Auster answers his question "why write" through different experiences. For this blog post, you need to respond to this question on two levels: (1) why write in relationship to yourself (use examples from your own life as Auster did) and (2) why research, in other words, why do you need to know how to research? Pull on your own experiences again.
As you respond to these two questions, you also need to draw on past readings and use key words to begin to make connections between readings and key words and to your own writing identity.
250-400 words. Respond to one another.
Due: Wednesday, April 24, 2013 by class time.
“As my palm grasped the handle, I used my weight to push down and crank open the wrought iron door that lay between the man and me. Upon opening the door, I recognized the man as my neighbor, and he was holding an arrangement of flowers like an infant in the crook of his arm. The expression that swept across his darkly bearded face went in sync with the tone of our house. Without saying a word, he gently set the bouquet of flowers on our front steps. His head sympathetically hung low before he looked up at me as if to communicate the sorrow he was feeling, but was it for me?”
ReplyDeleteThis is a short excerpt from the story I told for my college essay. I was living in Europe across from an Arab embassy when 9/11 happened. Shahid was the neighbor that dropped flowers on our doorstep- a situation I didn’t understand or appreciate until I was older. I think we write because it’s easier to tell an impactful story when you have time to write the words down on paper and revise them rather than blurting it out in person. Personally, I’ve never been the type of person to keep a journal, but I’ve always wanted to. Mainly because I have a bad memory, so sometimes I find myself jotting down notes from a funny or interesting thing that happened to me just so I don’t forget the details when I’m telling whoever I wanted to tell. Anybody else feel the same way???
Right now, I am trying to find a stronger voice in my writing. I feel like over the years, I have slowly made my writing conform into a style that I feel “pleases” the teacher. On the other hand, I tend to be a very collected person and organized in the way that I speak. I guess I am trying to figure out if that is really my voice coming through in my writing, or years of conditioning to write to what the teacher wants. As David R. Russel and Arturo Yanez argue in their article “Big Picture People Rarely Become Historians”, students have started settling for the “exchange value” (the A) in many classes. As Beth realized in this article, we should write because connections or “textual pathways” can be made in all different types of situations, especially writing.
We research to expand our knowledge. Yes, I know that seems self-explanatory, but it’s true. Personally I find that I get bored when I am not learning something new. We also research to come up with good ideas. As Johnson said, “good ideas normally come from the collision between smaller hunches” which is basically just a collision of multiple peoples thoughts. If we didn’t research and write, most of the greatest discoveries that have come from tweaking, reworking or building upon someone else’s previous work or idea, would not have happened.
BTW- I think it would be really cool if everyone started their blog post with a quick example of a story like the ones in Paul Auster’s article or like mine from my college essay… up to you guys, just an idea!
I posted my blog before reading yours, so I don't have a personal story included in the post, sorry!
DeleteI feel that same way as you regarding personal writings. I have not been the type to keep a journal either, but I wish I was! I choose not to keep a journal because I fail every time I try. I get about two days into journaling, then I forget to journal a day, and then I forget to journal in general. I simply do not take time out of my day to journal. I guess it's not important to me. Kind of sad :(
I enjoyed your story at the beginning very much and your voice was very strong in it. I wish I could start with a story but I don't have cool stories like yours.
DeleteI really liked how you started with a story! I liked you paragraph about not being a strong writer because I feel like I am the same way. I thought it was really interesting how you tied in the russell and yanez article to that topic. I have never really thought about keeping a journal because I feel like I would have nothing to write about! maybe I will try... but it could just turn out like Luke's journal from Modern Family when he wrote a sentence about a stick and that was it hahahahha :)
DeleteOverall good job!!
Emily,
DeleteI'm really glad that you approached this prompt the way you did, starting with an excerpt of a piece you wrote in the past. It gave me an idea of how to respond to the prompt and helped me realize why I write, other than for academic reasons, because I really don't like writing very much, unless it is about a personal experience.
You're opening inspired me to open with a story of my own. It was a great hook and made me genuinely interested in what you had to say. You also made some great connections!
