The importance of fully accomplishing the writing process, the process in which we design tangible literary structures from our ideas, is frequently and destructively ignored. Writing is a tool we use to engage exploration. In many ways written work can be equated to the terms of philosophy. It is an opportunity that may be best explained by Alan Watt’s quote from the introduction to his Philosophies of Asia, “philosophy is man's expression of curiosity about everything and his attempt to make sense of the world primarily through his intellect; that is to say, his faculty for thinking.”
Imagine we are building a house out of brick. First comes the idea, the architectural draft of our creation, without the blueprints we get tangled and lost in the building process. Then we must lay the foundation, the basic footprint that will support our whole design. Once we have completed the groundwork we can erect the structure of the building, the walls, the roof, the supports, and so on. Finally once the structure is in place, we embellish. We have created something tangible out of something conceptual. It is not hard to lay a single brick, but to build a house takes considerable effort.
Construction of a house abides by certain rules. Above all, the laws of physics adhere to our structure. Writing, however, transcends the earthy bonds of reality. We can take liberties in writing that allow us to float weightlessly, expand beyond the universe, and shrink to a speck. Writing has its own physical boundaries in the words we use, the structure of our rhetoric, and the standard conventions that make our words coherent. These physical boundaries can only be taught to us through exercise, through learning, what we do with the knowledge we gain f...
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...eloped ideas and inspiration upon which we can draw from in other areas of our lives. This stockpile is wealth in knowledge; those whom employ it are truly wealthy. Anyon calls it “symbolic capital,” I call it an investment, molding the bricks necessary to build future structures. Our minds are the kilns in which these bricks are fired and hardened. Employing those building blocks takes significant effort, but through effort comes reward.
Per aspera ad astra, From hardship to the stars.
Works Cited
Qualley, Donna. (Re)Reading the Elephant: Furthering the Conversations about Education,
Literacy, and Schooling. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2012. Print.
Watts, Alan. "The Relevance of Oriental Philosophy." Introduction. The
Philosophies of Asia. 1. Web. 19 May 2012. .
Although the greater picture is that reading is fundamental, the two authors have a few different messages that they seek to communicate to their audiences. “The Joy of Reading and Writing” depicts how reading serves as a mechanism to escape the preconceived notions that constrain several groups of people from establishing themselves and achieving success in their lifetimes. “Reading to Write,” on the other hand, offers a valuable advice to aspiring writers. The author suggests that one has to read, read, and read before he or she can become a writer. Moreover, he holds an interesting opinion concerning mediocre writing. He says, “Every book you pick has its own lesson or lessons, and quite often the bad books have more to teach than the good ones” (p.221). Although these two essays differ in their contents and messages, the authors use the same rhetorical mode to write their essays. Both are process analyses, meaning that they develop their main argument and provide justification for it step by step. By employing this technique, the two authors create essays that are thoughtful, well supported, and easy to understand. In addition, Alexie and King both add a little personal touch to their writings as they include personal anecdotes. This has the effect of providing support for their arguments. Although the two essays have fairly different messages, the authors make use of anecdotes and structure their writing in a somewhat similar
It is fascinating to me to read the articles “Why I Write,” by George Orwell and Joan Didion. These authors touch on so many different topics for their reasons to writing. Their ideals are very much different, but their end results are the same, words on paper for people to read. Both authors made very descriptive points to how their minds wander on and off their writings while trying to write. They both often were writing about what they didn’t want to write about before they actually wrote what they wanted too. In George Orwell’s case, he wrote many things when he was young the he himself would laugh at today, or felt was unprofessional the but if he hadn’t done so he would not of been the writer he became. In Joan Didion’s case she would often be daydreaming about subjects that had nothing to do with what she intended on writing. Her style of writing in this article is actually more interesting because of this. Her mind wandering all over on many different subjects to how her writing came to her is very interesting for a person like me to read. My mind is also very restless on many different unneeded topics before I actually figure some sort of combined way to put words on to paper for people to read. Each author put down in their articles many ways of how there minds work while figuring out what they are going to write about. Both of the authors ended ...
