Tag: writing

Posted in Writing

Writing challenge (Day Three)

Posted on by Sharon

It was 10:38pm. At night. A cold night with the wind howling and the rain splashing the windows. Somewhat violently, if my memory serves me correctly.

The phone rang.

This is unexpected.

It rang again.

Hello?

[ ….]

Seriously? Do people really still do that? 

After I hung up I stood there for a moment, shaking my head.  Apparently, they do.

This is 2012 and kids still ring strangers and ask is Mr Wall in? Perhaps Mrs Wall is there?  No?  No walls? 

Structure.

Houses have it; phone calls have it; thankfully, the chair I’m sitting on has one. We can’t avoid structure. Even abstract concepts like love have a structure. It might not have the same structure each time or be the same structure for everyone, but there’s a structure.

The glance; the flit of the eyes; the smile … 

The conversation; the I can’t stop thinking about him/her; the humming around the house (and on the bus and at the shop); the weight loss; the hunger; the disappointment; the grief; the anger …

The presentation; the I must speak with that (very cute) young man; the constantly being impressed with his thinking, but he’s so young; the happy realisation that within the young man’s exterior there beats the heart of an old man; the living happily ever after.

Structure. Everything has structure.

Even writing. Particularly writing. More particularly, academic writing. Let’s take a book chapter as an example.

Editors provide an outline of what is to be included. Much like the task description of a university assignment. Editors also provide a style guide, just like the ones provided to university students. While there isn’t a marking guide, editors send the completed (draft) chapter to reviewers (markers) who review (mark) the chapter and write comments (feedback) all over it. Who pick it to pieces. Who write quite unhelpful, often contradictory, feedback: the literature review does not capture the writing of (insert name of reviewer 1 here); the literature review is extensive. The lack of a theoretical framework is a weakness of the chapter; the theoretical framework is clearly articulated.

The draft chapter is returned (generally within a year of submission), the authors cry a little at the hurtful feedback provided by reviewer 1, and then re-work the chapter.

Sharon, interjects Tim, you’re supposed to be writing about structure. Oh yes.

Hmmm …

Some structures are not good.

Many people view a dictatorship as a poor structure for a civil society.

Some building structures aren’t well thought-through … I’ve seen many student assignments that have all the pieces, but they’re simply in the wrong place.

When a structure works well, the chapter/assignment/blog post is a delight to read. It works. It makes sense. You can feel confident that when you walk out the door you’ll step onto a floor at roughly the same level, rather than plummet to an untidy injury.

It’s a door Jim, but not as we know it

This post was supposed to be about writing to a structure and why I find that so challenging.

The truth is, and this might come as a surprise to some of you, I don’t think in a structured way. When I first sat down to write this post the computer was having conniptions, and so while it sorted itself out I started writing by hand. I had an idea that I didn’t want floating away to the dark recesses of my mind, and so to capture it I wrote it down. My first sentence was: Structure is a fundamental aspect of academic writing.

Dull.

I drew a line under that and wrote another first sentence: Structure is important … and that’s as far as I got because I bored myself to sleep.

Then I wrote: Imagine if the chair you’re sitting in had no stru …

Snooze.

But that brought to mind the story of the walls … the late night phone call. By the way, they hadn’t enough nous to hide their number, so did they get a shock the next night!!

I create as I go (well, create is a strong word), but I refine and edit and delete and include and structure as I go. And that’s fine for this kind of writing (where I’m perhaps amusing or entertaining or just being a bit silly) but that’s not okay for writing chapters – or university assignments for that matter.

Why not? 

Good question, Jill/Amanda/Wendy/Glynis/Mandy/Alison/every student I’ve ever taught!

So there you have it. A seemingly unstructured post on the importance of structure.

*****

Tomorrow’s challenge is my voice as an academic.

Posted in Writing

Writing challenge (Day Two)

Posted on by Sharon

I’ve given birth a number of times now. I wouldn’t say I’m an expert (is it the kind of thing you can become an expert in?) but five births is a solid effort. It’s not the most glamorous thing a woman can do on a sunny Sunday afternoon, but where would we be without it, eh?

I won’t say any more than that because I can see Tim is getting distinctly uncomfortable, thinking that I might go into graphic detail, and I don’t want to shock him, especially when he hasn’t yet had his breakfast.

But it’s like writing. Childbirth that is, not Tim feeling uncomfortable. Writing, to me, is like childbirth. It’s painful and messy, and thankfully at some point the pain stops and the thing flops out and lies there waiting for someone to pick it up and love it. And clean it up. Let’s face it, a newborn baby needs a wash before presenting it to the world.