DeleteI have not authored a book, written for a newspaper, or submitted any poems to a literary competition. I don’t even keep a journal. Still, I consider myself a writer simply because, well, I write. For the most part I write for academic reasons: essays for international studies, blog posts for writing class, small reaction papers in French, research paper for history, etc. My professors give out writing assignments for the purpose of concept comprehension, class participation, and application of knowledge. If I choose not to complete these assignments my grades suffer, and if my grades suffer I fail college. If I fail college I will be stuck working at my high school lifeguarding job. If I work as a lifeguard for the rest of my life my life goes down the drain. I do not want my life to go down the drain; thus I write because, in the constraints I have put myself under, it is required of me.
ReplyDeleteThe rhetoric I produce in my academic writings inevitably reflects aspects of my life, although not to the extent found in Paul Auster’s writings. I say my academic writings inevitably reflect aspects of my life because I create a unique rhetorical situation despite the neutral academic nature of most writing assignments. I choose to include certain topics in my writings because I deem them important. I respond to a prompt based on how I interpret it. Research plays an important role for how I create a rhetorical situation as well because I have the ability to personally choose what to research, how to interpret information, and how to project this information to an audience. Due to the fact that creating a rhetorical situation has a bias tendency, knowing how to conduct effective research is vital for gaining authority in the academic world.
In the style of René Descartes: I write, therefore I am (a rhetor).
From Abdullaziz:
DeleteHannah, your blog posts are just wonderful and they are the first ones i read on every assignment. You have a very fluent style that is enjoyable to read as well as easy to follow in order to get to where you want your readers to get. The ideas you represent in this blog post are logical and the way you used your life examples and the explicit example of not wanting to be a lifeguard shows your point clearly. Keep up the good work!
Hannah- I love reading your blog posts. As Abdul pointed out they are always easy to read and organized wonderfully. Also, they are extremely intuitive which allows me to think more in depth about my own writing. I too write based on my interpretation of the prompt. I do not always focus on all of the specific points, but follow a pattern that makes sense to me. Overall, I liked how concise and clear your response is. Often I will be too lazy to read through a long post, but yours are always conversational while still maintaining a scholarly aspect to them.
DeleteNice work!
Unfortunately I have no brilliant or impressive story as to why I write. I do know that for the longest time I sucked at it and the funny part was my dad was an English teacher so he always tried to help but it never really worked. Although then again, my dad was always a joker and him and I always joked about how crappy of a writer I was. One day while editing my paper he stopped after having made several notes on the first paragraph, walked over to the kitchen with that smile he always had and proceeded with turning on the stove and burning my paper. Though he only burned a corner the message was made clear. It is something I will never forget; when I think back it wasn’t exactly heartbreaking. I didn’t cry from it, but it just felt a little disappointing. To this day I have strived to make my writing better. Even though my dad is no longer able to grade my paper in person, when I write something I know is crap I just have this voice in the back of my head saying, “Dad would totally burn this garbage right now”. As for research, my first actual research paper was done in my first quarter of college. At first I was really afraid because I didn’t think I could write 15 pages on anything, let alone the research done on the media and torture, yes my first research paper was on torture, I understand the irony. In any case, it now has become something I am no longer afraid of and I was once able to accomplish the same feat but on 10 pages in a weekend, not exactly by choice. Really the hardest part for me is finding a topic I enjoy, once I find one that I do truly enjoy I am capable of doing everything else in the research and writing process with ease. Now that I have sharpened my skills, everything afterwards is just preparing me for senior year where I will be doing practically all research and writing. Till then, I just need to work on further increasing my skills in creating a well written research paper.
ReplyDeleteI think it's funny that you start your blog post saying that you don't have a brilliant or impressive story to tell but I loved your story! your entire blog post felt like a story and that's what I like. In this way it connected to the text we read but also to a personal life story that I'm sure has affected you as a writer. nice post! (and your dad kind of reminds me of mine haha)
DeleteI completely agree with Emily. I found it interesting when you said that you didn't have a story and yet the majority of your blog post was in a sense a story. Your dad has clearly had an impact on your writing, albeit a positive one, it shows how you've grown as a writer over time. I like how you connected your personal story back to the readings we have done for this class. Great post I really enjoyed reading it.
