Saturday, March 31, 2018

Genre = Conventions + Social practices

Reiff and Bawarshi's study of knowledge transfer or transformation in FYC provided insight to what genre knowledge students draw on and different approaches they might take in doing so. This is particularly important information for me since I will teach first year writing. When reading this, I thought back to my experience in English 102, my first writing course at Boise State, and tried to remember what my understanding of genre was and how (and if) I adapted to a novice role. I couldn't remember anything valuable, though, since we did not experiment with genre in that class (everything was a five paragraph research paper).

I hope I have room to experiment with genre in my class. The biggest thing I learned from the study is to engage students in metacognitive reflection. By asking students what they think an assignment is asking and what previous writing assignments it reminds them of, I could disrupt "the maintenance of strict domain boundaries" the article states FYC is the perfect situation for (331).  Students in FYC are reflecting on their previous writing experience while adapting to new ones, whether as boundary crossers or guarders.

I believe I started as a boundary guarder because I was very confident in my five paragraph argumentative essay and resorted to that until exposed to different genres. Honestly, I think I first became aware of genre in Engl 329, Grammar, Style and Writing. By that time, I had worked with different genres--creative nonfiction, brevity, blog, flash fiction, newsletters, memos, etc. Engl 329 was the first time I began to conceptualize myself as a multifaceted writer skilled in multiple genres.

I like the Devitt quote on page 331,

"...even after writers learn to perform within a genre, they can use the genre awareness they have learned to understand what they are doing more deeply, more purposefully, and more rhetorically."

It stood out to me because it highlights the significance of not only understanding different genres, but also the abstract process of transferring or transforming that knowledge from one genre to the next. That kind of metacognitive reflection is valuable as a writing specialist or expert communicator who has a message for many different audiences in different situations, and it points out we are always learning.

I like the definition of genre as an orienting framework that helps develop "awareness of how rhetorical conventions are meaningfully connected to social practices." (314). Genre inevitably has a social component because it is so audience centered. Because it is social, it is highly situational since social norms change. This could be a reason why even writers themselves don't always have a firm grip on genre and are always learning new ones. Like the quote mentions above, a good writer will engage in metacognitive reflection and harness the abstract and difficult process of knowledge transformation.

Sunday, March 25, 2018

One of more farvorite takeaways from this article was the idea that a genre acts as a “tool of cognition”; before we even realize it we are considering the form our piece of writing must occupy as we begin to imagine its existence. It reminds me of the way I handle projects in my art and sculpture classes. Typically we get an assignment that gives us dimensions, media, and a due date. Art has genres in the same way that writing does, but when we are given an idea of what is expected of us or who our audience will be, we know we can only craft a piece of art, or writing, that will fit in those parameters.


As for the ideas of boundary crosses and boundary guarders, I think it definitely depends on the particular mood I happen to be in and the attitude I have about the genre I am working with. Being a guarder in the past has definitely led me to keep repeating rookie mistakes in my writing when it comes to genre convention; I was a chronic over-explainer and had convinced myself that the genres I was functioning in required the excess of information to meet audience expectations until I realized there was a new forms of writing that appropriately satisfied the conventions of the genre while still creating effective writing. Then, I became more of a crosser, picking what strategies I already knew of and applying them to my writing when I see it could help improve it.

Saturday, March 24, 2018

On with the show

This week's title is from "The Show Must Go On" by Queen, because that's what I'm listening to right now!

I'm not sure if Reiff and Bawarshi's piece helped me understand the complexities of genre more, but it certainly inspired me to consider my own transition from high school to college writing classes. As an intimidated little 18 year old, how did I transfer my knowledge and experience with genres to a new wide world of academia?

