Week 6 Blog
For this week's posting, I want you to imagine that you are privileged to have a conversation with either Perl or Rose, the two authors we are reading for this week's work. What questions might you ask them and how would you interact with them? What aspects of their research lines up most closely to your own experiences? For example, you might note that your experiences line up closely with one of the subjects that Perl studied. You might also look at particular aspects of the arguments put forth in one of these texts to see how these claims have held up after thirty years has passed. The important thing to consider is this: your posting should demonstrate critical engagement with at least one of the texts. It is not sufficient to simply rehash the arguments presented, but you should focus on analyzing specific parts of an argument or specific methods of the study to reveal something interesting. Can you connect portions of the reading to your own experiences?
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Me: I want to thank you for the research you did while writing Rigid Rules, Inflexible Plans and the Stifling of Language: A Cognitivist Analysis of Writer’s Block. It helped me to understand why writing comes so easily to some people and can be so difficult for others. Although this was a research paper, it didn’t read like one, take for instance The Composing Processes of Unskilled College Writers, by Sondra Perl. Her research read like a repair manual, dry, full of data, robotic and bored me to tears. By using only the first names of your subjects, helped me feel I could relate to them, really learn something new and useful from their experiences you discussed in your paper. It felt personal; I enjoyed that aspect.
ReplyDeleteMike Rose: Wonderful! If my research helps at least one person, it is well worth the time! Which personal experience was closest to your own personal experience of the writing process?
Me: Funny, I never really thought about my own process until I read your paper. Most of the time, writing comes pretty naturally, although I found I could relate to Ruth, in that she is very preoccupied with the opening statements of her essays. Can you believe I re-read the beginning of my text at least three times? I’m not sure if it’s a superstitious thing or just habit. If there is one thing I remembered from English class and essay writing it was always to “hook” your audience! On the downside, however, I sometimes spend way too much time analyzing the beginning of my essay and taking time away from the rest.
Mike Rose: Did pointing out the “blockers” help you to change your approach to essay writing?
Me: I believe so, at least now I can rest assured that good writing does not necessarily mean I am an “A” student in grammar and grammatical rules of usage. I’ve always been weak in that area and count on feedback to help me. Considering myself average when it comes to grammar and sentence structure has very much held me back from being a more “free” writer. I want to improve my writing, but at the same time, I want to feel like I don’t have to follow every rule of grammar to get my point across.
In the closing statements that you entitled A Note On Treatment, you define ways that teachers and tutors can help students experiencing writer’s block. Don’t you believe all instructors should read this or some kind of data relating to this subject? It’s obvious from the amount of people that have trouble writing that this is a huge issue! How many people can attribute their negative feelings about reading and writing to experiences they had while in school?
Mike Rose: Hmmm...interesting, and possibly the subject of my next paper.......
Me: I found your research to be quite interesting Ms. Perl. I would definitely consider myself to be an unskilled college writer therefore I could relate to this paper and the students analyzed. What made you want to study this though? Were you an unskilled college writer, or have you always been skilled in writing?
ReplyDeletePerl: I’m glad you found interest in my research. I wanted to do this study because I think teachers should realize that all students are not skilled writers and they should not be punished or belittled for it. I found that many students would read their papers differently than what was actually there. The mind would fix things to make sentences sound correct when read aloud, but the sentence had some type of error. Ergo, many errors went unnoticed.
Me: I found that interesting how the brain changed what was on the paper to make it sound better. I have noticed that happening for myself when I write papers though. A lot of the students studied reread and revamped their work while writing it; I only do that to a certain extent. I mostly correct myself once I’m done with a whole paragraph or the whole paper. Reading my work aloud does really help me to correct my errors though. I would say that I have a reflexive mode because my sentences are often written in groups with fewer rereading, etc. I found it interesting how Tony sounded like such a good writer to me, but was categorized as an unskilled writer.
