For the most part, this project is done. The story was really the biggest hurdle and, while I was stressed for days trying to create a completely new piece from the original Alice in Wonderland, I decided to use some of the original’s quotes and lessons to highlight the message of my remix.

I did feel like I struggled to connect a mental illness to the story, but I tried not to let that stress me too much since, at that point, I had a story forming in my head. I was really motivated to connect voice to the story since I feel like that was my biggest takeaway from the class and it’s an issue that can tie into not only writing but the self as well. Plus, Alice seems to struggle with fighting societal norms in the original anyway.

The collage was pretty simple too, I wish I would’ve had time to make a real one, but we can’t have it all!

It’s interesting that they discuss the idea that college is knowledge. While, of course, it is, it isn’t the only form of knowledge. This is the issue Hollinger wrestles with in the beginning. Everyone sees it all the time in high school, including myself, and the statement “You’re going to need this for college,” can definitely leave a student feel powerless. It re enforces the hierarchical structure of the teacher-student relationship because it leaves the students feeling like they don’t know any better and the teacher does, since they seem to have experience on their side. It goes back to pulling students away from trusting their own instincts.

Later in the reading, we start hearing about the much-needed separation between literature and good writing. On page 345, Wright states, ” These classes teach students how to make writing choices appropriate for specific audiences and situations; in other words, they teach students how to consider who might read their texts and what this audience’s relationship might
be both to the writer and the writer’s purpose,” and I think it’s a great summarization of the great difference between literature and writing classes.

Literature classes limit students to focus and analyze the text in itself, which typically leads the writer to think of one reader, the professor. While writing classes, allows students to mold and build their words into a structure that is accessible to anyone who’d be interested in its content. I used to struggle with this difference a lot because I used to think good writing meant exactly what it isn’t.

Wright kind of brings back the idea that teachers are just as limited as students sometimes, which is another reason to bring down the idea that teachers know all and students do not. If we all acknowledged that we are all in the same playing field, we may discover new methods of approaching these issues.

This essay connected to Formulaic Writing in that Baker-Bell explains how the “right” way of doing things, or the socially acceptable way, steals a student’s identity. Baker-Bell approaches the same idea in relation to language.

With the focus on language, this idea becomes way more personal somehow. I think it’s because spoken language is so much easier to express. It’s our default way of expressing our thoughts, so when someone tells us we aren’t speaking right, it’s like they’re telling us to fix our thoughts. But, as Baker-Bell points out, the thought is there. It’s the delivery that bothers some people because it isn’t mainstream White English.

I have some connection to the stories Baker-Bell tells in her essay. I am the child of immigrant parents, so the amount of times I had to be the one on the phone because they couldn’t speak “proper” English is beyond me. The thing is, they were speaking proper English. The most they’d “mess up” are past tense words, or roll a few Rs. As I grew older, it broke my heart to see them so anxious to talk to people in “proper English”. If they could, they’d avoid those conversations as much as possible. It also frustrated me because I know how badly they’d want to express a thought and didn’t have the right words to sometimes. Of course, this is a bit different than Black Language since it involves an entirely new language. I know this isn’t exactly what Baker-Bell was getting at with Black language, but it definitely relates to how we are forced to narrow our identities to fit what is socially acceptable and how that might affect our confidence in expressing our thoughts. The same goes for formulaic writing, as I’ve said.

On page 8, Baker-Bell says, “Anti-Black linguistic racism is embedded in this approach as Black Language gets interpreted as a defect of the child rather than a defect of the educational system’s response to it,” which resonates with the frustrations I’ve stated above.

Formulas are easy. In a way, the social norms engraved in our minds are formulas. If we follow them, we are rewarded. If we don’t, we may not be. This is what Wiley seems to be generally getting at in his essay.