I can't really pinpoint what "discursive resources" I brought with me to my first year writing courses, mostly because I didn't have first year writing courses... I never took English 101 or 102 because of my AP English exam score. AP English Literature was the only advanced placement class I bothered getting involved with in high school, and it ended up being super valuable. I had an amazing teacher who I'm actually still friends with to this day. (Shout-out to Paula Uriarte at Capital High!) My experience with writing in high school (at least junior and senior year) was similar to the students' described on page 322:

Students remarked on high school classes that "covered a little of everything"; senior English classes that exposed them to "different writing styles and different areas of writing"; or a comfort level established due to "writing several papers in high school programs."

I'm not sure if I would categorize myself that year as a "boundary crosser" or a "boundary guarder." In some ways I think I was more of a guarder, as this article defines it, in large part due to my "confidence level" (325). I knew the conventions of a decent amount of written, oral, and digital genres before I even stepped foot on campus. I felt like I was a really good writer - at least, better at writing than everything else. In a lot of ways, though, I was clearly inexperienced.

Further substantiating the distinction we draw between boundary guarders and crossers, their findings revealed that even though students confidently identified a range of genres and exhibited confidence in their incoming writing skills (taking an "expert" rather than "novice" stance), this confidence did not necessarily translate to genre performance. (331).

Some of the first writing courses I took here were creative writing, which I was already experienced in. I took two creative writing classes in high school, both from the same teacher I took AP English from, and I even helped form the creative writing club there. However, I started really struggling when I had to take more literature classes here. Despite my experience in high school, I wasn't that confident writing literary analysis papers. I knew what they had to look like, but could I produce a good one? Rarely.

Of course this all depended on the subject matter of the writing class and how invested I was in everything, but at this point in my education I found myself shifting more to the boundary crossing point of view. I realized I was more of a novice than I thought, so I had to adjust accordingly.

Friday, March 23, 2018

Well...

To be honest with y'all, I had a harder time making sense of this article than the last one on genre, which ended up being thrown out after I'd already dedicated a few hours to understanding it.
What I'm taking away from this is an image of genre being sort of exploratory, and those who use it effectively as being willing to take part in that exploration. Getting stuck in viewing genre as static and unchanging means being relatively inefficient as a writer.
The idea of a "genre crosser" resonates with me mostly in creative writing. In creative nonfiction, I tend to combine genres into a piece that's sort of a smattering, but I think it works artistically a lot of the time. I'll put together personal narrative, research and some poetic tactics (line breaks, segmenting, disregard for grammatical conventions, etc.) to form a piece that transcends any individual genre.
Being able to do that rhetorically, though, seems to come less naturally. I already tend to view rhetoric as an art form as well as a science, but if I can lean into the artistic side of it more, then I guess I'll have an easier time using genre effectively. I ventured such a thing in the creation of my radio essay, and I had a great time doing it - it was super eye opening, as I've said in my various essays and reflections on the topic. That's going to have to be the concrete example of genre-bending that helps keep me grounded through all this highbrow abstract reading on genre theory.

Thursday, March 22, 2018

Rhetorical Convention is a Fancy term for Argument Genre, perhaps.

My interest was lured quickly with this week's reading. It was food for thought to consider the domains in which genre functions, and seeing the list of macrogenre types and forms. The article discusses the study of how rhetorical conventions are drawn-upon and implemented by first year composition students, based on our thinking and self-evaluation as novices or experts (basically what we bring to the table and how we think about it as we approach new challenges). To me, 'Rhetorical conventions' equals 'argument style', which equals 'argument genre'. My interest was initially piqued when I read mention of Sommers and Saltz mapping of self-identifying novice and expert writers, suggesting that students who identify as experts early-on develop less than those writers who take the position of novice, and how this expert-novice relationship impacts how we make use of our previous knowledge about genre. It was also interesting to read that those who were certain about their genre knowledge guarded genre boundaries, whereas those less certain were crossing boundaries - and it was further still interesting to have it noted that students often aren't even conscious of how they use previously learned skills, unless explicitly asked to perform such a skill. So, being sure of yourself isn't always the best thing. If we're open to a cycle of thinking in which we can apply bits and pieces from our acquired knowledge toolbox to discover and create new applications (and consciously know we can do this), while being willing to admit that we don't know everything, but have a willingness to learn by taking the risk to gamble on creating something new and useful, then we would all just rock. Here we are, using a rhetorical convention (blogging) to discuss rhetorical convention. 