Perl: There is nothing wrong with reflexive mode, I’m glad you can identify with yourself. Tony did correct himself a lot but he still had many errors that he omitted. “Tony is a writer with a highly consistent and deeply embedded recursive process”. Not everyone can interpret his process which is why he would be classified as a unskilled writer, even though he really is not.
Me: I found Tony to be very interesting because I think he is an example of so many students today. There is not one way to write, so how can we expect to grade, analyze, chastise, and judge peoples writing. I think teachers need to learn how to be more flexible with grading writing instead of discouraging unique ways of writing. I’m not sure if that was one thing you wanted your readers to get from this essay but it gave me information and I was able to understand and connect to it for the most part.
Perl: That is good and yes, that was one of my ideas but there were definitely more. Hope you enjoyed the read/research.
Me: Hey Mr. Rose, Thank you so much for talking with me. I just finished reading your article “Rigid Rules, Inflexible Plans, and the Stifling of Language: A Cognitivist Analysis of Writer’s Block.” I found your article very relatable. I would count myself as a blocker.
ReplyDeleteMike Rose: Yeah many people would count themselves as a blocker because many people concentrate too much on rules then writing.
Me: All my teachers throughout school always would add rules to writing. This made writing very difficult because you want to make sure you follow the rules but by following the rules you loose what you want to say. Just like your students you studied that had writers block would always get stuck on the first paragraph because they were told to make it an attention getter. Well that happens with me to. When I write I probably spend the most time on the first paragraph then I do any other paragraph because I want it to be perfect. By doing this though I loose my train of thought and I become frustrated. Do you have any advice on how to stop this from happening?
Mike Rose: The only advice I have for you is not to follow those rules so closely. If I was you I would not think about the rules and I would just write what you are thinking. You can always go back and fix your mistakes and make your introduction sound better. You never know once you start writing your body paragraphs your introduction might just come to you. Doing this will save you so much time and help you become less frustrated.
Me: That makes a lot of sense. That helps me so much. Thank you for that advice, I am going to try this on my next essay and hopefully it works and I become a non-blocker.
Mike Rose: I am glad I could help you with your problem.
Me: Hi Ms. Perl, I read your research and it was quite interesting for that I am one of those unskilled college writers. I could relate to almost anything you mentioned in your research. I have a few questions to ask you if you don't mind.
ReplyDeletePerl: No not at all, I would be delighted to answer your questions and thank you for reading my research.
Me: Where you an unskilled writer as well or did you just happen to begin researching it? If you so happen to just begin researching it, what made you compose your research?
Perl: I began my research so I would let teachers know that not every student of theirs is not a skilled writer, no one is perfect. They don't deserve a bad grade in any other way. It’s not their fault that they have never mastered the college level of writing.
Many students have difficulty reading a story, it's either really hard to understand or they lack vocabulary. They can't learn how to write if they don't know what they are reading, they have to take in the way stories are written, many stories I knew were difficult to comprehend.
Me: That is very interesting to know, thank you for answering my questions. And if I may add, I was really interested when you talked about how the brain can process differently when upon reading stories. The way the papers were written for students to better understand what they read. Again I also had difficulty reading, the way it was structured was too much for me, it took me awhile to process what I read and it was a bit irritating at one point. Most of the time I would re-read a section I did not understand. I would look up the words I do not know. I would also underline the important parts of the story to see if I can figure out what the moral of the story is.
Perl: I am glad that my research has helped you to better understand yourself. You have found better ways to become a better college writer by the way you read and write now.
Me: I also notice tony was being a good example for the rest of the students. Teachers should be able to realize that we students can write the way teachers do; they are not giving us what we want to learn about writing. Teachers need to be working on our improvement more than them just grading what we wrote.
Chet Rosenfeld
ReplyDeleteMe: Mr. Rose, I very much enjoyed the topic of your research. I suffer from what you describe as “writer’s block.” I had a teacher similar to the one that Ruth describes. My teacher said “never judge a book by its cover, judge it by its first sentence.” This has always echoed in my mind. I find myself opening books at the library or bookstores and reading the first sentence. If it catches my attention then I continue reading. If it is dull I will most certainly put it down and never give it another thought. So when it comes to writing I am the same way. I want to say something that will draw the reader into whatever it is I am writing.
