Blogs posts on the teaching of writing.

Everyday Rhetoric

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A lot of times, rhetoric is taught in college with the immediate purpose of helping students become better at writing college papers.

But what I love about rhetoric is it’s everyday, normal uses.

Pen and paper

When we first moved into this apartment, my daughter’s door would jam, and sometimes I would have a really hard time opening it. Twice I couldn’t open it at all and had to have my husband do it.

Maintenance said they couldn’t fix it, and that it was normal for the doors to jam. Something to do with air pressure and humidity, ya dah ya dah ya dah.

So I thought, what is the strongest possible reason I can make for why my daughter’s door needs to be fixed? The fact that it was annoying, irritating, or challenging was obviously not good enough.

I told the office that I was worried about it being a fire hazard: what if there was a fire and I couldn’t get the door opened because it was jammed?

Within an hour, my daughter’s door was fixed.

Now fast forward. Several weeks ago, I put in a work order for maintenance to fix a number of small, yet irritating things. Like my towel rack. I like to hang up my towel. Yet for some reason or another, my request got lost in the shuffle.

One of the things on the list was switching the air filter (the office had said maintenance could do it the first time so I could see how it was done). So this morning, I removed the 20 inch by 20 inch air filter from the ceiling vent. It was one of the filthiest things I have ever seen. I brought my baby, my toddler, and the filthy air filter to the main office.

Dirty air filter

Within an hour, everything on my list had been fixed.

I intentionally didn’t bring the baby backpack, a stroller, or anything that would have made my trip easier. That would have damaged the visual impact. The office assistant said, “You know you can just throw that air filter away.” What I didn’t tell her is that I knew I could just go to the office and they’d give me a new air filter, but I had brought the old one with me because I wanted all my maintenance requests to be fixed.

And it worked.

And that’s why I love rhetoric. As Aristotle wrote, rhetoric is using “the available means of persuasion.” It’s not just about getting an A on a college paper–though rhetoric can certainly help you do that as well. It’s about using your voice to make changes in the world, particularly when they’re not changes you can make on your own.

 

Photo Credits:

Writing is Like… (Part 5)

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Writing is like taking care of sick kids. It takes a lot of hard work, and a lot of time. Your kids and your writing always seem to need you, and sometimes they keep you up all night.

Sick child

Like taking care of sick kids, writing can involve cleaning up gross messes.

Sometimes you need to seek professional advice and go to a doctor (or a writing instructor, writing tutor, or critique group). The doctor, ideally, has spent a lot of time with sick kids and has seen these sorts of problems before. The doctor then gives you one or more prescriptions—be it antibiotics, a grammar prescription, a prescription on your argument, your research, or your writing style.

With sick kids and with writing you do all that you can, and you often experience slow improvements. Sometimes you just need to let time play its part.

Writing is not always fun and games. Neither is taking care of sick kids, something I can attest to, as I’ve been taking care of a sick baby and a sick toddler for the last few weeks. It may not always be fun, but it is worth it.

 

Photo Credit: Lauren Grace Picture Place

If you want to know why writing is like kissing and a great number of other things, make sure to check out all my “Writing is Like” posts.

Writing is like Kissing

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Yes, you heard me. Writing is like kissing.

Lips

Kissing, like writing, works better (or at least tends to be more interesting) if there’s a second person involved. We’ll call that person the audience.

If you want your kiss (your writing) to go really well, it is often helpful if you know your audience.

Also, kissing (writing) goes better if you try to interact and engage with your audience, rather than just kissing at (writing at) your audience.

Finally, kissing (writing) gets better with practice.

Good kissing (writing) ventures, and Happy Valentine’s Day!

 

 

Photo credit: Jannie-Jan

Make sure to check out my Metaphors About Writing page for all my other “Writing is like…” posts. 

Writing is Like… (Part 3)

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Writing is like building a bird’s nest.

It’s easy to get stuck with writing, to think, “I have nothing new to say.” As the oft-repeated Biblical proverb says, “There is nothing new under the sun.” Most of the time the point of writing is not to create something new, but rather to assemble the available materials in the best way possible, just as a bird finds the best sticks, grass, and feathers and puts them in her nest.

Here’s a video of a great tit building a nest. (You can skip through it and still get the general idea.)

One thing I find fascinating about this video is that the bird doesn’t stop building her nest once she starts laying eggs–she keeps working and finding new materials until all her eggs are laid.

What are the components you can use in your nest? If you’re writing an essay, these will be your quotes and sources, your examples, your explanations. If you’re writing fiction, these will be your story tropes, character archetypes, and genre conventions.

Even if two birds use the same materials, their nests won’t turn out exactly the same. It is the same with writing–the point is not to create an identical product, but to use the wealth of materials available in the world around you.

 

Read more I’ve written on Metaphors about Writing. 

Ignoring Writer’s Block

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New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson wrote:

Sit in a chair and write. Ignore this thing they call writer’s block. Doctor’s don’t get doctor’s block; your mechanic doesn’t get mechanic’s block. If you want to write great stories, learn to write when you don’t feel like it. You have to write it poorly before you can write it well. So just be willing to write bad stories in order to learn to become better.

There are lots of ways to fight writer’s block:

  • If you’re stuck with no direction, try outlining, pre-figuring out where you are going to go, so when you sit down you just have to write it. Or, do the complete reverse, and just free write, putting words down on the page, non-stop, and letting the words take you somewhere. If one approach isn’t working, switch to the other.
  • Work on a different project or idea. Find a different thesis or topic or story that you do have something to say about.
  • Create artificial deadlines. I do this a lot–deciding, arbitrarily, that I need a draft done by a certain day or time. I often set lots of small deadlines, for example, I need to write a certain number of words today, before I go to sleep. For larger deadlines I like to reward myself when I reach them, typically with European chocolate.
  • If the particular paragraph, sentence, or section I’m writing isn’t working, I’ll skip ahead to a part I’m prepared to write, and then come back to the part I’m struggling with later.
  • Often, when I feel like I have writer’s block, I’m actually just procrastinating. Recognizing this makes a huge difference.
  • I also have to recognize that very rarely do I have bolts of writer’s inspiration, and when I do have them, it’s not because I’m sitting around waiting for them to happen. I get moments of inspiration, gifts of the muse you can call them, when I’ve already put in the hard work, often after writing at least 500 words.
  • And then, to me the best way to ignore or overcome writer’s block is to write regularly. As I’ve posted before, writing is like exercise–the more you write, the less your writing muscles will protest when you do write. It will still be work, but it’ll probably be less painful.

If you’re interested, there’s also two Writing Excuses podcasts on writer’s block: Butt in Chair, Hands on Keyboard, and This Sucks and I’m a Horrible Writer.

 

Credits/Citations:

Brandon Sanderson quote from “Writing of Epic Proportions” by Krista Holmes Hanby, BYU Magazine, Winter 2013
Photo Credit 1: Cali4beach, Creative Commons license
Photo Credit 2: brainpop_uk, Creative Commons license