When I first attended college I think I had a case of the expert mentality because I was great at executing a 5 part essay, and even though I wrote quite a bit in between, I don't think I learned much until I came back to Boise State. I was even surprised at first at how much I could learn and open my mind to by returning to school.  I was a boundary guarder before, but have since shifted and am willing to cross boundaries now even if its sometimes difficult at first. I'm especially spreading my wings in terms of revision (which is directly connected to our genre purpose), but still developing in those of genre, and even still learning what genre means to me,to others, and if it matters. Since there aren't a ton of scholarly articles on 'regenre', the idea seems fairly unexplored, It feels pretty cool to be a student among a few others with a focus on a topic of study which is fairly original, not derivative. As artists and writers we have the gift of rhetoric, to posit and explore and vary in our writing interests, theories, and abilities from those of others. We have flexibility to explore and to fall down and get up (where many others do not have much room), and its this down and up pattern which, in part,  prepares us for dealing with rhetorical situations beyond the higher education setting.Problem. Idea, Implement, result, repeat as necessary Sorting through genre sounds a lot like revision.

I've been questioning my understanding of genre (and rhetoric) a lot this semester. I used to think of genre as only having to do with a type of music or type of reading like fiction versus non-fiction, and subgenres of those categories such as biography, or sci-fi. I've never previously thought about the various ways in which we write and communicate to be genre. This semester is the first time I've been put in a position to think about genre in relation to my writing, my rhetoric, myself. As someone who is constantly striving to gain knowledge about effective ways to communicate, this  exploration is much welcomed, but it scares me too... what if I'd gotten out of college without exploring or even acknowledging this piece to the puzzle? I've performed regenre before, once or twice in my previous job, but I didn't know that's what I was doing and it felt sneaky, and a bit shady because I had no prior knowledge of genre as it applied to communication. 

I am enthusiastic about technical communication, but I know I am far from being an expert, and even if I was an expert on technical communication, it doesn't mean I could expertly apply the sub-genres to the topic, however, I'm optimistic that I will continue to become better at identifying best practices of tech comm genre implementation. Regenre to me is taking something already existing and somehow transforming it in part (or whole) into something different in order to effectively repurpose or create new to meet a desired goal or attain an outcome. As an aspiring technical communicator, I know I could spend a lot of time on this post and likely write it better so that my thoughts are most easily received, but the genre here is to read and reflect and then converse, so that's all I'm going to do. If there was no discussion, and therefore no room for Q & A, it would be best for me to make my thoughts clear and my rhetoric as strong and concise as possible before posting.

If I wanted to be super philosophical, I could posit that regenre is constantly occurring all around us, and we're constantly enacting it. When We wake in the morning, we regenre our sleeping selves into our dressed and ready-for-the-day selves. The food in our kitchen might undergo regenre, transforming from something which gives us peace of mind to have possession of, into sustenance and energy by eating it. So the act of eating is a regenre of food. When we pay for something we're turning our money into something else which brings us use, the regenre of money. Basically almost everything we do everyday are forms of identifying the constant shift in genre in order to implement, and identifying how we seek best practices (genre, subgenre) in rhetoric and composition, much like we'd identify best practices for grocery shopping or playing the stock market, is indeed worthwhile.

Crossers and Guarders

You are all a long way from the students described in "Tracing Discursive Resources."  You made the transition as high school writers to to first year writers long ago.  But the study does seem to roughly describe the problem you face in the re-gene of earlier work:  how do you apply what you know from work in the previous, more familiar genre to a new genre? To use the terms in the article, is your "prior knowledge" relevant?  This question is central to how well you can transfer your knowledge of one writing situation and apply it to another. This is the kind of thing "writing specialists" (the way we describe our rhetoric, composition, and communication graduates) should be able to do.

