Inward Teacher

You are done. Your project is turned in. . .but. . .are you really done?

Parker J. Palmer (1998) says in his book The Courage to Teach:Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life "The kind of teaching that transforms people does not happen if the student's inward teacher is ignored" (p. 31).

It is my hope that you have connected experiences and skills from this class to your inner (or inward) lives. It is my hope that you have found some nugget of learning or truth that you can take with you. Maybe you learned about yourself and how you deal with deadlines or pressure. Maybe you have learned about your writing process. While this was obviously a writing class, something more lurks behind every learning experience. If we take a few moments and reflect, we can connect to our own inner teacher (our true teacher), listen to him or her, and walk away changed.

If you like, tell me what nuggets you think you may carry with you.

Revising or Reviving the Muse

Has anyone set their paper on fire yet?

At this point in the term, the romance of the paper is likely gone. This is okay. It is just another step in the writing process.

Pat yourself on the back you have been working hard.

Take time this week to take a break and feed your muse. Do those things that inspire you; take a hike; go shopping; sit under a tree and drink lemonade, but do something that rekindles your creative spirit. Then, come back to your paper renewed and refreshed for the final round next week.


Happy writing friends.

Believing Game

In an unpublished essay by Peter Elbow, he discusses his believing game as an approach to life as well as an approach to writing. He challenges readers to try to believe in things, even for a moment, in which they currently do not believe. This is especially true when encountering new ideas.

He challenges his readers to use believing as a tool to test ideas. We often use doubting or skeptical thinking when encountering new ideas. Instead of looking for the "hidden flaws," look for the "hidden virtues" in new ideas and in your papers this week.

As we read our own paper during revision and as we read the work of our peers, take a moment to try to be positive and believe something good about your paper or your writing process. Have confidence in your idea before you being to revise, reword, and rethink your paper.

I believe everyone can learn to write. I believe we all have the potential to do a great job with this paper. Not matter the final grade on your paper, Believe that you are taking great steps in your learning and writing process by working so hard on this paper.

Happy Writing.

Another Successful Letter

In case you every wonder just how your current argument paper fits into your life, here is one example.

Just this week, I wrote an email (letter style) in an attempt to rectify very strange billing and scheduling being done by my son's gymnastics summer camp.

In this letter, I respectfully and firmly asked that the situation be rectified. Within minutes, the owner of the company, who I later found out was on vacation, answered my email, apologized, and offered me a free class (which I did not even suggest). This is the power of well done writing that is aware of audience, style, tone, and purpose.

Here is a copy of most of the email with names changed or blocked out. See if you can see the tone, audience and style I used.

Hi - LEFT BLANK FOR PRIVACY

I have been very pleased with Jump Gymnastics program. However, it seems we have serious payment and scheduling issues that need to be resolved.
To my knowledge I paid in full for the summer gymnastics session. However, this payment was not processed for 3 or four weeks. I am still not sure if the entire summer gymnastic class session is paid for.

Additionally, *my son* attended two days for the Healthy Body Camp, and it appears we were charged for three days. It also appears that he is signed up for a class we are not supposed to be signed up for. Perhaps I am misreading the payment schedules, but I need to know that we can take care of this matter. Also, we need to figure out a way to make payments at certain times. Payments cannot simply be taken out of the account at anytime. I prefer to pay upfront and all at one time.

I have attempted to schedule summer sessions online, in-person, and on the phone, and nothing seems to fully get the job done accurately. I am not sure how to rectify things at this point.

. . . . [Details about our attendance and issues here]

I am currently out of town. We are stuck for a few days unable to return home from vacations due to an illness. We will be back next week.

I can be reached via email or by phone at LEFT BLANK FOR PRIVACY

Thanks so much for your help. I am sure we can figure this out.

Melody

What is the last letter or serious email you wrote?

Notice that it is written like a formal letter even though it was an email.

Arguing to Save Your Life

Think about how you would argue if you had to save your life in a logical non begging fashion.

Okay, most of us don't have to argue for our lives in terms of breathing, but we do have to set boundaries everyday for how people can treat us.

Sometimes, for me, these boundaries take the form of letters. More than once in my life, I have written a letter to help get things done. I actually got one poor fellow fired, but he had been harassing me for a long time. I presented my argument in a very logical fashion backed with facts and evidence. Come to find out they had been wanting to fire him for a long time, but no one had every bothered to write a letter.

I wrote another letter this week, arguing to have the company responsible fix my air conditioner.

Sometimes these letters in life are necessary, to set boundaries, to get thing done, to protect the innocent.


Have you every written one of these letters?


Is there one you need to write?

Facing the Page

Annie Dillard (1989) says, "The page will teach you to write."

The trouble is - you have to face the page, or the screen as it were, if you want to write, if you want the page to teach you. It's blankness can be overwhelming. I find that sometimes I just have to dive in and get started. This is usually after sitting down, drinking tea, getting more tea, checking email, looking at the blank page, drinking more tea. . .

You get the idea.

It does not matter what comes out so long as you are getting ideas out of your head and into word form. This, my friends, is writing. It is facing the page. Sometimes, it gets easier once you get started.

Just keep at it, even if it is bad. . .really bad.