Mr. Rose: That is very interesting. Do you find that you spend a lot of time writing the opening paragraph? Does the rest of your writing suffer? How long might you struggle?
Me: It depends. I hope that the entire piece is as entertaining or at least relevant to the opening sentiment, but you would be a better judge of that than me. How might I correct this intellectual “choking” if you will? How do I become more flexible in my creative process?
Mr. Rose: Practice. The only way to get past your writer’s block is to write. You should try writing without over-thinking. Try this exercise, write whatever you think of, don’t read it yet, just write. It will be foreign of course, because you are used to thinking before you write. But you always have the privilege of editing and rewriting. Can I ask you a question – do you let people proofread your work?
Me: Never! I am a perfectionist and I want my first draft to be my final draft.
Mr. Rose: I had a feeling. Almost all of the writers that I studied that had writer’s block share your views. They didn’t want to be criticized. But I have found that better writing comes from honest feedback. If you don’t have at least one other set of eyes reading your work, you will never learn the perspective of the audience. You are reading what you intend, in other words, it is already in your head what you are trying to say so when you are reading your paper you understand yourself. A reader, however, may not be ascertaining the meaning you intend. That is why it is beneficial to ask someone you trust to read the paper. Ask them questions about what they read. Ask them what they see as the main point of your writing. See if it matches what you were trying to convey.
Me: This is very helpful advice. I must admit it is going to be a challenge for me to allow someone to see my work mid-process, but I understand what you are saying. I accept your challenge of just writing. I still want the first sentence to be an attention-grabber, but there is always time to edit. Thank you for your time.
Mr. Rose: You’re welcome. I look forward to hearing about your progress. Shall we meet next month to discuss?
Me: Yes! Thank you again.
Me: Mrs perl, I found myself relating to your article “The Composing Styles of the Unskilled College Writer,” the more I read the more I thought, “yes, this is me and this is also a majority of my fellow college students.” Do you think that your article relates to the majority of college students today? Especially since your article was published in the late 1970’s?
ReplyDeletePerl: I think regardless of the times, the definition of an unskilled writer and a skilled writer remain the same. Certain students have this almost innate ability to set up an essay with structure and clear thought. However, I do not believe that those type of students make the majority. I do believe that most students today feel as though they lack a certain structure when it comes to formulating their thought into written words.
Me: I agree: as long as there’s writing assignments, there’s going to be students who are deemed unskilled. Do you think there’s one specific factor in determining whether or not a writer is skilled?
Perl: There’s so many diverse forms of writing which creates a wide variety of writers. Just because a student lacks in say, grammar, does not mean the student does not have intelligent ideas. I don’t think one specific trait can deem a writer unskilled- I think it’s a consistent mix.
Me: Do you think you would be able to conduct your experiment today? Do you think the results would still be the same?
Perl: I think regardless of times, the adversity college writers experience will remain the same. Students will continue to fall into patterns much like Zach did. It’s common for student’s to maintain a certain format but its important that if they want to improve their writing, they have to relearn it.
Me:Thank you for your time
Me: Thanks for giving me a chance to talk with you Ms. Perl; I really enjoyed reading your research of “The Composing Processes of Unskilled College Writers”. I too consider myself to be an unskilled writer and struggle with my classes whenever I am required to write an essay on a piece of literature. Your methodology was limited to only 5 students though; if you don’t mind me asking why you didn’t choose to amplify your resources to have a better understanding of writing processes?
ReplyDeletePerl: Not a problem! Thank you for your interest. Writing is my passion and I was curious as to the ways people write and their strategies. I wanted to put together a group of people, not to many, so that I could manage better and get a closer look at peoples’ writing individually. Why do you consider yourself an unskilled writer? I would love to know.