Here are some of the ideas I gleaned from reading the article that seem relevant to our work together:

  • If you're over-confident about your abilities (expert status) you'll learn less about writing than people who approach a task with uncertainty and openness (novice status).  
  • There are two kinds of writers: "boundary crossers" and "boundary guarders."  The "guarders" are more committed to just applying--relatively unchanged--what they know about previous genres to a new situation.  The "crossers" tend to cherry pick a range of relevant strategies from their previous writing experiences and apply them to a new genre.  They also recognize that what they are being asked to do is not like genres they know.
  • We've talked a lot about genre this semester when we're really talking about what the article describes as "strategies" or "macrogenres."  Strategies are things like analyzing, shifting the tone,  or redefining the purpose. Macrogenres as forms like evaluation, compare and contrast, description, and summary. It's helpful to talk about shifts in all three--strategies, macrogenres, and genre.
  • Then there's this:  "Part of what defines a genre is the way it pulls from, mixes, and reconfigures macrogenre text types or forms to enable its users to" do adapt their work to new situations.
 How might you apply these (and other concepts in the article) to your experience so far with re-genre?  Put differently, in some ways did this assignment make you a first-year writer again?

Monday, March 5, 2018

All of the ghouls come out to play

This week’s title is from “Shake It Out” by Florence + The Machine!

Writing is very unsettling. I think that’s partly why I’m so drawn to the process. I have never felt entirely secure in my life, so I guess it makes sense to dedicate myself to a craft that continuously makes me feel uneasy! Of course, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Anything too easy isn’t worth doing. I've loved writing for as long as I can remember, and it will never stop being a challenge for me, but it’s a fun challenge. Usually. Sometimes it’s harder than anything.

I’m not saying I never feel confident or happy about my own writing, but it’s an eternal struggle: a struggle typically linked to my own feelings of inadequacy, not my capability as a writer. Reading “The Emotional Work of Revision” left me feeling particularly exposed, like a lot of our other readings in this class.
“Many experienced student writers believe in the revision process and they have every intention of embracing the dissonance, but they struggle with execution . . . this disconnect can then lead to feelings of dissonance in their writerly identities, a tension between who they are and who they want to be as writers.” (2) 
This is such an accurate description of my insecurities as a writer! I'm optimistic and confident about revision as a concept and I usually don’t have a problem changing my work. However, with bigger pieces that I’m more emotionally invested in, revision is a huge source of anxiety and self-doubt. I relate to Aiden’s struggle with not being able to trust herself to make big changes. I can usually power through this if I need to, though. I try to listen to my instincts. This is why I also relate to Sherry’s experience of using “cringe moments” as a “gauge” to tell which parts of her writing need more work.

I think another reason why I’m so drawn to writing is the chance for new beginnings. No matter how unhappy I feel about what I’ve written in the past, I can always keep going. “Metanoic Movement” is a fascinating exploration of regret in writing. I love this idea of accepting regret and using the experience to transform and push yourself forward, but I’ve never really thought about it within the context of the writing process. I do know that with writing and with anything else, regrets are just as important as opportunities. We learn and grow from regret and failure.
“Seized and missed moments can thus hold equal weight, as both are necessary for creating change (externally and internally).” (394)
Focusing entirely on regrets is paralyzing. Focusing entirely on opportunities is unbearable. Metanoia interests me because it encapsulates opportunity, regret, and transformation. Like Kelly Myers says, regret and opportunity are two sides of the same coin. One can't exist without the other. I think my discomfort with writing and my love of writing are also two sides of the same coin. It's a struggle but it's always worth it!
I love Kelly Myer’s concept of Kairos! I’m familiar with this article already and took a joint course between her and Emery Ross in advanced nonfiction. The concept of metanoia and regret is something I needed a bit of a refresher on, and even now I still find it a bit complex. The long allegory proposed by Fitzgerald and White computed in my brain to the phrase, “If you put a tuxedo on a monkey, in the end, it may still be a monkey.” Classy, I know.