You wouldn’t push and strain and suck on ice cubes and then go ‘ta-da’ as soon as the baby appears. You want it looking pink and soft and clean and smelling good before others see the beauty that you see the moment it’s born.

It’s the same with writing. Your first thoughts, your first words on the page, your first attempts aren’t what you present to the world. They’re messy, a bit gloopy in places, and urgh … what’s that in your hair? Your first words need air breathed into them – either with a short sharp smack (a bit old-school, but effective nevertheless) or perhaps with a machine to suck out the icky bits; they have a life of their own, but you need to get that life started in this new outside-of-your-head environment.

And so you edit. You re-arrange (metaphors can only go so far, and I’ve pushed mine far enough, so I’ll just focus on writing now 🙂 ), you re-word, you shape and think and move sentences from the beginning of the paragraph to the middle, and then put them into completely different paragraphs. You read and re-read your own work and realise that you don’t have to say things the long way round; sometimes the shorter sentence is the most clear.

You find your own voice – yes, even in a university assignment – and you grow in confidence across the years as you develop that voice. You find your voice through editing; through looking at your work on the page because it’s almost impossible to edit while the words are in your head (imagine trying to wash your baby while she’s in utero).

I prefer to edit. I like the creativity of that process. I can’t shape and re-arrange when the words are in my head (or Tim’s head for that matter, imagine that!) but I can when they’re on the page.

So, editing is a joyous process, a creative process that allows me to play with words and ideas.

Through editing I find my voice.

How/when do you find yours?

***

Tomorrow’s challenge is ways of thinking about writing to a structure (aka playing the game). That’s going to require some serious thinking!!

Posted in Writing

Writing challenge (Day One)

Posted on by Sharon

Tim* has set me a challenge. A challenge to write a blog post every day this week. Here’s why (it’s a long-ish story, so please bear with me).

In 2006 (I warned you) Tim and I wrote a conference paper called Contextualising student engagement: Orientation and beyond in teacher education. A few people read it. One of those people was an academic in New Zealand who was part of a team putting together an annotated bibliography about student engagement. That was in 2009. The team concluded that it had some merit.

We move now to early 2012. The intervening years saw us write a little bit, but not much. I wrote a book chapter on radio as a means of inquiry for a book called Technology and teaching and we wrote a few conference papers. My favourite was one called Discomforting the research spirit: Uncomfortable narratives of being and becoming a researcher. Between 2006 and 2012 we were busy with other aspects of our jobs and writing wasn’t something that we were terribly keen on. At least I wasn’t. Still aren’t. I don’t like writing. There, I’ve said it.

Except that’s not strictly true. What I don’t like writing is journal articles that ask for a theoretical framework and need to be written in a very particular way. There is a formula for writing journal articles and that takes the creativity out of writing. It’s that kind of writing I don’t like.

So, cut to this blog. Why the challenge? There’s one piece of information I haven’t yet told you. Earlier this year I received an email from an academic in England who is putting together a Handbook on Student Engagement. She either saw our conference paper or the annotated bibliography and invited us to write a chapter for the book.

We said yes, thank you very much, we’d love to.

And then promptly forgot about it. Well, not forgot so much as put it to the backs of our minds. The deadline was months away; there was plenty of time.

That was months ago. The deadline is now. Well, this month now. In 17 days. We have to have the chapter written by September 28 – and not because I head off then, but that’s because that’s the deadline.

The place I’m heading off to

So, we have to write. Tim and I are writing together. And that’s where the challenge comes in. I don’t like writing. When I know I have to follow a particular structure I get a knot in my stomach and a clench in my jaw … and I cannot write. I can think, I can read, I can talk my ideas out. But I don’t like putting words on a page in a particular order so that they make some kind of sense.

I like editing. I like having some words to play with. I like to see the thinking on the page and then shape it. Tim had one suggestion for the chapter we’re writing. He’ll write one section and I’ll write another. This is how the conversation went.

Tim to me: You write section 3 and I’ll write section 2.

Me to Tim: When you say ‘write’ what do you mean?

Tim to me: Putting words on a page (add a little head movement in there and you’re getting close to how he said it). I’ve done some reading, I’ve done some thinking, I’ve done some planning, and now it’s time to write.

Me to Tim: I have ideas. Why can’t I tell you what my ideas are, then I can go away while you write?

Tim: Because that’s not writing.

Me: Well, what is writing?

What is writing? Is it physically putting words on a page? Isn’t it enough that I have the ideas? Do I have to put them into some kind of order as well? 

Tim: I challenge you to write a blog post every day this week. Further, I challenge you to write about something  in each blog post. The first day [which was yesterday, so I’m already a day behind, but that’s another story] you are to write about what is writing and the second day you’re to write about editing vs the blank page.