At first thought, it was interesting to me that “Schaffer’s Formula” used the same writing formula for essays about literature and personal experience. RIght away, this made me go “….wait,” because personal experience essays are personal, they should be individualistic and it’s crazy that students are deprived of the freedom of expression because they are told the formula will get you higher grades. Personal experience essays are the perfect opportunity to allow students to run wild with their thoughts and explore their writing identities. It frustrates me to no end that this is taken from them because it’s “easier”.

I also think that because students are wired to follow these formats, the content they read is never digested correctly. Their job is to write the paper and they’re on a time crunch. Meaning, they are trying to read as little as possible to gain time to correctly follow that formula. This defeats the entire purpose of teaching these subjects.

I can definitely recall old classics I first read in high school that struck a chord in me. I had so many thoughts about the book, its writing, the ending, the characters, etcetera but I was confined to the prompt. I had to answer the question asked, and only that question, because if I didn’t I would be “unorganized” or “unfocused”. The truth is I could have included all of my thoughts about the book in an organized fashion if I knew how to on my own, but it was never taught.

For this reason, I lost my love for reading, as almost every student does. Even if I tried to reignite that fire, I would read a book and the content would fly right over my head after a few months. I wish I had other means of approaching my absorption of literature early on, so I possibly would have never lost that fire.

(My posts have been drafted this whole time. My apologies!!!)

First, I needed to word vomit about my mess of ideas for our final group project. When we first started brainstorming, I was excited about the possibility of an installation of some sort but, as time went on, I realized this is probably less likely with the time we have. (I will keep it in mind for future projects anyway…) Then, I was excited to include something audio related since that is a bit of a quick, but still interesting and different, approach to the project. My first audio idea had to do with an audio file of each of us personally “defining” whatever subject we found most intriguing in the semester and compiling those together with some visual aspect.

Once we met in our breakout rooms, we kind of stuck to a more writing heavy idea, which I was on board with because it had to do with the concept of remixing, something I’m really comfortable with and still intrigued by. If we do go ahead with the remixes of fairy tales, I think I’ll choose Alice in Wonderland, mostly because the story explores identity and that’s something that has been so important in all our of readings. I’d rather not just write a remix and call it a day though. I still want to include some other element (maybe audio, but now I’m thinking of colleges since the aesthetics of the story easily match that) to elevate the piece.

Moving onto the reading for this week, I’m not sure if I’m still too stuck of Freire, but a lot of what these writers explore does match with what he claimed in his essay. The quote, “Claims of universalism have given way to the demands of the particular, but the particulars have their own universalisms.” (72) was something that resonated with me. I think this has to do with erasing the individual experience by assuming that, if they are placed under the same umbrella, those experiences are the same. I guess it clicked because of Freire’s claim that the oppressors tend to view their surroundings as objects rather than real people and this kind of thinking is just as lazy. There is no real work or thought being put into it.

“Public voices, though, are required to listen to other public voices, and listening can cause uncomfortable changes.” (72) Instead of feeling and acknowledging the uncomfortable, it is pushed aside and deemed unimportant. However, in avoiding or ignoring it, there is no action towards understanding and no way of moving forward. We end up stuck in the mud.

Here’s my essay & presentation!

Excited to hear your thoughts later :^)

I started out with the article, which gave a refreshing outlook on remixing and its various modes. The first mode of “remix” that came to mind were collages. I recently started making some during quarantine using some of LIFE Magazine’s most famous photos and, when I started making them more frequently, it started bothering me that I was using other people’s work. Afterwards, I decided to pick up my own camera and use my own photos to make my own collages. Looking back, I wonder why it bothered me so much to use someone else’s work to make it my own? I think, possibly, because those photos were so famous and the stories that came with them were as well, it made me feel bad about tearing that apart. I also think I was craving to be ~original~ and stand out from other types of collages I’ve seen, but remixing made it feel less like that.

Now, I’m less concerned with these things because I will pick up any photo from anywhere and I guess I’ve just learned to be comfortable and more concerned with the story and approach I’d like to focus on.