Kidding aside, I really do see the forest through the trees with the way Myers groups action, movement, repentance, and remorse into this idea of metanoic revision. The idea of revision being a sort of trip wrought with paths the author embarks on can either be a hero’s journey, or you could end up a skeleton in the background of the dragon’s castle, adding a nice spooky touch for any other adventurers who are also foolish enough to try what you did. The prospect of key moments and opportunities constantly cropping up that you might be failing to take advantage of is overwhelming, but in the end, making it out alive is the goal, right?

I revised my nonficiton portfolio for Myer’s class; the revisions weren’t to extensive, but the suggestions both her and Ross made for me helped immensely. I’ve adapted their verbage into my style of ‘suggesting’— lots of “What if this was discussed at length? I’d love to hear more about that. I think this section is really shining.” Staying positive might seem like it doesn’t have enough teeth to really get to the heart of what truly bothers us about our writing and makes us wish it were better. But I found that when revising, if I have an angle to focus on what truly has value in the piece as recognized by myself of pointed out by someone else, what I want excised will come to me more easily.

As for reading on the emotional work of revision, I couldn’t believe how relatable all the students’ comments were; I actually started laughing, some of them felt so real. I especially related to Sherry and the concept of cringe. I know that’s essentially why I try to brand myself as a one-draft writer and remain reluctant to the idea of extensive and regular revision, but in the future I want to try to use that feeling as a sense of pride in myself that I have adapted to know what makes my writing good. 


There’s a really similar concept in visual art, especially among illustrators who strive to capture things that have a counterpart in reality. When drawing, your brain either creates an idea or sparks an image, then it outsources the job to your eyes and your hand. The two can be a team, but they can also mature at different rates; one awkward line, and your eye knows it doesn’t look right. That’s when you erase and try again, and that’s when your hand learns sharper coordination and more efficient mapping. But whatever your eye knows at any given time is different. Obviously, when drawing, if you’re a diligent artist you try your best to make as few errors as possible, but some are simply unavoidable because your eye cannot notice them. Then, when your eye learns more and more through looking at different works and again at your own, the chance to revise appears. The process feels a bit more straightforward to me than the process of revision; i.e. i’m a lot better at coming to terms with the fact that drawing a straight-on profile is hard simply because I don’t have a lot of practice doing it, but I’m harder on myself if I can’t get a sentence to come out the way I want it to because I’ve been speaking English since before I could stand on two feet.

Sunday, March 4, 2018

Strategies Galore

As I said in my last posting, revision has always been something that I have never been truly confident about. Often times I did not even know where to begin. It was just a mad dash of adding random things here and there that would generally make the piece worse of then before or I would simply not do it as it appears many of those that Dr. Ballenger spoke to in his paper. Time really does fly when you are procrastinating. This paper however is one of the first that I have had the pleasure of reading that actually gave me a wide variety of strategies in which to tackle the devil that is revision. And I am very thankful for that. I pulled a quote that put revision into words that just never thought about before, "Revise because it yields the unexpected—new insights, new perspectives, new ways of seeing"(3, Ballenger).
I think the strategy that I was most intrigued by and connected with was that of divorcing oneself from their draft. Within this specifically was the idea of giving yourself time away from your work in order to perhaps gain a new perspective or ideas. This is something that I absolutely never do. I finish drafts, attempt to revise them as quickly as possible and then never ever come back to them. As far as I am concerned they are dead. I keep all of my old writings in a box under my bed but I never look at them. This coincides with another strategy or divorcing yourself from the draft and that is putting it away.  This is something that I actually want to try. There are some writings I have that are years old. I assume that they are utter garbage but honestly looing at them and revising would be great practice.
Another strategy that I am planning on trying to integrate into writing process in 14.11: Explode a moment. I often write out of scene relying on simple explanation rather than story to help develop important parts. Writing in scene has always just been something that I shied away from for reason but I know that narrative scene can have some of the strongest rhetorical power. I will definitively be trying this one out. Its funny I was actually given “Curious Writer” several years ago from a past professor but never read it, this reading has actually made me want crack it open.