DeleteI have never thought of myself as a writer, however I do use writing almost every single day. For me, I write in order to communicate. This seems obvious but its true. Whenever I have a bunch of ideas floating in my head, or a complex story I need to tell, or when I need to sound professional and put together, I write what I am going to say in order to get organized. I make lists, write notes, write speeches, write papers, etc. all for the purpose of organizing my thoughts. In my head everything can get all jumbled and mixed up, but when I put it to paper I have a much easier time at staying on topic. Also, in general, academic writing needs to sound professional. When I write things down I can spend time thinking of the proper words to use and the right sentence structure I need in order to make sure that my papers have flow and reflect the hard work that went into it.
ReplyDeleteI have been using writing to communicate ever since I was little. I remember one time when I was in 5th grade my friends dared me to call the boy that I liked. Before I called I wrote down a list of things to talk about! (I know pretty ridiculous haha but my brother told me that’s what he did when he had to leave a girl a message) looking back now its because I wanted to be able to communicate with him without sounding awkward or weird.
I think this is really evident in the Russell and Yanez article about Genre Theory. Without knowing it, I use writing every day and in all different types of situations. I write emails, notes, speeches, texts etc. and each one needs a different type of writing. What I have learned about rhetoric and discourse in class applies to life outside the classroom.
I research In order to get ideas. I watch YouTube videos, read articles, look at pictures to find inspiration and new knowledge that I can use in school and outside of school. By looking at research that has already been done and getting ideas from other people, I can shape and mold my own ideas into something better. This is shown when Johnson talks about how good ideas usually come from the collision of a lot of smaller ideas. I am constantly getting different ideas through my research which helps me form a question, or a bigger idea, or gives me inspiration to continue to research!
Danielle, I also feel like writing down my ideas helps me to organize them when i get to the actual writing process. Writing really is a big part of communication and now with technology there are so many different forms of communication. Practicing writing on an academic level can help us when communicating with other people. Communication can also play an important role in research. From Johnson's article, he talks about the importance of connecting and building ideas.
DeleteSometimes in life, you fail to express yourself through conversations, especially when a discussion gets heated up. Then, the point you were trying to make gets lost within the countless layers the discussion has added to the topic. Writing on the other hand could be helpful with explaining an idea or making a point through logical and fluent structure. I don’t consider myself a writer just yet because I believe that I hadn’t produced piece of writing that was my own creation; I have always written papers or essays to please my professors or to get a grade in college and high school. When I’m not doing that, I’d like to think that I write to tell a story, make a point and convince someone or just to document a certain memory in my life. I remember during my middle school years, I tried to keep a journal where I used to document what happened in school and what I thought of it and what I’m thinking of doing the rest of the day. No one told me to try and keep a journal or a diary but I just did it because I wanted to. I wrote to document my life through words on paper and to change a need or urgency I had, that’s why I wrote then and that’s how I want to write now.
ReplyDeleteResearch is very important in my life and I’ve noticed a long time ago that I like to research things, even random topics of interest. Sometimes an idea pops into my head and I just go on Google and read all about it and acquire a specific amount of knowledge on that topic that I think is enough, for now. Research helps me to get the knowledge I need and through practice, I understood how to get that information from the right places and judge the sources as to how credible they are. I’ve started lifting weights a while ago and because of my busy schedule, I can’t sustain a diet that would get me the carbs and calories I need. I researched different supplements and I didn’t stop there, I even researched the ingredients of those supplements and judged how healthy those supplements are. I went to a nutrition doctor in Kuwait and basically interviewed him about those supplements and about their side effects. Therefore, sometimes researching could be very important because many times during my life, I’ll need information on a specific topic and learning how to research will help me get that information.
The reason writing with relation to oneself is important is because it provides a perspective that the audience doesn’t have. It allows for the audience to get in the mind of the rhetor, leading to insight and knowledge. It is also good to include the first person when providing a personal opinion. The relation the rhetor writes with also can provide ethos and pathos. If the writer doesn’t have those necessities when they write, the final product is flimsy and unreadable.