It’s interesting that the Brannon article discussed a similar idea to remixing, but in a classroom setting. They claim that, in that sense, it’s a form of appropriation. Teachers are quick to take authority over a student’s work, without the student’s consent, due to the built-in hierarchical teacher-student relationship in the classroom.

While, yes, it typically is true and almost inevitable, I think it’s harder to deconstruct that issue than Brannon makes it out to be. They suggest asking the writer & the reader the same three questions to ignite discussion, which will lead to revision. I do agree that intention and revision should be the focal point in reviewing student’s works, but it’s never that linear.

We’ve discussed the setbacks and resolutions of these issues and it typically comes back to the teacher’s lack of time to commit to one-on-one conferences for every student, or the lack of genuine interest in peer editing. In a perfect world, yes, these are solutions that would alleviate the problem. But, as we’ve stated briefly before, it’s time consuming and can seem unrealistic. This is probably why it’s unapproachable and hard to convince teachers to entirely adopt these methods.

However, on a lighter note, here is my #IAmFrom piece from last week!

Funny how I described the first time I considered myself a writer by recalling the realization that I had a “voice”. It’s such a blanket term, and Elbow points that out right away. I always considered it to be a stylistic thing but, in reality, there are so many different factors that make up a writer’s voice it’s nearly impossible to put our finger on one.

Because we fail to do that, it makes the voice a individualistic concept and I guess that’s where the argument stems from. I think it also has to do with the term “voice” itself. I mean everyone’s literal voice is so unique and personal to themselves and it’s something we can’t replicate, as hard as we try. So when I said I considered myself a writer once I found my voice, it really meant that I felt like I was writing on my own terms in a way that I felt like I owned my words, the same way I own my voice.

When talking about voice in writing, however, Elbow’s argument essentially states the necessity of voice in writing depends on the outcome you want of the reader. So, he mostly discusses it in a teaching concept, which is why he seems to point more towards the reduction of voice at times. It makes sense. If you want to teach writing, you wouldn’t want the student to indulge in their voice because it usually makes it to personal & takes away from the main objective of the writing.

But, what about creative writing? How much voice is too much? My guess is this would be less restrictive, but there is inevitably a point where too much is too much. Maybe it depends on the genre, but I think even a memoir can be hurt by too much voice. Elbow mentions persona/implied author and how the two are easily mistaken for one another, but it’s “character in the text and character in the author” (183). So, in a creative writing context, I believe the meshing of the two is a clear indicator the writer may have gone too far with the voice in their writing.

Also, Elbow uses the example of instructing his students to read Shakespeare aloud until they feel the meaning. This is where voice is helpful because sounds are more familiar than ye old English and less daunting. It can even be fun because of how ridiculous it sounds to us now. When a student puts themselves in those shoes, they become looser & less focused on what the unfamiliar words are because they feel the power in their pronunciations.

With this example, I realized that teaching writing reduces the importance of voice, while teaching reading amplifies its importance. It seems like this is why Elbow refuses to choose one side over the other. They have to go hand in hand. What is writing without reading and vise versa? What is understanding a meaning without feeling it?

I believe the initial danger of the single story is the lack of dynamic characters which, as a result, makes the whole narrative flat. It’s the multiple perspectives and the intersection of those perspectives that creates the plot of a narrative. It’s kind of how last week’s readings looked down upon an “acceptance of a single set of standards” (Elbow).

We’ve also discussed the danger of the single story in our Children’s LIterature class & it always comes back to the issue of representation. If a reader sees themselves within a character, whether it’s because they are described with the same physical attributes or personalities, it makes it easier to connect to the narrative as a whole. I guess this brings in the idea of empathy & authenticity within the narrative too.

It’s hard to feel empathetic towards a character you’re disconnected to. Like I said, feeling represented by a character in someway creates that connection. BUT, the way the author chooses to go about representation plays a role in a narrative as well.