Bettering ourselves through vulnerability

Emotion and writing tend to go hand in hand in my opinion. Often what we write, our tone, style, structure, and overall theme is generally influenced by our emotions. Whether it’s the outside emotions, or emotional connection to the work itself, or our emotional connection to the topic. I think there’s an element of vulnerability to emotion that makes writing, and revision in particular very difficult. Vulnerability is often the Achilles heel of most writers. We all struggle with vulnerability in different ways, typically with the concept of exposing our vulnerabilities not just within our writing but exposing it for criticism and judgement by our peers and ultimately the audience.
In “The Emotional Work of Revision” there were different forms of vulnerability discussed and the most interesting concept of that for me was the idea of competence, that “feelings of vulnerability would seem inevitable when sharing work with others, the anxiety it triggers can cause even advanced student writers to fundamentally question their competence,” (Ballenger, 7). I found this interesting because I struggle personally with vulnerability and yet it’s never linked to competence but instead often linked to my ability to be open. For me vulnerability makes me question my message, and the ability to be heard versus the actually competency of my abilities. I think that’s the fascinating aspect of human development is how the differences in our personalities can influence the outcome so drastically of how we feel about ourselves and the things we do.
The benefit of vulnerability and emotion within our writing is the “caring” factor like Ballenger mentions, but I also think it makes us more credible as writers as well as more authentic. Because through our vulnerability we’re able to tap into deeper emotions, which helps us connect with our writing on a deeper level, and also helps us connect to and develop a relationship with the audience.

            I think that the connection between metanoia and vulnerability also builds upon this same connection. As Myers recognizes, metanoia can be freeing (17), facing our vulnerability can be terrifying because it requires admitting to and recognizing what makes us feel vulnerable but also extremely freeing because it allows us to face what bothers us most, analyze the vulnerability and search for a solution to overcome the vulnerability. Something as writers I think we have a lot of experience with and correlates with revision because when we revise our work, we’re searching out problems within our writing, evaluating and analyzing our work and seeking out solutions to improve upon our writing, develop better depth, and foster a relationship with our audience. All aspects of writing, particularly the revision process that are necessary to be successful.

-Becca

Writing and Vulnerability

Harnessing emotion during the writing and revision process is revolutionizing. Emotional cues inform the writing process, like when it is time to start, stop or do a number of things in between, according to the Alice Brand quote on page 2 of Ballenger's piece. I always feel anxious about revision and now I know why: It demands decisions. I am awful at making decisions! In all seriousness, I like the idea that coming to what one has to say is a process, and the first draft is only the beginning or initial question. It can cause anxiety because it is a promise of intense emotional labor, a labor that goes unseen with the finished product. It also is a promise to be vulnerable, which is difficult for people in general because the world teaches us to “protect ourselves” by putting up barriers. Passionate writers who care about their work experience “intimacy linked to feelings of vulnerability” (Ballenger, 1). That is a difficult process but ultimately worth it, because only through vulnerability can we really be seen and connect. I view writing as a conversation, one where the writer is learning about themselves and the reader experiences a sense of connection to the writer, willing to step into their emotions and experiences.

Myers' metanoic revision, "actively turning toward 'missed opportunities' with the goal of seeing and creating new ways to navigate content..." reminds me of writing creative nonfiction (387). The best way to revise creative nonfiction is to write towards the tension to find the true story, the thing you have come to say. Since we are writing stories about true situations in creative nonfiction, the deeper insight is often a metanoic moment. For example, I recently wrote a creative nonfiction piece about the regret of losing a friend. According to Myers, regret and disappointment are elements of metanoia, "These feelings serve as the starting point or catalyst..." (386). The initial piece was strongest in the moments of guilt and regret, but there was something missing. When I revised it multiple times for a portfolio, I wrote toward the tension and discovered what I truly had to say. It was a missed opportunity in the sense I lost a friendship but it helped me realize the lesson that surrounds it: In some situations it is best to let go of the person but love can live on in memory.

