1. In your experience, why do some people appear to be good at writing while others struggle?
I think at some point I started viewing writing competitively. A girl I knew in high school wrote really well, and I wanted to write as well as her. I wasn't terribly aware of or interested in struggles other people might have been having with writing. Nor did I have any idea what my college major would be. I was pretty self-absorbed, and probably just reacting to certain dynamics of the classroom.
People appear to struggle with writing only when they're writing to an audience they don't understand. If a student is texting a friend, it's not likely to be a struggle. But if a student has to write a paper according to completely different conventions for a teacher who is essentially a representative of an "academic" audience, that same student may struggle.
So if I became a good writer, it was probably because I wanted to excel in relation to my peers (especially if they were cute), whereas those who struggled simply had different relations to different peers (cute or otherwise).
2. Is writing a talent, or is it a skill? Is it both? If so, how? What does it mean to say that something is a "talent"? What does it mean to call something a skill?
I'm going to call "talent" personality, and I'm going to call "skill" technique. Anyone can learn a technique, regardless of personality. But different personalities gravitate to different techniques for a variety of reasons, and it can get fairly complicated. In the best-case scenario, personality and technique fuse in a satisfying expressive experience. The degree to which the experience is satisfying is often contingent on the social reception of the expression, or its interpretation. That interpretation is two-sided, including both the person doing the expressing and his or her audience, and it can change over time depending on how memories, experience, and discussion shape it. So merit and accomplishment are entirely fluid. But the degree to which the illusion of consensus regarding merit and accomplishment is maintained can have an enormous influence on the formation of personality and the application of technique. So this is why "talent" has become a value-laden stand-in for "personality." Similarly, "skill" implies mastery, whereas "technique" implies functionality.
3. How is writing best learned? Why? What do you think are some of the biggest impediments or difficulties people face when trying to learn to write better?
I guess practice is probably the best way to learn, although it helps to get pointers along the way. I remember feeling that writing was largely intuitive, and I got lucky that much of my intuition was informed by a bookish family background. This is tricky though because everyone learns differently. And a lot hinges on context. Practice with good pointers and feedback, along with opportunities for imaginative or self-guided exercises, is probably the best bet.
I think I said at the beginning of the semester that language fluency could be an impediment to learning to write. I still think that's true, though I would modify "language fluency" to be more nuanced. It has to do with stylistic fluency, or knowledge of expectations, intuitive or otherwise. That stuff needs to be as clear as possible. It should also be clear that no single set of conventions satisfies every writing task.
4. Close your eyes and take a few minutes to picture someone in the act of writing. Who are they? What do they look like? Where are they? What exactly are they doing? Describe the scene in as much detail as possible.
Writers are everywhere. On the train with smart-phones, in offices, in libraries, and so on. I like the idea of a very broad definition of writing: songwriting, video editing, Web design, copywriting, novel writing, technical writing, writing checks, skywriting, speechwriting, texting, tweeting, blogging, vlogging, tumbling, sampling, quoting, etc.
5. Where do you think this image of "writing" comes from? In what ways do you think this image actually represents what most people do when they write? Stepping back for a moment, are there writers or types of writing that probably aren't well reflected by this image you just described?
I think this image of writing comes from this past semester. Composition theory has a million ways of talking about "texts" and "writing." There is contextual functionality and there is the inherited, historical notion of book writing, which is dominated in my mind by the "literary." It would seem there is a profound tension between the two at this particular moment in history, brought about by technological remediation. I guess writers who aren't well reflected by this image are those who use pen and paper. I forgot to mention them!
6. What is a "technology"? How do you define the term? When you think of technologies, what kinds of things do you think about? Is writing itself a technology? How? Or why not?
I have the contemporary tendency to think of technology in terms of wires, gadgets, computers, solar panels, rocket ships, and the like, although I think it's fundamentally related to the idea of "technique" mentioned above. The technology is the tool or the combination of tools or the process, and the technique is how to use them. I think writing is a technology. Whether writing programming code or Greek poetry, writing is the technology that enables those techniques.
Writing is also a technology in the sense of the broad definition of "writing" given above. Yet it is like a component technology, or a metaphoric one. Is it possible to have a metaphoric technology? Um . . . yes. See Nietzsche.
7. Have you heard the term "writing process" before? What does this phrase mean to you? What is the "writing process" and how does it work?
I have head the term before. I forget what it is, if I ever knew. Something like outline, research, draft, revise. I never use outlines, but maybe I should. Usually I start with research to see where it leads. Then I write around it to try and make an argument, narrative, or analysis. That's a "process," right?
I like what we talked about this semester regarding the "moves of academic writing," as well as rhetorical principles involving audience and intention. It seems obvious in retrospect, but such ideas get de-emphasized in literary study.
8. Is writing a private thing, a social thing, or both? In what ways?
The work of writing often feels private, and this can enable thoughts to go unguarded and explored in more detail than in conversation. This can be a liberating aspect of it. But sharing the writing is social, and even when composing, choices are being made that are communicative. And the ideas and language being used are drawn from some social process, even if it happens to be written.
9. When people talk about "illiteracy," what do you think they are talking about? Who is illiterate in this country? What are some of the primary causes of illiteracy? Is illiteracy a problem?
Usually people talk about "illiteracy" in terms of the inability to read and write alphabetic texts. But my answer to this question is probably the most different from what it was at the beginning of the semester. If literacy is determined by one's ability to grasp and utilize media for expressive purposes, then I am functionally illiterate in all kinds of ways. I have a rudimentary ability to make videos. I've improved substantially as a blogger. I still have no idea how to make a Web site. I'm decent at recording music. I don't Tweet. I don't Tumble. My Facebooking is pretty perfunctory. I've never contributed to Wikipedia, even just to try and get away with a lie. I can't read braille. I don't know sign language or semaphores. Basically I just know a little bit about books.
So by this logic causes of illiteracy are too many to mention. It sort of depends. Is it a problem? That also depends. What does a person want to accomplish? For whom? Why? What are the best means and methods?
10. How have writing and rhetoric changed in the digital age? That is, how has technology affected the way people communicate? Is this a good or a bad thing? Why?
Technology has greatly expanded our communicative options and made us more aware of what each option emphasizes or de-emphasizes. Techniques that were prohibitively expensive a generation ago--film making and multi-track recording, for example--are now available to anyone with a computer. We now can consider: do I want to send an email or a postcard? Which would be more fun? Do emails with resumes attached need to be written according to cover-letter conventions, or should they be less formal? Or should job seekers just direct potential employers to their LinkedIn profile?
It's a good thing in the sense that it provides all kinds of options that weren't there before. It may even enable the alteration of power structures that seemed untouchable--the music business is a good example. It can be a bad thing in the sense that learning and embracing the new is often stressful. Why can't we just sit back in whatever world we're most comfortable in and have a couple drinks? I guess that can be a little anti-social.
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