ReplyDeleteWhile writing blogs for an internship, I had to use the first person almost all the time. With websites trying to get to the first page of Google, it is imperative for writers to produce countless blogs incorporating key words to raise traffic to the website and lets Google see that people want to see these key words and associate the website to these key words.
Research is an important part of learning and writing because not only does it provide perspective but it also leads to learning more about the topic. Without research, knowledge would not ever advance because everyone would only be working off themselves, not the knowledge of others.
I like the way you looked at why writing is important in a "relation". You were able to step back and look at the idea of writing for yourself from an outside look, pretty cool.
DeleteWhen I think back to all of the pieces of writing that I have produced over the years, the majority of the time I was only writing for the prompt. The one time I can remember writing something for myself and not for a grade was a journal. As far as I can remember, the journal only had a couple of the pages written in when I last used it. During winter quarter, I went into WRIT 1133 and ended up dropping the class before the first assignment was due. This was a sign for me that I lacked a passion for writing in general. When coming in 1133 again this quarter, I am pushing myself to put more work into the class. At first I was working so I could get through this class and not have to worry about it anymore, but now that I feel better about myself as a writer, I am want to continue improving.
ReplyDeleteOne of the most important aspects you can take away from writing a research paper is the skill of learning how to do the research. Research is all about looking at a topic from a different perspective and bringing together information from different sources in order to produce a clearly presented argument of message. One thing that I compare the way of learning how to look at physics and solve the problem sets. At first I had trouble figuring out what formulas to combine to get to the final equation I needed, but once I realized what I needed to look for, I was able to apply that mindset to the other problems and understand the concepts better. Just like physics, I plan to add the skill of researching to other pieces of my writing.
“For me, I felt as if I was in Haiti for the week that she was still there, suffering with the Haitians as she had. I felt the pain of uncertainty that all too many Haitians felt, not knowing if my mother was alive for the first three days. I felt the joy that some Haitians felt when I finally heard my mother’s voice. I cried the joyous tears that all too few Haitians cried when I hugged and kissed my mother at one a.m. in the airport, seeing that she was physically unharmed. And I experienced the comfort that likely no other Haitian in Port-au-Prince was able to experience when we returned home, to standing walls and a roof above our head.”
ReplyDeleteThis is an excerpt from one of the several pieces I have written about my personal experience with the January 12, 2010, earthquake that devastated the already impoverished island country of Haiti. To add context, my mother had flown to Haiti with a group of Rotarians on a hospital assessment trip, and was greeted thirty minutes later by one of the worst ever recorded earthquakes. Three days passed without us knowing if she was alive, until we finally received a short email from the group.
I have never been one to love writing. I admire those who can compose beautiful texts and at times wish I had a greater affinity for the art, because, when something profound happens in my life, I feel compelled to commit my experience to text, to transmit my fleeting emotions to something permanent. I certainly write for other reasons, mainly for a grade, but I freely choose to write when something happens to me that I deem worthy of being recorded, similar to Auster’s reasons for writing. Three years later, my memories are no less vivid, and I do not anticipate them to fade. However, I do enjoy reading over what I have written about that life changing weekend from time to time, to remind myself of what I was feeling at that moment, and the months and years that followed.
Given that I write about personal experiences, other than for academic purposes, research is not always needed in my writing. But when I do need research, it is to gain greater knowledge of the subject and to better present my case. Even in the case of the Haiti earthquake, I researched facts about the disaster to add context and significance to how I was feeling at the time.
Why do I write? This is not a question I’ve always been able to ask myself. I struggled with writing for a long time. I hated writing until about my junior year of high school. I was diagnosed with dyslexia in middle school, and I know that it played a major part in my writing back then. It wasn’t until high school (after working on my writing ability extensively) that I felt confortable with my writing ability. The problem for me was motivation. Writing still felt like a chore in my previous English/writing classes, and I felt like I didn’t have an answer for the question, “Why SHOULD I write?” It wasn’t until my junior composition class that I really felt like I understood myself as a writer. I accredit this to two factors of the class: my favorite writing teacher taught the class, and the class was much more open-ended. The class gave me the opportunity to write freely, and it was through this class that I found my love of writing. I know that if it wasn’t for that class, I would not be anywhere near where I am in my writing confidence.
