changelog @ tengrrl.com:

I need to come up with a revised outline and schedule for the mysterious book that I never manage to get more than a few minutes to work on every 9 months. I dug out all the books and notes last week, from a bag that I carried to Virginia at Christmas. I didn't pull them out in Virginia, and I hadn't pulled them out here either.

So they're pulled out, and I've read through them. The problem is that I'm stuck. I need to work on writing beliefs 5–11, and I'm totally unable to think of anything useful to say. Perhaps it's partially that #5 seems to be a wider topic, but I'm not really sure. I have read and reread the text of #5, but I can't come up with anything. It's so bad that I'm wondering if I should dump the entire chapter. That's annoying though given that I currently have 8 pages of single-spaced text that DO work.

I thought that I should try to freewrite, but that didn't get me anywhere either. I don't know how I'm going to get past this; and I feel like I have to figure out how to get past #5 if I'm going to come up with a schedule. :(

The evil #5 states, "Writing grows out of many different purposes," and it explains that "Writing is not just one thing. It varies in form, structure, and production process according to its audience and purpose." Now that should be easy as hell to come up with text on. My problem is that for all the others I have included either a personal anecdote about my writing experience or a story from my teaching, and I'll be dashed if I can think of a good anecdote for #5. And I'll be honest, as I cast forward and look at the rest of them, stories aren't springing to mind there either.

Maybe it's just been too long since I taught. Surely I have stories. They just don't seem to be handy right now, and I haven't got a clue how to summon them forth. :( Where are the dang things hiding, and what am I going to do with #5 until I figure it out?

Comments:

Well, now, seems like the writing stories wouldn't necessarily have to be teaching stories, though maybe once you get going, you'll think of some of those, too.

On the other hand, number 5 does seem inherently to be kind of on the impossibly huge side: "Writing is a whole hell of a lot of things, is for a whole hell of a lot of things, is written in a whole hell of a lot of ways, for a whole hell of a lot of different audiences, etc." I'm thinking that's not easy as hell to come up with text on because, really, what else is there to say? You can't offer examples of *everything.*

So, maybe, there's your answer. Maybe the way to go is to say, "Here is a belief that seems absolutely obvious, and can lead to good things in teaching and learning, because it prevents us from getting a little too cozy with any one narrow thing or familiar favorite, but it complicates things something fierce, too, because it leaves almost nothing out, but classes do and must leave things out, because, hey, they're finite, whereas writing, clearly, isn't."

Maybe, then, arm wrestle with the thing as opposed to calmly explicating it. Then, you might just work your way towards those stories demonstrating both the challenges and the pleasures of flexibility before you can say, "What in heck is so free about freewriting, anyway?"

Or not. But that's what I thought of today.

Kafkaz

# posted by Kafkaz : 7:18 PM

Thanks, this seems helpful. The idea of getting too cozy and focusing on the traditional/easy stuff may be the way to get to this one. Thank you, thank you :)

# posted by tengrrl : 12:11 AM

Monday, June 26, 2006