#TheoryofWriting

[writingandresearchfall2019]

Conference: Part 2

Part 2 of Conference Day: it is DUE on Monday, September 23, 2019 @ 11:59 pm to your Tumblrs. This is part of your attendance for the day.

Part 1, The Writing Self: Who are you as a Writer?

One thing that we don’t often take time to think about is who we are as writers in other words looking at our writerly identity. Each person’s writerly identity should be unique to them, should represent how he/she understands and approaches each writing situation, and evolves with them the more experiences he/she has in writing. However, often times, our writerly identity becomes wrapped up in superficial understandings about writing -- writing for sake of a grade, writing to please a teacher, writing only because we are told to do so -- so that we don’t truly understand who we are as writers. For the first part of this post, you are going to do just that: think about who you are as a writer. To do this, I want you to recall 2 different experiences with writing, one from your K-12 writing experiences, and one from your college writing experiences (not limited to only writing courses, you could use any writing experience in college, so it could be things you are write *while* in college), that have shaped your current understanding of writing. In 150-200 words a piece, tell these stories working on weaving them together so that you conclude by revealing your current understanding of who you are as a writer.

The goal is for you to use these 2 stories to explore your identity as a writer so that you can come to a conclusion about who you are as a writer, right now in this moment.

Part 2, The Theory of Writing: Take 1

The evolution of writing is something that helps us understand what writing is – to us, to others, to vast audiences, and so on. Part of this class includes you developing, or continuing to develop, your “theory of writing.”

Definition: A theory of writing gives you, the writer, the opportunity to think about your relationship with writing: it enables you consider what writing is to you. This can include, but is not limited to, what is your writing process(es), what is your practices, what types of key terms provide the foundation for your theory, how do you actually enact those key terms in your writing, and so on. It is within this theory that you can articulate – in your own words using your own language – how you understand writing, what you’ve learned about writing, and where writing can take you.

Research has proven that the theory of writing becomes the framework by which students utilize the transfer of knowledge moving out of their writing courses and into new writing contexts.

This will be your first attempt at creating a theory of writing. You can begin by thinking through what writing means/represents to you, how define (good) writing, and what it takes for you, the writer, to create good writing based on your definition.

Both parts are DUE by 11:59 pm on Monday, September 23, 2019!

[aplaincheezeit]

Theory of Writing

Entering this class about writing and research, I had a very specific idea of what writing looked like to me. Writing was a form of expression and translation. After ten weeks of reflecting, drawing, and articulating what my theory of writing has become, it is very clear I am no longer the same person who utilizes the same views and processes of writing I once had. It is still true that I sill view writing as a form of expression and translation, but my definition of these key terms have greatly expanded, as well as the number of key terms themselves. I now define writing more in the terms of communication, voice, experiences, contribution, reflection and challenge. How these words connect and relate to each other is how I’ve found my new theory of writing. Wring drawing on your experiences and using them to form connections across different perspectives and ideas from other people with different backgrounds. With these connections, reflection is required to understand what your personal purpose is, as well as why writing something is relevant to the current time. It is this reflection that gives you new knowledge that allows you to share and communicate your personal perspective and ideas that can then contribute to someone else writing process. This is visually represented in my first map where the word communication is surrounded by figures traveling, a see of books, and music, visuals of expansion and sharing. After reading the piece about knowledge communities in the tv show survivor, I had a solid example of how the sharing of knowledge creates deeper understandings and creates new discussions over new findings to further investigate. This new found relationship between writing and information played a key role in the lit review and in the research paper, as the lit review was the process of me connecting experiences, and the research paper was similar but with my own discoveries. Witting is an endless cycle, and it is easy to get lost in, but it is challenging yourself with that prevents you from standing still and continue growing .  My theory of writing is no longer a single phrase or single sentence but has transformed into an entirely new approach that has also affected my way of life in and outside the boundaries of writing school papers.  

