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Beliefs About Writing and Writing Development
our deeper sense of wonder and curiosity or even confusion and doubt, our desire
to touch other people, our urge to solve problems. The spirit of inquiry is a kind of
perspective toward the world that invites questions, accepts uncertainty, and makes
each of us feel some responsibility for what we say. This inquiring spirit should be
familiar to you. It's the feeling you had when you discovered that the sun and a
simple magnifying glass could be used to burn a hole in an oak leaf. It's wondering
what a teacher meant when he said that World War II was a “good” war and Vietnam
was a "bad" war. It's the questions that haunted you yesterday as you listened to a
good friend describe her struggles with anorexia. The inquiring spirit even drives your
quest to find a smartphone, an effort that inspires you to read about the technology
and visit the Consumer Reports website at consumerreports.org. Inquiry was Tina's
motive when she decided to turn her academic essay on adultery away
from a
shrill
argument based on what she already believed into a more thoughtful exploration of
why people cheat.
Beliefs About Writing and Writing Development
Most of us have been taught about writing since the first grade. We usually 1.1
enter college with beliefs not only about what makes a good paper and what Reflect on
"rules” of writing to follow, but also about how we can develop as writers. and revise your
As I mentioned earlier, I've learned a lot about writing since my first years in beliefs about
college, and a big part of that learning involved unraveling some of my prior yourself as a
beliefs about writing. In fact, I'd say that my development as a writer initially writer.
had more to do with unlearning some of what I already knew than it did with
discovering new ways to write. But you have to make your beliefs explicit if
you're going to make decisions about which are helpful and which aren't. So
take a moment to find out what your beliefs are and to think about whether
they actually make sense.
Exercise 1.1
This I Believe (and This I Don't)
STEP ONE: From the following list, identify the one belief about writing that you
agree with most strongly and the one that you're convinced isn't true.
1. Writing proficiency begins with learning the basics and then building on
them, working from words to sentences to paragraphs to compositions.
2. The best way to develop as a writer is to imitate the writing of the people
you want to write like.
3. People are born writers like people are born good at math. Either you can
do it or you can't.
CHAPTER 1 Writing as Inquiry
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4. The best way to develop as a writer is to develop good reading skills
Practice is the key to a writer's development. The more a writer writes, the
5.
more he or she will improve.
6. Developing writers need to learn the modes of writing (argument, exposi-
tion, description, narration) and the genres (essays, research papers, posi-
tion papers, and so on).
7. Developing writers should start with simple writing tasks, such as tell-
ing stories, and move to harder writing tasks, such as writing a research
paper.
The most important thing that influences a writer's growth is believing that
he or she can improve.
9. The key to becoming a better writer is finding your voice.
STEP TWO: Look over the following journal prompts (for more on journals, see the
“Inquiring into the Details: Journals” box). Then spend five minutes writing in
your journal about why you agree with the one belief and disagree with the other.
This is an open-ended “fastwrite." You should write fast and without stopping,
letting your thoughts flow in whatever direction they go. In your fastwrite, you
can respond to any or all of the prompts to whatever extent you want.
8.
Rules for Fastwriting
1. There are no rules.
2. Don't try to write badly, but give yourself permission to do so.
3. To the extent you can, think through writing rather than before it.
4. Keep your pen moving.
5. If you run out of things to say, write about how weird it is to run out of
things to say until new thoughts arrive.
6. Silence your internal critic to suspend judgment.
7. Don't censor yourself.
Journal Prompts
What do you mean, exactly, when you say you agree or disagree with
the belief? Can you explain more fully why you think the belief is true or
false?
When did you start agreeing or disagreeing with the belief? Can you remem-
ber a particular moment or experience as a student learning to write that
this agreement or disagreement connects to?
Who was most influential in convincing you of the truth or falsity of
the belief?
Beliefs About Writing and Writing Development
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One Student's Response
Bernice's Journal
EXERCISE 1.1
STEP TWO
I used to be a firm believer in the idea of born writers—it was a genetic thing. People
were gifted with the gold pen genes, or they weren't. Writing as a process involved a
muse, inspiration, and luck. Things uncontrollable by the writer. Then I started writing,
mostly for my 101 class, and I started to feel powerful when I put words on paper.
In control. The idea of my voice, my words, just being on the page and other people
reading it and maybe liking it was a rush. I was always the girl who specialized in the
art of being unnoticed, unseen, blending in. My Comp 101 prof. liked my writing and
pushed me really hard to work on my basics, to think about my process, to prewrite
and revise. I started to see a clear distinction between how to write and what to
write. How is all mixed up with the process, with discipline, with practice and perse-
verance.... The how isn't something you are born with; it's something you develop,
something you practice, a skill you hone.... Becoming a good writer takes learning
how to write, figuring out a process that works for you, and then letting your voice be
heard on the page.