Thursday, March 1, 2018

Develop, revise, discover, trust.

I've become a big believer in the 'power and purpose of global revision in order to discover and shift meaning, rather than looking at it in terms of simple sentence and word-level corrections to change the way a reader may judge us. We look at the broader picture with revision and in that picture we discover ways to change or better convey the message. Writing is important to me because its an outlet to make-up stories, and tell my own true story even if I'm only telling myself. I'm one of those students who embrace theories of revision yet struggle to implement the practices at times. I've learned to keep positive and accept that multi-revision is a recommended practice for me. There's so much to consider in revision. I don't think I'll write and publish for a career, but I intend to be a lifelong writer and hope to publish someday. I am often "teetering between optimism and self-doubt," much like Avery early-on in The Emotional Work of Revision reading. The care I have for my writing, too is likely the greatest source of my anxieties. I've tried to fool myself for a long time that I hadn't any anxieties about writing, telling myself that confidence is key, but I am in a place where I need to admit the anxieties I feel, even if they are mostly minor. The more I write and trust in what I learn with each writing experience, the purer my writer's soul becomes. I've come a distance from the days of my one and two-drafters, but still have a bit of the journey to travel yet. Rather than wonder when I'll get there, I'm beginning to embrace each new checkpoint as I peddle my way up the mountain. I no longer wonder where the summit is, nor try to measure my growth and guess at when I'll arrive.
I am joyed to read about innovative learning and theories relating to revision because so much of it makes sense and it serves as a solid reminder that I'm not struggling alone in the writer's universe. I've shaken the idea that good writers are born, rather than developed. Reading writings about writing is fascinating because it explores what is or has been theorized, observed, and discovered among other writers, rather than touting a one-way fix-all remedy for the aspiring writer. They get my mind thinking about and exploring ways and reasons why I may or might not be struggling, and offering food for thought on how I might improve the craft rather than pigeonholing all writers and their experiences into a container. My interpretation of metanoia used to be that it was fluid and surrounding me and my writing at all times, and that every once in a while I'd snag kairos. However, i'm at a new point where I theorize that it is kairos which is consistently fluid and flowing around me, while metanioa can be seen on the other side of a pane of glass, kept at bay, like something which I don't have to endure if I choose not to, or don't let it. I can see it, but don't have to endure it. I like the idea that regret can happen, but doesn't turn into metanoia unless I succumb to giving up, failure, or the "good enough" attitude. I  think about this in the longer term as it relates to revision. For me, being a multi-reviser and holding the belief that my writing can always sustain further work keeps metanoia away, and kairos perpetually visible and possible. One of my favorite things to ponder this week is visibility in writing, or what is not visible versus what is revealed as we work through discovery of our own writing curriculum

When I initially attended college, It was about getting through it instead of consuming it. My heart wasn't in it. I believed in myself, but I didn't think anyone else did. I was subconsciously engrossed with self-doubt and layers of accumulated dissonance from years of fighting the current of prescriptive learning. I didn't realize this at the time. When I returned to Boise State in the Fall of 2015 I had a new outlook and was intent on gaining as much from college as I possibly could. There was also the incentive to remove myself from academic probation. Even though I'd matured a lot, I was amazed and almost surprised to see how much there was to learn, absorb, and enjoy. On the one hand, if we think we know about all there is to know about the practice of something, we'll succumb to metanoia, and on the other , if we feel hopeless, helpless, scared or lazy, then that also translates quickly to metanoia. Finding the middle ground between these extremes and interlocking the fingers of the two hands that breed's kairotic opportunity, locking-out metanoia.

Becca Williams: On Self Respect

In terms of writing idols, Joan Didion is probably near or at the top of my list. I love Didion’s raw honesty that brings about a new meani...