Thought this year, my writing has undergone a series of major transitions. The most impactful transition was my view of writing leaving high school entering college. I am thankful to have had writing teachers that showed me the significance of forming connections across many sources, but the use of reflection and exploration, threshold concepts defined in the  “Framework of Writing,” were not skills developed. In the framework of writing refection and exploration encourage the student to be open to trying new things in order to become flexible, framing failure in a positive light. Now having this positive connotation to failing prevented me from trying new genres of writing in those classes, and apprehensive of new styles in classes I was entering.  My first major writing piece of the year solely revolved around reflection and giving a version of my younger self advice based on what I have learned now. This piece was difficult to write and resulted in many, many drafts but each revision process after each failed attempt taught me that I was capable of tying in past experience with current knowledge, and the ways in which it affected type of person and writer I will be. My last map shows how I’ve come to recognize that struggle and the frustration have resulted in new discoveries of myself and a new outlook on revising and wanting to improve. 

Within my second course of writing was focused on social media. The professor focused more on understanding rhetoric and using what we learned in original styles and pushing our boundaries. It’s very common to learn egos, logos, and pathos, but he taught me not only how to utilize them but the meaning and importance of each within a paper in order to create purpose and relevance. I wrote many argumentative pieces defending my opinion, but it wasn’t until I wrote the personal narrative about how social media affected me personally that I had to really broaden my view of rhetoric. Vatz describes rhetoric is not being the byproduct of the situation itself, but as a result of the rhetor and their interpretation and the purpose they give the situation. My purpose was simply sharing my experiences to connect with other people, and my rhetoric was snapshots of social media posts that weaved to tell a story of how social media has given me a living documentation of my life. Incorporating pictures and writing for the purpose of sharing was something I had never tried before in writing, and was the beginning of me rediscovering my voice. The following quarter I would make a tumbler and post blog posts every Sunday and tweet. This was unstructured and the prompts were vague, and as a writer it felt like a lot of pressure to be creative and vulnerable. In the piece “Writing is hard,” she talked about being distracted, which helped me discover I procrastinate too because I had perviously been striving for perfection, instead of growth. I now understanding writing is a process, not just now, but indefinitely and requires me to always be willing to learn more.

This new outlook on writing has applied to more than just creative wiring, research, and argument. This theory has been applied beyond the writing class in courses across different parts of my curriculum. In a psychology paper I was required to write about the stigma of mental illness I utilized my skills of finding common themes in the current research and how these themes could help discover new treatments and more positive attitudes towards people with disorders. Just like the research paper in my class I was looking at a variety of perspectives to form my own to contribute to the pool of knowledge for someone in the future to utilize. These skills I am developing and continue to develop are timeless and will always be relevant because they will always serve a purpose everywhere I go, whether it be a work email or a caption for an Instagram post. Each piece of writing I attempt, revise, and put my own touch on, I am growing and with me so is the vast knowledge of those who persevere through the process with me. Writing and the opportunities it opens is an exhilarating thing to be apart of, and therefore this theory of writing will not be finalized, and hopefully it never will be.

[writingrhetoric2018]

Part 2 of Attendance for Thursday, February 22, 2018

The second part of being in attendance also due by 11:59 pm on Friday, February 23, 2018. 

As a reminder ...

The Theory of Writing

The evolution of writing is something that helps us understand what.writing.is – to us, to others, to vast audiences, and so on. Part of this class includes you developing your “theory of writing” and given that we are on the back end of the quarter, this is a fitting moment to pause and consider what your theory is right now.

A theory of writing gives you, the writer, the opportunity to think about your relationship with writing: it enables you consider what writing is to you. This can include, but is not limited to, what is your writing process(es), what is your practices, what types of key terms provide the foundation for your theory, how do you actually enact those key terms in your writing, and so on. It is within this theory that you can articulate – in your own words using your own language – how you understand writing, what you’ve learned about writing, and where writing can take you.

So, this is your theory of writing take 2! Here’s what you need to do: 

1. Go and reread what you wrote for the first round. 

2. Reflect upon what is working, still makes sense about your understanding of writing, and what needs to change. 

3. Write up a new theory of writing, this time starting to use your own writing as evidence for what you are saying. The final version should be 300 words  +

4. Next, create a meme that represents your theory of writing. The goal is to create a form of rhetoric, a form of discourse. Memes can do that when they are done correctly. One little caveat: you can NOT pull an image from the web. You have to actually use one of your own images taken with your phone and/or your camera. There are lots of meme generators out there to use or you can simply use a picture and add a caption to it. 

