Q1.
The particular piece of writing that comes to mind as a learning experience is a critical analysis of James Baldwin's Sonny's Blues that I did in Reshmi Mukherjee's critical theory class last year. It was the first time I really got a chance to dig into an analysis in that way, and I definitely enjoyed it. I read the story five or six times and filled up the margins with notes. In doing so, I learned a lot about the piece, about Baldwin, about American culture & racism, and so on.
Q2.
While most, if not all, failures tend to be learning experiences in some way, my most instructive academic failure has to be flunking out of Boise State in 2012. I was 17 years old, had just graduated from high school a year early, and had the bright idea that I was going to be a biology major. Needless to say, it didn't work out. By the time I wandered back over here around 2015, I had landed on English as an emphasis, and my experience has been much more positive this time around.
Other than that, my most instructive failures have been my failed relationships, for all they've taught me about myself & the world at large, haha.
Q6.
The part that causes me the most anxiety has to be the feeling that comes before writing the first sentence. Typically my writing flows easily enough after that point, but starting can be kind of daunting. The most joyous part, then, is when I'm just flying through a paper/story/poem etc. and writing as fast as I can think. That's honestly one of the best feelings in the world.
Q8.
Last semester I got a wild hair and took a criminal justice class as an elective. One of our textbooks was Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson, which I found incredibly inspirational. He talks about being sort of a directionless law student and finding out that his legal training enables him to do all this amazing social justice work. I'm very committed to social justice, and to the field of rhetoric, so it just makes sense to me to follow a similar path. Not to mention that my mom has been begging me to go to law school since I was 15 (she's an attorney). I don't know exactly what sort of position I'd like to hold, but anything socially or ethically meaningful would probably make me a fairly content person in the long run.
Hi Elise,
ReplyDeleteI love the commitment to social justice. I was also struck by your comment that the part of writing that causes you the most anxiety is "before writing the first sentence," a sentiment that is echoed by several others in these posts. In many ways, this is perfectly normal. Where do we begin? But what of the things I hope we can talk about next week is the idea that the best way to work is to first generate material--even bad stuff--before we start crafting sentences. I find that many writers have pretty impoverished invention strategies, which leads to a lot of staring at a blank page. I wrote a piece once called "The Importance of Writing Badly," which makes the argument that "bad" writing is some of the most useful work we can do. Maybe we can talk about that next week.
Elise,
ReplyDeleteI found it interesting you said in question 1 that you read the story five or six times before writing your piece about it. Personally, for me, I find that the more a reread a piece the more my perspective can change and shift. Do you think this is the case or did your research and experience with the piece shift at all as you worked through the reading, research and writing process?
I am the opposite of you, I suffer from the anxiety of coming up with the ending and being able to evaluate if I truly said what I intended to say. Do you find that once you get over that initial anxiety the rest always comes easy or are their certain aspects, themes, or genres of writing that lessen this anxiety versus others?
Elise, I had a very similar answer for question 6 and completely resonate with your feelings of anxiety before writing the first sentence. I agree that there is not a feeling similar to writing as fast as you can think. This "in the zone" feeling is definitely one of my favorite parts of writing, too, where everything seems to fall in place and make sense. It might take a while to work up to this place, but once you're there, it sure does feel great. I think it's awesome you are considering law and believe studying rhetoric is the perfect preparation that. What social justice issues are you most passionate about?
ReplyDeleteI was on a panel last semester on how to move from draft to publication, and one of the questions was this: "When do you know a piece is finished?" It's a complicated question. One-draft writers typically are finished when they're done. A lot of the professional writing I do--memos, proposals, emails, etc.--is one-draft work. But multi-draft work (I'm thinking here of my creative nonfiction, especially) I don't feel finished until I've nailed an ending. So I'm with Becca on the anxiety of finding an ending that works.
ReplyDeleteSOCIAL JUSTICE BUDDY FIST BUMP! Also, now I'm gonna need to read all these recs immediately.
ReplyDelete