Me: Well actually I used to be really good at it, growing up most of my teachers always complimented on my writing strategies. I like to brainstorm and write all my ideas out on paper. But when it comes to putting it altogether into paragraphs and sentences I get all mixed up. I also get anxiety because I overthink what I am writing about.
Perl: This is so very common. A lot of writers have the right idea, just struggle with getting their point across. Practice makes perfect! I also find it helpful when I am in a calm environment with no disturbances. I hope to help you a little with my method in the writing process, Planning, Writing, Reading, Editing, and Talking. Believe it or not, reading aloud will help you out a great deal.
Me: Thanks! I will try to put your process to use. I did have one more statement, I feel as though when it comes to writing teachers need to individualize students to help them more. Every student is different and even though they are in the same grade level, they might not be at the same writing level.
Perl: I couldn’t agree with you more. Although it gets tough when you have a classroom full of students and you are the only teacher. But like I said in the excerpt, “…teachers may first need to identify which characteristics components of each student’s process facilitate writing and which inhibit it before further teaching takes place”. Again, thank you for your interest and I hope you can learn from it to make your writing even better !
Andre Grace
ReplyDeleteAndre: Hello Mr. Rose. I am so happy to talk with you
Mr. Rose: Why thank you Andre. I am too
Andre: Mr. Rose I have soo much to say can I email you my comments and questions about your research on Rigid Rules.
Mr. Rose: Ofcourse would love it
Andre : Thanks its kind of lengthy and too much for this format,but I was really inspired by your work. Thanks. Look for my email.
Mr. Rose: I sure will look forward to it Andre.
Ps: Emailed it to you Mr. Longhany
Me: Hi Mr. Rose my name is Lashay Waiters, it is a real honor to meet you the work did in Rigid Rules, Inflexible Plans, and the Stifling of Language: A cognitivist Analysis of Writer’s Block was truly amazing. The way you broke down they ways blockers were holding their selves back was so descriptive also the way you talked about how the non-blockers are able to write fluidly is very good.
ReplyDeleteMike Rose: Thank you Lashay and the honor is all mine, but could you tell me if you’re a blocker or non-blocker if you don’t mind?
Me: I’m a blocker!
Mike: Well did I help?
Me: Of course! You showed me problem that I didn’t even know. After reading your work I really became a better writer because you not only pointed out all of the things that I was doing wrong but you also showed me what other were doing right and that was a big help for me. I’m much more relaxed when I write and not as focused on the beginning of the paper. I’m now evenly focused on making the whole paper evenly entertaining and worth reading and for that I thank you Mr. Rose.
Mike Rose: Well I’m glad I could help you with your paper’s, it brings me real joy to know my work is helping young minds.
Me: Yes it most definitely helped this young mind and I can’t wait to read more of your work but if you’ll please excuse me I have a paper due.
Mike: Well thank you for showing your appreciation and hope we run into each other again.
Me: As well me too.
Andre
ReplyDeleteAndre Grace
Andre: Hello Mr. Rose very glad to meet you. I read your article "Rigid Rules, Inflexible Plans, and the Stifling of Language." Let me tell you I was truly inspired, and informed by your research.
Mr. Rose: Well great to hear that Andre tell my what really stuck out and was the most influential part to you?
Andre: I loved the research on the 10 college students. One because you only used 10 not thousands so it felt more personal or realistic. Another thing was the statement you made about it not being the skill of the student but their thinking process. I believe that is very encouraging for those who have trouble writing in or out of class. I also believe many teachers would be better if they themselves unsterstood that.
Mr. Rose: Well I believe that to and have definately seem the negatives of teachers who don't understand and compensate for this in their classrooms.
Andre; the breakdown of Algorithmsic vs Heuristic Rules for me was the summary of the difference in thought that seperates the two groups of students. But I so believe that it is much deeper then just writing that is affected by these different thought processes. I will give you an example. You know your examples given of Ruth, Laurel, and Martha?
Mr. Rose: Yes
Andre: Well check this out. I believe my wife and alot of her family are Ruths.
Mr. Rose : What do you mean by that?