So here I am … on day one (well, sort of), still wondering what writing is.

In the meantime, Tim has written section 2 and I’ve given him ideas for section 3. That’s writing. Isn’t it?

****
I’ve spent 47 minutes writing this blog post, including time re-reading the chapter I wrote on using radio as a means of inquiry (I had to make sure it was okay enough to link to!). I can write blog posts. I like writing blog posts … but journal articles and book chapters? They’re something else altogether.

Is this writing?

Tim* = Tim Moss, my husband

Posted in Learning

Learning to write

Posted on by Sharon

How do we learn to write?  I don’t mean the physical act of writing – of picking up a pencil or crayon or pen, or even of tapping on a keyboard – rather I mean write as in stringing words together to make meaning.  How does that happen?  Some people, like Amanda Lydon, write beautifully, but her writing goes beyond simply stringing words together.  Amanda’s writing is underpinned by great ideas, metaphors (did you read her post on juggling?), symbolism (the different coloured ball symbolised aspects of her life) and humour, warmth and openness.  Where, how, when did Amanda learn to write like that and can we all learn to do that?

Are writers born or made?  Did Amanda learn those skills or was she born with them? Is writing something you can learn how to do more effectively? If it is, where might that process start?  With a desire to write more effectively?  With a desire to communicate a point of view creatively, clearly, concisely?  And then what? I know I want to write more effectively, but how do I make that a reality?

So many questions!  How about some answers Sharon?

My view is that you learn to write by reading, and you learn to write by writing.  I once was an adult literacy tutor and one of my students was an older Dutch man.  He couldn’t write … but he couldn’t write letters (Aa, Bb, Cc …).  His words didn’t flow from his pen because he couldn’t physically write well, or speedily.  He wrote in upper case only and it was only when he learnt to write in lower case that he finally began to write with some fluency.

I use the keyboard a lot – it won’t surprise you to know that I’m using it now – but when I have a good idea and I want to get it down on the ‘page’ my fingers have to move more quickly.  I watch the letters appear on the screen and when I see the red wriggly line, or when I type ‘like’ instead of ‘line’ I have to go back and correct it.  My thinking moves more quickly than my fingers and so by the time I have corrected all my errors the words that are in my head are fading.  So fluency – the speed with which you physically write – might hinder your writing.

So that’s one issue.  The physical act of writing and the speed with which that happens.  Writing slowly (whether that’s typing or with a pen in your hand) can inhibit your ability to communicate effectively.  The same is true of reading. Have you ever listened to a poor reader reading?  Poor … readers … have … to … p … pause … after … every (is that every Miss?) … w … wor … word … and … me … meaning … is … lost.  It physically hurts those of us who read fluently.  We want to jump in and read it for them.  And we want to do that because meaning is important.  Why read if we don’t gain any meaning from what it is we’re reading?  If we aren’t gaining meaning, if we’re just reading words on a page then we’re doing what some call ‘barking at the page’ (see http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/reading.htm).

Barking at the page shouldn’t be the goal of any reader, or of any teacher of reading.  Stabbing at the page with a pencil or pen shouldn’t be the goal of any writer, or teacher of writing.  Meaning … understanding … comprehension … these things are important because it is through gaining meaning that we come to understand things better.  By ‘things’ I mean the world, what’s right and what’s wrong, ideas, others’ points of view, ourselves, abstracts concepts such as institutional racism, imagination, education.  When we get to understand things better we become empowered.  If we know how our bodies work we can recognise signs of a cold and take action to slow it … otherwise we might imagine that a cold is the work of the devil.  If we are not empowered we are unsure of what is causing the pain/runny nose/aches/stuffy head.  We attribute it to things outside of our control, we won’t think to wash our hands, or not sneeze on others, or cover our mouths when we cough.  We would act in ignorance.

So we read (and learn) and through that process become empowered.  How, then, might we become empowered in our writing?  How might we learn how to write?  What does ‘good’/effective/high distinction worthy writing look like?  How might you learn to write high distinction-worthy writing?  The goal, of course, is not just for the grade (you might remember learning that external motivators don’t work over the long term), but for the empowerment that being able to write clearly and concisely brings.  You’ve all read great writing, whether that’s writing for children or for adults, but you may not have stopped to think about what made it ‘great’.  Next time you read a book, an article, a newspaper report (actually, probably not that) think about the ‘how’.  How did the author bring me to tears, make me laugh out loud, make me angry enough to take some action?

And then use what you’ve learnt from reading in your own writing.  Write.  Write.  Write.  And read, read, read.

Reading and writing … writing and reading.

And speaking … but that’s for another time.