Inquiring into the Details
Journals
Here are five things that make a journal especially
useful for writers:
Feel comfortable writing badly. Whether print or digital, the journal must be a
place where you're able to largely ignore your internal critic.
Use it throughout the writing process. Journals can be indispensable for inven-
tion whenever you need more information, not just at the beginning. They can
also be a place where you talk to yourself about how to solve a writing problem.
Write both specifically and abstractly. Sometimes you'll be trying to be as con-
crete as possible, generating details, collecting facts, exploring particular experi-
ences. Other times, use the journal to think in more-abstract language, thinking
through ideas, reflecting on process, analyzing claims.
Don't make any rules about your journal. These rules usually begin with a thought
like "I'll only write in my journal when...." Write in your journal whenever you find
it useful, and in any way that you find useful, especially if it keeps you writing.
Experiment. Your journal will be different from my journal, which will be different
from the journal of the woman sitting next to you in class. The only way to make
a journal genuinely useful is to keep trying ways to make it useful.
CHAPTER 1 Writing as Inquiry
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benefits of writing badly is surprise. This was a revelation for me. I was convinced
that you never pick up the pen unless you know what you want to say. Once
realized I could write badly and use writing not to record what I already knew, but
to discover what I thought, this way of writing promised a feast of surprises that
made me hunger to put words on the page. If you're skeptical that your own writ-
ing can surprise you, try the following exercise.
t
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Conditions That Make "Bad" Writing Possible
1. Willingness to suspend judgment
2. Ability to write fast enough to outrun your internal critic
3. Belief that confusion, uncertainty, and ambiguity help thought rather than
hinder it
4. Interest in writing about "risky" subjects, or those about which you don't
know what you want to say until you say it
Exercise 1.2
A Roomful of Details
STEP ONE: Spend ten minutes brainstorming a list of details based on the following
prompt. Write down whatever comes into your mind, no matter how silly. Be spe-
cific and don't censor yourself.
Try to remember a room you spent a lot of time in as a child. It may be your
bedroom in the back of your house or apartment, or the kitchen where your
grandmother made thick, red pasta sauce or latkes. Put yourself back in that
room. Now look around you. What do you see? What do you hear? What do
you smell?
Brainstorming
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Anything goes.
Don't censor yourself.
Write everything down.
Be playful but stay focused.
.
STEP TWO: Examine your list. If things went well, you will have a fairly long list
of details. As you review the list, identify the one detail that surprises you the
most, a detail that seems somehow to carry an unexpected charge. This might be
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Habits of Mind
detail that confuses you a little. Whatever its particular appeal, circle it.
something that seems connected to a feeling or a story. You might be drawn to a
STEP THREE: Use the circled detail as a prompt for a seven-minute fastwrite. Begin
by focusing on the detail: What does it make you think of? And then what? And
then? Alternatively, begin by simply describing the detail more fully: What does
it look like? Where did it come from? What stories are attached to it? How does
it make
you
particular times, places, moments, and people. Write fast, and chase
after the words to see where they want to go. Give yourself permission to
write badly
You may experience at least three kinds of surprise after completing a fast-
writing exercise such as the one above:
1. Surprise about how much writing you did in such a short time
2. Surprise about discovering a topic you didn't expect to find
3. Surprise about discovering a new way of understanding or seeing a
familiar topic
One Student's Response
**
Bernice's Journal
EXERCISE 1.2
STEP THREE
DETAIL: STAINLESS STEEL COUNTERS
When I was five or six my father and I made cookies for the first time. I don't
remember what prompted him to bake cookies, he liked to cook but he didn't
read very well so he didn't like to use cook books. I remember sitting on the
cold stainless steel, the big red and white cook book splayed over my lap. I was
reading it out loud to my dad. The kitchen was warm but everything gleamed; it
was industrial and functional. It was the only room in our house that still looked
like it belonged to the "Old Pioneer School." My dad and uncles had renovated
every other room into bedrooms, playrooms, family rooms. The place was huge
but cozy, it was home. I remember reading off ingredients until I got to the sugar.
It called for 3/4 cup and I didn't understand the fraction. I thought it meant three
or four cups. We poured so much sugar into the bowl. The cookies were terrible.
Hard and glassy, too sweet and brittle. It wasn't until years later that I under
stood that my dad didn't understand the measurement either. He was persistent
though. We pulled down every cook book in the house until we found one that
described the measuring cups and what they meant. We started all over and our