Fox

I really enjoyed Fox's article. We've discussed many times in class the fact that students rarely feel passionate about what they are writing. They rarely "ache" to complete assignments. And why would they? Class writing is often times "imaginary, and not in a good way. It is writing that has no tangible audience other than the teacher and the 30 or so students in the class. Most times, it is read by no one but the teacher. And what do students want from the teacher? Most often times, they want a good grade. They do not want to make the teacher laugh, necessarily, or make him/her rethink an issue. Therefore, class writing often falls flat. I agree with Fox that good writing is writing you care about. As I mentioned in class, the writing I have done that I felt really soared was writing that I had an interest in completing for me, and not just for a class. How do we make students care about what they are writing in class though? If we can make students view writing as something that can be "fun" and powerful, then they are far more likely to engage with it in and out of the classroom. And that, should be the goal of every teacher. Lessons are of no use, if students do not apply them to life outside of school.

I think Fox's idea of legitimizing underground practices such as note writing is interesting. What would happen if we brought those underground activities to the forefront? How would we prevent them from becoming just another assignment? How would we keep that original authenticity? As I have said before, students do a lot more writing than they think. They simply don't SEE what they are doing as writing. They don't see themselves as composing anything when they update their About Me section of their Facebook profile. For students, writing is something you do for a teacher, and that something is not fun. I really think it would be great to show students how prolific they actually are at writing. I am just unsure of how to go about it. They seem very resistant to the whole idea, as Pam mentioned. In her Facebook interviews, students refused to acknowledge that what they were doing online was writing.

When I was in eighth grade, my English teacher had me write a letter to a famous person, to ask them if they would donate an item for the school's auction. I still remember writing that letter, and I remember actually caring about it. In fact, that, and a ninth grade essay on Stanley Kubrick (I love him), are the first two English assignments I remember. Why do I remember them? I remember the letter because it was "real" to me. It was something that was going outside of the classroom, to a person I actually wanted a response from. (I never got one, however.) The Stanley Kubrick project was exciting and interesting for me, because it was the first time I was allowed to write on whatever I wanted. Outside of school, I am very interested in films, so I appreciated that I was able to talk about the topic IN school. These types of assignments are great for students. They go along way to help students "get over" their view of writing as something that is always terrible.