ReplyDeleteWhy should I research? ... To tell you the truth, I don’t have an answer. That’s not to say I don’t know how to research, or that I haven’t done research before. The problem is that I haven’t had a moment I could point to and say, “There. That’s why I research.” Maybe this class will give me that “eureka” moment. For now, I still don’t look at research as something that is or will be important to me personally.
I know this didn’t exactly follow the same sort of structure as Auster used, but to be honest, I don’t get it. To me, the events he told didn’t really tell me anything about his writing. If anything, it told me about him personally. I believe that events in somebody’s life affects the person, and that the person affects their writing (see: rhetor), but I do not see any direct connection between events and writing. While I believe that these events had a large impact on his life, I do not see any correlation between the events and his writing.
Unlike some of these posts, I do not have any excerpts from a story I have written in the past. I also have not enjoyed writing since I began at a young age. I still consider myself a writer, but my least favorite writing is for other’s enjoyment. When I write I usually am writing for myself. I write down my thoughts and experiences in a journal of sorts throughout high school but that has ceased after coming to college out here. I use writing to organize my thoughts because in my head ideas become mixed up and I usually miss out on what I am trying to get across to the audience. I write because it takes me out of the struggles of life. Everybody goes through struggles, and I’m not going to get into the irrelevant details of the situation, but every day for a year I would write a short note. It helped me to overcome the grief in my life. I really connected to a mix of the third and fifth stories in Paul Auster’s “Why I Write”. I have learned through loss that keeping a pen on you at all times can help going forward. The reason why I write is to help myself (and others) overcome the struggles of everyday life.
ReplyDeleteIn research I get my thoughts and ideas from many different sources. Usually I end up starting with a simple Google search but I have learned in this class, Google isn’t the best source to gather information from and certainly shouldn’t be the only way I find my sources. Research is working off of others as well as discovering information for yourself. It is important to collaborate and share ideas like in the article we just read about, Johnson’s “Where Good Ideas Come From”. As the Rhetor in this situation, I can decide what I think is important (salient) and what I think deserves a place in my paper to strengthen it. I have only written one of two actual research papers throughout my academic career but I believe being able to conduct research strengthens your overall writing ability.
I will begin with an excerpt from one of my papers from WRIT 1122.
ReplyDelete“Warm rays charm the meadow with their majesty, depleting the empty gloom of the night. Water droplets glimmer on the edges of leaves, illuminating the plants strong enough to survive the tempest. The air becomes thick, wrapping me in a blanket of humidity, as the sun rises further into the sky. A nearby estuary shimmers in the bursts of sun, offering refreshment to any creature. I delicately rest my back upon the grass, consumed with the scent of the morning dew wafting through the air. Burrowing my feet into the crisp green strands, I delight in the splendor it provides. A hummingbird interjects the silence and sings an accustomed tune while other birds contribute to the melody. Their voices ring with a soft but full harmony, soothing my mind and body into a state of peacefulness.”
This excerpt comes from a paper that related to my life in Chicago. I explain the passing of a storm and the effect it has on me. By writing in relation to ourselves we are better able to form a connection with audience. We establish our pathos in that we can elicit certain emotions from those who read our paper by relaying experiences that several people can relate to. The environment has always been something I strive to protect. Therefore, I can easily write about it in a descriptive and emotional manner. When I am surrounded by something I am passionate about, I believe it enhances my writing ability. Therefore, writing in relation to myself allows the reader to become enamored with the topic I am discussing as well. Also, my credibility is heightened because the reader will know that I am an expert on the topic if it pertains to my own life.
We need to know how to research so that we may expand our knowledge. In order to become knowledgeable about a certain topic it is important to know how to find credible sources and how to develop a question that can lead to several different conclusions. It is important not to go into research looking for a specific result. This will taint your research and decrease your reliability when relaying the information to others. It is important to research in order to become more adept at analyzing different perspectives. If you are able to discern a relationship between information that has been researched by scholars from different areas of study you will be able to relate to more people. In turn, the credibility and authority present in your writing will improve immensely as you will have garnered information from multiple areas on the academic spectrum rather than only one.