The longer you put it off, the scarier the task gets. (This is true of most things.)

Dive in my friends! Get something on the page.

Dillard, A. (1989). The writing life. New York: Harper and Row.

More Confessions

My own writing has been buried again. Don't get me wrong, I write miles of comments on student papers and assignments (which I enjoy). But, my own writing has slipped past me.

I use myself as an example of how being overly busy can be just another form of procrastination. Certainly, procrastination is not the only reason I am teaching. I like teaching, and I like making money (more than I currently make publishing anything). Teaching makes me feel helpful and money makes me feel like I matter (We won't go into the psychology here now. We don't have that kind of time.) Writing can be hard - even when we like to do it. Some day I like writing. Some (most) days I ignore my muse.

My muse is getting impatient and rolling her eyes at me. We all have a muse you know. Things that inspire us. Your muse may not push you to write, but all of us have a muse; we may just choose not to listen to him or her.

Happy Writing!

June One - The End and The Beginning.

Turning in a finished project is hard. For me it is hard because I know there is always something that I missed or fear I could have done better. The good news is every time we write, every time we revise, and every time we put our writing "out there" for people to see, we grow as a writer. Not everyone may like what we have done, but we know that we have been stepping down the path of our writing process. It is also good to note that writing for others and writing for ourselves often requires a different kind of writing or even a different kind of process. Forge on dear writers and take what you have learned from this writing task and know that next time you write there are more skills in your writer's tool box. (even if what you just wrote feels like dirt).

Delete Keys

This is one of those painful moments in the writing process when you realize you are going to have to “toss out” some of your writing to accommodate the purpose at hand.

The good news is writing is never wasted.

Writing (the thinking time and the words themselves) always serves to get you to the place and understanding at which you now stand (or from which you now write).

The hard part is hitting the delete key.

Sometimes, I cut and paste stuff from one document into a blank document because I can’t bare to delete my hard work.

But, I know it must come out of the paper because it does not fit my main purpose.

I rarely (never) use those words that I worked so hard for the first time, especially the ones that seem so beautiful.

But, as time goes on and I continue to write, I can promise that new words come despite the fear that if I delete these words I will never be able to fill the blank page again.

Happy writing (and deleting) dear friends.

Procrastination and Hard Writing

So, as you can see, I have been procrastinating this blog.
Why?
Well for the same reasons I always procrastinate writing. I am afraid to get it done.

I am afraid to put it out there. Don't get me wrong. I have been writing. I have three drafts started for this blog, but the finality of putting the work (I use this term very loosely.) "out there" is just too much. My internal editor (and ego) don't want to put it out there. I find most of my writing process to be an internal argument with my internal editor about getting it done.

Here an attempt at some writing. I am sitting on my internal editor in order to post it.

Why is writing hard?
It is hard because we put it out there for someone to see. Like conversation – there is the potential for misunderstanding for dis-grace – a state none of us likes. We do not want to look dumb. Or we do not want to look.

Sometimes, we don’t like it because it hurts – our brain hurts as we they to put those thought down –
---Or, we don’t have the words for what we mean.

Maybe we do not know what we mean. Maybe we are afraid of what we mean.

Writing pushes us to be honest – To connect with ourselves.
--------We have to slow down.
We have to connect with our thoughts, ourselves.

--We have to wade through this jumbled bundle of thoughts in our heads.

Sometimes the best thing to do is to just get it done. Do what you have to do to get the writing down. Sometimes this means starting with the grocery list - then just letting yourself keep writing. Put a mark on the page or a stroke on the keyboard. Tell your internal editor to hush and just get the words down. (I’m talking to myself here.)

Press on Dear Writers Press On. We all have scared, stalled moments.

Confessions

So, I find writing in a blog a bit scary. It is published writing you know. Other people read it. Now, you might say "Melody, you have published lots or writing elsewhere so. . .what's the big deal?" If you asked this questions it might make sense at first glance. But, here is the thing about published writing (in my experience).

Before I put something "out there" for the world to see, I research; I write; I drink loads of green tea; I write, revise draft, drink more tea. . . This goes on for quite some time before an editor ever gets a hand on it. Then, the editor sends me notes or suggestions. Next, I drink more tea, play with my highlighters and purple pens, and move paragraphs and sentences around on the computer. This process continues until it "goes to press." So this writing that is "published" in a more traditional sense has loads of filters, revising, time, and thought. But how can I possibly publish a piece of writing that has only one cup of tea behind it? It seems unthinkable.

For me, I cannot compare it to my journal, partially because my journal is written in the early morning as I drink my cup of tea, and I am usually not wearing my glasses (Who can find glasses before a cup of tea?). Therefore, most of what is written in my journal is unintelligible even to me. Not to mention, it is often partial bits of meaningless jumble. It might even qualify as Vygostkian pre-thought or more like a child's transitional gestures that come before clear speech.

Perhaps, however, this will be fun (the blogging I mean). Writing with a bit more freedom and a few less steps of editing before the writing greets the world. (Okay, maybe not the world - but at least the two of you that will read this.)

- "Experience teaches us that thought does not express itself in words, but rather realizes itself in them." - Vygotsky