m sure if I paid attention to it, I would find that there are many other things I do while writing that both help and hinder my process.
All of these habits point to the multimodality inherent in people’s writing processes. Although our writing processes are highly multimodal, as I explained above, I often find it difficult to bring students’ attention to the material, spatial, and embodied modes that affect their writing processes.
The closest I ever get to formally addressing the multimodality of writing is when I assign readings from Anne Lamott’s inspirational writing guide Bird By Bird. In her chapter “Getting Started,” Lamott explains how she tends to tell students how to get over their nervousness about starting to write:
You sit down, I say. You try to sit down at approximately the same time every day. This is how you train your unconscious to kick in for you creatively. So you sit down at, say nine every morning, or ten every night. You put a piece of paper in the typewriter, or you turn on your computer and bring up the right file and then you stare at it for an hour or so. You begin rocking, just a little at first, and then like a huge autistic child. You look at the ceiling, and over at the clock, yawn and stare at the paper again. Then, with your fingers, poised on the keyboard, you squint at an image that is forming in your mind—a scene, a locale, a character, whatever—and you try to quiet your mind so you can hear what that landscape or character has to say about the other voices in your mind (Lamott 6-7).
While Lamott is clearly mocking the ridiculousness of the things that people do when they sit down to write, her passage also provides useful tips for what exactly to do when facing the blank computer screen or piece of paper. Lamott refers to the embodied nature of the writing process (sitting, staring, rocking, yawning, using fingers, squinting), the material nature of the process (the typewriter, the paper, the computer screen, the clock, the ceiling), and the spatial aspects of the process (sitting down at the same time, staring in one direction, staring in another direction). Lamott does address the mental activity that is involved in sitting down to write (“you squint at an image that is forming in your mind—a scene, a locale, a character, whatever—and you try to quiet your mind so you can hear what that landscape or character has to say about the other voices in your mind”), but this is similar to the kind of work we do a lot of writing in classes—we try to teach our students how to think while they are writing, rather than feel, see, hear, smell, or taste.
The following lessons are designed to help students become attuned to the multimodality of their writing processes. The goal of these lessons is to help students become aware of the aspects of their writing processes that are helpful and hurtful.
Preparation/Modeling
To prepare your students for this activity, you will want to help them realize how different objects, materials, and spaces influence the way we think and behave. You can begin by using the classroom as a space to analyze together.
Before giving students the journal assignment, spend part of a class period examining the ways in which the classroom space influences the way students and teachers behave and think in the space. With your students, get out of your seats and leave the classroom for a minute. When you are outside the classroom, explain to the students that when you walk back in, your goal is to notice everything you can about the space (layout, objects, design, etc.). Once the class has taken a few minutes to look around and notice the elements of the space, have students write for a few minutes in response to the following questions: 1) “What physical features did you notice about this room? How do you think those features affect the way we think and behave in this room?”
When the students are done writing, come back together as a group and discuss their findings. If students are having trouble noticing details or making interpretations about the space, you can use the following questions to guide the discussion:
- What objects did you notice?
- What did you notice about the arrangement of the space?
- How do these things influence the way we act in this classroom?
- What do these things say about the way in which we are supposed to learn in this class?
- What do these things say about the relationship between teachers and students in this class
You can also point to specific details in the classroom (i.e. the way the desks are facing, the position of the clock, the position of the teacher’s desk or podium, etc).
This activity will train students to become aware of the ways in which physical environments, objects, and materials influence the way we behave. This will prepare students for the task of documenting and analyzing the ways in which material objects, spaces, and their bodies influence their writing practices.
Assignment
For this assignment, students will keep a journal in which they document their observations about the objects, spaces, and embodiments that affect their process every time they sit down to write for your class. This assignment could be given at the beginning of the semester and carried throughout the whole course or it could be given for a shorter section of the course.
Every time the students are given a writing assignment, part of the assignment involves documenting the embodied, material, and spatial components that influenced their composing process. Although the classroom activity should give students some direction, they might still need help figuring out how to notice the things that affect their writing process.
Here are some instructions you can use to guide students:
Part One: Journal
1. Throughout the semester you will keep a notebook in which you document the things you notice about your writing process every time you sit down to write for this class.
2. In your notebook, you should record everything that you notice about your composing practices. Here are some questions to consider:
a. When you sit down to write, where are you? What is the location like? Are you at home, in a coffee shop, in the library, in the dorm, etc.? What is the mood like in this place?
b. What objects do you have with you? Are you drinking tea, water, or other beverages? Are you eating something? Are you using a notebook or handouts as reference? Are you writing on paper? Are you sitting at a desk, on a couch, or in a chair?
c. What things are you doing while you are composing? Are you going on Facebook? Are you browsing websites? Are you listening to music? Are you moving around or staying seated? Are you texting? Do you get up and walk around?
d. What’s happening on your page or screen? Are you cutting and pasting text? Are you highlighting or underlining things? Are you making lists or outlines? Are you deleting text entirely? How many documents do you have open? Do you have other windows open?
Part Two: Reflection Paper
When your students turn in a final draft of a paper (or in the case of English 100, when they turn in their portfolios), ask them to write a short reflection paper in which they look back at their documentations and analyze it. This will help students see how becoming aware of their writing practices changed over time. Use the following questions to guide your students:
1. By documenting your writing habits and environments, what have you learned about your own writing process?
2. What have you learned is especially helpful to your writing process?
3. What have you learned is detrimental to your writing process?
4. What steps can you take to use these findings to improve your writing process?
You can have students repeat this process for every major assignment they complete.
Also, you might want to have conversations in class about the things that students are noticing about their practices. Hearing others’ observations might help students learn things about their own processes and help them reflect.
No comments:
Post a Comment