ALL due by Friday, February 23, 2018 by 11:59 in order to (a) be in attendance and (b) receive credit for the work. 

Good luck! 

[dylanfrance-blog]

Theory of Writing: Take 1

    Since we were little kids taking state-required writing tests, we have developed a relationship with our writing. Since then, we have developed many aspects that affect our writing style, language, preference, and organization. I think it’s very fascinating, whenever my friends ask me to proof their papers, to listen for their voice and identify similarities between the person’s personality and how they write. While I do enjoy doing that, I’d love to take this opportunity to explore my writing to hopefully better understand my strengths and apply them to my future writing.

    An easy-to-spot aspect of a person’s writing is the key terms they use. Everyone has a different dialect that adds personality to a paper. My key terms include the transitional words I use, aspects (to avoid overusing “things”), and the word opportunity because it’s a positive way of saying “I have to.” By understanding my key terms, I can avoid overuse and develop a single author persona. This way, no matter what genre of writing, someone reading it would be able to identify me and relate that piece to other works of mine. Key terms play a role in one’s theory of writing.

    After competing in speech and debate for all of high school, I developed a very concrete sense of writing that gets the point across as organized as possible. This can be effective in certain situations, but I’ve learned that it hinders me in less formal writing. Through this class, I get an opportunity to relax and write with a little more personality and voice. This has carried over in to my research. I decided to research the relationship between live music and drugs which is much different from my past research papers on standardized testing and the Pinkerton Private Investigation Agency (the first CIA). I want to experience the process of collecting primary research from my peers in an informal setting. My goal is that my research paper will balance the fun topic with my organized background.

    I do have to say that the writing I have done this quarter is completely different from what I’ve done in the past. Never have I ever gone into a conference with a professor and she tells me to be less formal. I’m learning that putting your own voice into a paper adds a certain element that grabs the attention of the reader. Something else I’m learning is to have fun with my writing! Too often in the past, writing has been nothing more than a chore. This quarter has given me the opportunity to enjoy writing in a different setting and identify my theory of writing. So, in conclusion, my theory of writing is combining my organized background with my personality to effectively inform, persuade, or entertain readers. 

[ktaczak]

Theory of Writing: Take 2

Most of the Tumblr posts serve as a point of reflection -- very intentional, directed reflection. Reflection is a way to help you become an active agent in your learning. You are an active participant by not simply being someone who is fed information, but someone who questions, explores, muses, theorizes, and reflects ... 

One thread that runs through the course is the creation of a theory of writing -- your theory of writing. You have already done at least one direct post on your theory of writing, but you’ve also done a lot of in-direct reflecting on it.

Reminder of the purpose of the theory of writing (TOW): 

The students’ theory of writing gives them the opportunity to think about their relationship with writing—their writing processes, their understanding of the key terms they enact in their own writing, and their ability to create a knowledge-base of writing and its practices for application in other contexts. It is within this theory of writing that students are able to articulate what they’ve learned about writing and where they can take this learning. Questions to help ground your thinking but do not necessarily need to be answered: 

What are your key terms for writing? How does it expand your writing practices to understand these key terms? How do these terms help you to understand what writing is and how it functions within your own life? 

Who are you as a writer? How does considering key terms contribute to the development of your writerly identity? 

What is writing? What is good writing? 

How does literacy practices connect to good writing? Do they have to connect to “good” writing? 

The goal of this Tumblr post is to create another iteration of your theory of writing -- you’ll provide some context and set-up and then you’ll create the actual theory in a Dr. Seuss’ style (feel free to fully invoke him by creating new words and new ideas but the main goal is to rhyme). 

DUE by class time on Tuesday, February 7, 2017. NO response to peers for this post. 

[bg1059-blog]

Yet another iteration of my theory of writing

[ktaczak]

In effort to help get you in the right mind space for the homework over the weekend, here is a throw back to a 90s video. Though the lyrics are more political, you can definitely take the idea behind the lyrics and apply it to your theory of writing -- free your mind!