From the time I was very young, I loved to write stories. I remember at my elementary school we had this thing call “The Book Press”. Parents would volunteer at this “shop” in the library where you could write a story, bring your pages, pick a cover and color of binding tape, and create your very own book. I took full advantage of this and wrote many stories, which my parents have still held onto.
ReplyDeleteI think this was the first time I realized my love for expressing myself through writing. It just allows for someone to be able to get ideas out if something hits him or her, without having to find someone to tell. You can simply open Word and start flowing words onto the page and make something happen that is so essentially human, it’s one of the things I love about writing. This love was amplified junior year of high school due to an English teacher named Mr. Moos. He helped me to expand my thinking through analyses of books like The Great Gatsby and Huckleberry Finn.
Something I’m excited about in classes like this in college is they give me new knowledge on ways to write; a large part of this the research process. I’ve done research papers before however I feel like this class will push me farther in the process. It’s important to know how to research because without credible and important information, the paper would have no strength to its argument. The facts and research you base your writing on provide you with ethos, and that’s important component for any piece of academic writing.
A few weeks ago my buddy and I went longboarding around the suburbs of Denver. Usually we would deem such an adventure as “too difficult” and play video games instead, but we couldn’t waste the beautiful spring day without feeling guilty. We cruised around for half an hour or so before unexpectedly arriving at the top of a large hill. I couldn’t give an estimate as to the height of the hill, but the steep downgrade extended a little over a block. In retrospect, I should’ve immediately known that nothing I had done on a longboard up until that point had prepared me for a hill of such magnitude. Unfortunately, that thought never crossed my mind, so when my friend looked at me, shrugged, and began riding down it, I followed without hesitation. The moment I hit the slope I began picking up speed. To counteract the acceleration I started making sharp turns across the street. Everything went as planned for about a second or two, then I lost almost all control over the situation. I had picked up WAY too much speed. I couldn’t control my board enough to make the wide turns that slowed the acceleration. Before I knew it, I was going faster than I could sprint. This is a problem primarily because the easiest way to get off an out of control longboard is to jump off and run off the speed. However, once you exceed sprinting speed by a considerable amount, jumping off commonly results in a pavement face plant, which I hoped to avoid. I came to the realization that I had no way of stopping myself without hitting the pavement. I also realized that I was travelling at a speed of around 30 mph. A quick mental calculation told me that falling onto pavement at that speed would result in serious injury. Instinct took over, and in a split second I made the decision to turn off onto a side street that I was about to fly by. I leaned back on my board and turned as hard as I could in the direction of the fast approaching street. I don’t remember much of what happened next. I didn’t make the full 90 degree turn, so instead of riding down the flat side street, I flew straight towards the curb. Right before my board hit the curb, I jumped off it. Beyond the curb there was a small patch of grass, the sidewalk, and then a chain-link fence. I was still moving far faster than I could sprint, so putting my foot down in the grassy patch sent me flying towards the fence head first. Lowering my shoulder, I hit the fence at an angle and rebounded onto the sidewalk, landing on one knee. I knelt there for a few seconds, reflecting on the ridiculousness of the moment. I walked away with a broken toe, a bruised knee, and a small cut on my hand.
ReplyDeleteWhen I write it is usually school related. However, I also write to tell stories and communicate with people. It’s fun to recall various stories, and when writing them out I can include lots of details that I would forget if I were telling the story in person. Writing out stories like these also work to preserve the memory.
Researching has a very different purpose for me. Whenever I research it is for an academic purpose. However, that isn’t to say it is not important to me. Researching is a fantastic way to accumulate knowledge on a topic. In the case of the research paper, it is absolutely necessary. To me, It is important to know how to research because there is so much information available to us today. With so much information, it isn’t easy to sort out the good from the bad. Somebody could spend years sifting through all the articles on my topic if they didn’t know how to find the worth-while articles.