For example, if a white author creates a character of color for the narrative, it’s very easy to tell whether those intentions were genuine or for marketing purposes. Once that false intention is detected, it automatically sits in the back of my mind for the rest of the narrative and disconnects me (personally) in someway. If an author wants to correctly represent a person within a character, there has to be research done prior to doing so. They can’t let stereotypes do the thinking for them. That only encourages authors to fall back on the same, redundant characters and keeping the narrative flat/ inauthentic.

This has to do with power too. The speaker says, “Power is the ability not just to tell the story of another person, but to make it the definitive story of that person,” and, in literature, the author holds that power. With power, comes great responsibility and accountability, in some cases.

Circling back to empathy, all narratives are inherently created to bring out empathy from its reader. Once you read those first few lines, you are placed in the character’s shoes or, at least, their world almost automatically. It’s the authenticity that will keep a reader there to follow along the journey and feel whatever emotion is floating around in the narrative. They will hurt or rejoice with whoever is feeling that emotion in that world.

Empathy is also what keeps a story with the reader for, maybe, all of their lives. The strong emotion and connection to those emotions remain and make the narrative memorable, along with its characters.

I’m going to start out with Elbow because a lot of his points resonate with the methods Bean tries to implement. First, evaluation. This is basically the backbone of Bean’s methods, which is probably why I can agree with most of it. But, as Elbow mentions, there are still issues to be found in it and it’s mostly to do with the inability to reach agreement.

Elbow essentially highlights the fact that the only way we’d be able to reach an agreement as to what is good or not is to do so in an artificial way, that is, through a system which is learned or an “acceptance of a single set of standards”. A very robotic and inhumane approach. Unfortunately, we’re too complicated & opinionated as humans to adopt such a system but, in a way, that is was ranking tries to do. Elbow questions the value in it and rightfully so.

If we all wrote the same argument, is it even an argument?

The immobility within the ranking system is prevalent too. It’s a big “yes” or “no,” that we fight and work hard for. There’s no “maybe” to consider. Bean’s writing talks about the discouragement that comes from such negative feedback. They use the example of mitigated versus non-mitigated comments, which is the same idea behind ranking. Once a paper receives a stamp of disapproval (without further explanation) that student is discouraged from the get go. I’ve seen it happen too many times with my peers and myself.

My best friend is dyslexic and she DESPISED any kind of English classes because teachers would obviously be aware of her dyslexia and would grade her paper with grammar mistakes at the forefront of their minds. I only know because I would read all of her papers AND other students’ papers as well. Others had just as many grammar mistakes, if not worse, but their papers were graded higher. It would frustrate anyone.

This brings me to the idea that this numerical ranking system very easily takes away from the learning factor. The discouragement quickly clouds that. In her case, she would revise drafts with grammar in her mind & pay no mind to the actual argument. A teacher pleaser. I’m just as guilty.

Elbow talks about frauds and that’s what I struggled with for the longest in my academic writing. I was the epitome of a teacher pleaser. I knew exactly how to read a rubric and apply it to any essay with ease. I really think this is why it took me so long to consider myself a writer. I was getting these A’s on papers and, after a while, it felt redundant & ingenuine. It’s not until now that I’ve realized it was because I never had my voice in any of those papers. I was molding my words using whatever teacher’s instructions or rubrics I was handed.

Bean touches on the importance of emotions to learning, which is an extremely valid point. It’s easy to think academic writing is robotic, but there IS emotion and tone in it too. My writing was lacking that.

It definitely had to do with the fear or anxiety that comes with “the teacher won’t like me,” or “they see no hope in my thoughts or ideas,” and it’s sad to look back at it with clear vision now. I think it’s important to mention that power dynamic between student and teacher that is integrated within our school systems because, truly, that’s where this all stems.

I’m grateful these are issues becoming more apparent, but I can only hope we can lean towards Elbow’s more realistic approach of finding that sweet spot between ranking and (genuine) evaluation.