[ktaczak]

Connecting Your Writing Dots

Two weeks into the quarter, we’ve read about orality, writing as a technology, the evolution of writing, and more. As you continue to read about differing literacy practices and the questions that surround them, you are going to start your own questioning, musing, and essentially theorizing. Part of this class includes you developing your “theory of writing” and given the readings you’ve done for homework thus far, this is a good moment to pause and consider what your theory is right now.

In a class about literacy practices, it is very fitting for you to develop a “theory” about writing. One that’s unique to you as a writer and one that helps to inform future writing contexts. A theory of writing gives you, the writer, the opportunity to think about your relationship with writing: it enables you consider what writing is to you. This can include, but is not limited to, what is your writing process(es), what is your practices, what types of key terms provide the foundation for your theory, how do you actually enact those key terms in your writing, and so on. It is within this theory that you can articulate – in your own words using your own language – how you understand writing, what you’ve learned about writing, and where writing can take you.

King’s short excerpt (that we read early in the week), one might argue, is his theory of writing done in his very King-like way. So, for this first iteration of your theory of writing, I want you to try a King-like style for your theory of writing. His includes a deep awareness of the writing situation, an understanding that *someone* is reading his writing (”meeting of minds”), and a dedication to the craft of fiction. Thus, we might say that his key terms include audience, style, identity, and purpose (or rhetorical situation). He tells us this without stating them.

A theory of writing is not easy to write, so please don’t panic or believe that it’s not possible to write one. The first iteration of your theory is an attempt to “free your mind” or break outside your comfort zone and try and get on the page, er, screen what writing is to you. =) Writing in a King-like way gives a bit of creative freedom, please just remember that the goal of the theory should be able to (eventually) be applied to all writing situations. A theory evolves and grows, and yours will as we continue in this course.

Responses to peers: pick one peer (different than who you’ve been responding to) and respond: what do you believe are his or her key terms? How do you know? Are these key terms IYHO helpful for all writing situations? Why? 

DUE by class time on Tuesday, January 17, 2017. 

Good luck!

[writingrhetoric2018]

Theory of Writing: Attendance for Tuesday, February 6, 2018

One of the central questions that this course explores is “what is (good) writing,” and some of what we are learning is that it’s rhetorical, reflective, and intentional. We are also learning that writing is not singular and it’s situational (i.e. all genres have different expectations! Context is everything!). Some of you are working/struggling with how to break from of the barriers of understanding writing as a singular entity, and hopefully, this Tumblr post will help a little bit with that. 

You are going to do the following to be in “attendance” for class today -- this means your Tumblr post is DUE by 11:59 pm today, Tuesday, February 6, 2018. 

The Theory of Writing

The evolution of writing is something that helps us understand what.writing.is – to us, to others, to vast audiences, and so on. Part of this class includes you developing your “theory of writing” and given that we are on the back end of the quarter, this is a fitting moment to pause and consider what your theory is right now.

A theory of writing gives you, the writer, the opportunity to think about your relationship with writing: it enables you consider what writing is to you. This can include, but is not limited to, what is your writing process(es), what is your practices, what types of key terms provide the foundation for your theory, how do you actually enact those key terms in your writing, and so on. It is within this theory that you can articulate – in your own words using your own language – how you understand writing, what you’ve learned about writing, and where writing can take you.

Your Theory of Writing: Take 1

Begin by writing out your theory of writing in other words you want to say "my theory of writing is ..." Use at least 2 of the readings we’ve done so far to evidence and ground your theory. This means direct quotes to help you! This will be your “formal” version of your theory of writing. Feel to develop it as you see fit to represent what it is right now. 

Second, you are going to create a Dr. Seuss' style theory of writing (I hope you all know who Dr. Seuss is ... but if you don’t then google him!). The Dr. Seuss style should follow his format: rhyming, short phrasing, direct, and possibly a made-up word or two. 

In the end, you will have two versions: the very serious academic one and the Dr. Seuss one. The purpose is so that you can start to understand your theory a little more: by creating more than one version of your theory, you are showing how well you understand what you are saying.

The third and final part of this post is a video, a meme, or a gif that connects with your theory of writing. 

Good luck! I look forward to seeing what you can do!

DUE by 11:59 pm TONIGHT (Tuesday, February 6, 2018).