Andre: Well I have noticed whenever I am brainstorming, or worrying about something and she asks me what it is about I noticed the difference in the way we process. For instance, she as soon as I tell her one of the things on my mind before I even finish she is already trying to analyze and finish that problem or thought. Or if I am brainstorming the first idea that comes up she stops and tries to break it all the way down before moving on to next idea. My process is different. I throw out alot of ideas or solutions then narrow them down but she can't. Before moving to next she has to finish the one. Her process limits her from throwing alot of ideas or solutions out there. While my more liberal limitations allows me to have alot of ideas to choose from for any given situation and limit to find the right solution.
Mr. Rose: Hmmmmm
Andre: Yes this is very frustrating sometimes for me and her. I feel as though everything she hears she has to fix it and many times I am fishing for ideas not for her to fix the problem. Now I realize it is simply that her process is like Ruth's. Don't get me wrong when you are only dealing with one situation or problem it is very useful and my process is less let me say concentrated. I use to look at it as a anal way of thinking for lack of a better way. I believe that the algorism rule way of thinking limits creativity but is useful for specific tasks.
Mr.Rose: This is great Andre. I love the practicality of your using my research to analyze your situation.
Andre : Yes, just please don't tell my wife lol. I feel with my ow n process. I have multiple character's traits.
Mr. Rose : Well expound on that for me Andre
cont
Andre: Ok well I like Martha put down alot of ideas like I said before. I don't have a problem with that but there is often so many and random that I have a hard time structuring them at the end. I also relate to Ellen in that I have an idea on how project should start but not the structure all the time. I am definately more on the non blocker side where as like you said when all is in doubt write. I do have 2 questions for you though.
ReplyDeleteMr. Rose: Shoot!!
Andre: Well in the case of my marriage. Do you think two people with two totally different thought processes can get along? And if so How should a Ellen for instance relate to a Ruth in a regular not academic situation?
Mr.Rose : Great question Andre. I believe they definately can and I will tell you how. You compliment each other wants you both have analyzed your different rule processes. And that is the whole purpose of my research to show the different processes so that once analyzed we can adapt to each other.
Andre: Well Mr. Rose what a pleasure. I feel like I just went to a marriage counceling session. How much do I owe you?
Mr. Rose : Laughing, Nothing Andre just tell the wife I said hi. Nice talking with you.
Me: Nice to meet you Mr. Rose, I really enjoyed your article Rigid Rules, Inflexible Plans, and the Stifling Language. If my teacher never made me read it for a grade I probably would still be suck on a more algorithmic style of writing compared to a more free flowing heuristic form. Your work has also helped me analyze my own strategy in writing and applying the best plan to help me progress. Have you ever experienced writers block and if so how frequent?
ReplyDeleteRose: Oh well thank you, I'm quit flattered! I Spent a lot of time on researching why a lot of people tend to experience writers block and what tactics they use to conquer their dilemmas. My biggest problem was following all the guidelines and rules that were thrown at me as I was growing up. I also felt the pressure of writing that perfect first paragraph that all the teachers emphasize so much on.
Me: Yea that's similar to the majority of why I develop writers block. I just feel like the teachers emphasis on the perfect first paragraph is a little extreme in most cases. Especially when they tell you that you have to write that way to pass the FCAT and to catch the graders attention who is reading hundreds of essays in a day. How did you get past your struggle back then?
Rose: Well often I would analyze all my points and follow the TOTE plan. After testing the points I would determine then if the comparison between the solution and goal indicates that the solution is a sensible one. Then if everything meshes you exit the problem solving phase and work at the bulk of the essay and come back to the first paragraph at the end after you have a better understanding of what your leading the people into.
Me: That seems like a good plan. I'll definitely have to look into that TOTE plan more and apply it to my next essay. Thanks again for the advice hopefully we will talk again soon.
Rose: Glad I could be of help and we can talk anytime you feel like pretending you have two personalities. And remember its not schizophrenia if its for English class.
Jake Menges