Intro to Writing

Navigating a Writing Assignment with Questions and a Particular Approach

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When I read the title I thought, “really?” It almost doesn’t make sense. https://mtsu.pressbooks.pub/engl1010/chapter/you-can-learn-to-write-in-general/ But truly how are you supposed to teach something that is never really broad. Everything written is for some reason and is to be read by a certain population or audience like Wardle said. If this is the case than all writing is unique and specific. It is almost like saying, well since you know how to add and subtract you now know math. Sure you know a topic in math the same way that you may be taught to write a persuasive essay. Now know how to do that under the requirements of that topic, and professor. But in an advanced level or for a different subject, that essay may be written in a varying ways. Thus, I’ve come to agree there is no teaching just writing and there is no learning to write in general if that is true too. When I read this, all I could think was, this is exactly why I go back and use my own examples for certain topics, styles or formats. By doing that I’m not reusing, I am retooling and getting a piece of the much larger puzzle that I create with every paper, essay, poem, journal entry, etc. that I write. While this article made me think of my approach to writing, Catherine Savini’s article made me analyze that approach with questions. https://eng2020.chrisfriend.us/blog/why-study-writing/defreitj/navigating-a-writing-assignment-with-questions-and-a-particular-approach/

It would have been an incredibly helpful article to have read this past summer. So much of this article can directly relate to formulating a good research question. Determining problems and asking why they are important, what the risks and stakes are were exactly what I was doing in my senior seminar. I like how it can apply beyond the research realm though as well. It helps me ask questions about my writing topics and understand that finding the problem in my assignments especially writing assignments, will help lead me to more thought provoking stakes in essays and in critically analyzing the literature I consume.

Related posts:

two gray pigeonsThe friendship of collaboration and failing. A person with a blank notebook and pen beginning to write.Are there various ways of writing? Image of a laptop open to empty word processor and a notebook open in front of it.On Wardle and Savini’s Way of Writing IThe Conundrum Of When To Use “I”

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One response to “Navigating a Writing Assignment with Questions and a Particular Approach”

  1. Discourse Through the Use of Language and Literacy – Intro to Writing

    […] When I read the article from James Paul Gee, I was confronted with terms I had heard of but never thought to define them in an academic context. My ideas of literacy, language use and discourse did not come from directly learning about these terms. For example, my idea of literacy was more centered around being literate, thus capable of reading and writing. I knew this without the memory of when or where I was taught it, but I still knew it. This article expands on that notion though that literacy is more than that. There are levels to literacy in academics, in social situations and in other areas of Discourse. James Paul Gee described a Discourse as a way of being. https://www.jstor.org/stable/027be32d-5dc0-321a-909b-a8550a1bc3fb?seq=3 I came to the understanding that to be a master of a Discourse I would need to be fluent. For example, although I am part of the Discourse community of sports I only consider myself fluent in certain sports like baseball and soccer. While I am almost in training in a way, for my literacy in other sports and other worlds within sports, like sports marketing or management. I would need to use the right language to communicate in a sports Discourse. When I go to broadcast I need to use more professional and particular terminology when describing or analyzing play. The other side of this would be in speaking about the same sports or even the same play in a sport but to a friend, I may simplify the terminology and be potentially more crude or critical in my descriptions. The use of language is important just as described in Gee’s article when he presents the use of proper English and grammar as improper in certain situations, especially social, informal ones. This reminds me of the week one article that bring up the stakes, in that case it was for academic purposes but if you ask that same question of what the problem is or what does the situation call for, it dictates the sort of acceptable language to be used in a Discourse. https://eng2020.chrisfriend.us/blog/why-study-writing/defreitj/navigating-a-writing-assignment-with-… […]

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