The two essays, Splintered Literacies and Writing in Sacred Spaces, both revolve around the inherent “why” of storytelling. Each addresses a different facet, with the former delving into how the types and varieties of writing we experience affect our identities. Meanwhile, the latter explores the idea of thought concretization. Humanity developed writing as a tool to capture the otherwise intangible. Whether belief or abstract concept, the act of putting something in writing creates a concreteness, trapping the thought in a jar like a firefly. The thoughts and ideas we manifest onto the page or into the air give life to our knowledge, perpetuating its’ existence.
Comparing Ben Bertram’s [Response] and Kogawa’s Road Building by Pick Axe is an interesting exercise. There are two primary points of comparison : First, why did each author choose to use the form of poetry that they did, haiku for Bertram and blank verse for Kogawa; Secondly, what using that form of poetry accomplished for their poem. The reason that these poems should be read together is because Bertram raises several important questions about Kogawa’s writing that will help you to better understand Kogawa’s message.
Dr. Satler’s comments: This student’s paper displays the radiance of writing kindled by discriminating reading. His careful attention to words and their subtle tones in context translate into interpretive language that clarifies the subtle shapes of meaning.
Meyer, Michael, ed. Thinking and Writing About Literature. Second Edition. New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2001.
Humans have a reputation for wasting things: time, money, resources, and even words. When wasted words begin to distract from writing, it is called clutter. In “Clutter”, William Zinsser utilizes figurative language, ethical appeals, and arrangement to reveal the creep of cluttered language into writing and to persuade writers to avoid it.
In the book “Think and Grow Rich,” the author, Napoleon Hill, provides a set of principles that he calls the key to financial success. The idea at the center of these principles is that one becomes what he or she frequently thinks about, in this case success (i.e. rich). Hill lays out a method he created to translate one’s thoughts into reality, creating an insatiable hunger and drive within an individual to succeed. Using the examples of his son and some of America’s legendary iconic business leaders, of which Hill studied and interviewed, including Edwin C. Barnes, he demonstrates that anything one puts his or her mind to can be produced and conceived.
So rational engagement with architecture is a more effective means to comprehend and understand architectural form.
Glaspell, Susan. Trifles. Literature and the Writing Process. Elizabeth Mahan, Susan X Day, and Robert Funk. 6th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice, 2002. 977-986
It was an obsession, and addiction even; making sure each letter was absolute. Each “T” proportionate, every “I’s” dots, a perfect ellipse, each “O” accurate to the 3.1416, and every “X’s” interception perpendicular. I’d spent more than an hour on, what my classmates would probably describe as a rather simple task of writing the alphabet, but to me, it was the mission of fitting twenty seven impartial letters in to the margins of (manuscript) paper. Everyone else enjoying recess, while I sat there alone in Ms. Booth’s first grade classroom, concentrated and ruler in hand, you would have sworn I was creating an intricate architectural structure. I knew how frustrated my teacher got with me because of how long it took me to complete an assignment,
Kartini’s monumental book Habis Gelap Terbitlah Terang (Out of Darkness Comes Light) tells us that by writing we can create our own history. By writing we can tell future generations about what happened in the past, and to improve for the future. Even more, like Kartini, by writing we can create a better
Updike argues that the role of writers is to serve as instruments of expression within society, providing a means of communicating between writers and their audience. Updike, like many writers, dotes not on the context of the words in a language, but on their “potential...of becoming reality, of engendering out of imitation another reality, infinitely lesser but thoroughly possessed, thoroughly human.” (Updike “Why Write?”) The figurative language Updike uses illustrates the idea of words coming alive, and personifies language as possessing the ability to become a tangible representation of the individual.The power that language holds allows for the voice of an individual to be projected, and for society to articulate the voices of all individuals uniformly without censoring the voices of
The ability to write well is not a naturally acquired skill; it is usually learned or culturally transmitted as a set of practices in formal instructional settings or other environments. Writing skills must be practiced and learned through experience. Writing also involves composing, which implies the ability either to tell or retell pieces of information in the form of narratives or description, or to transform information into new texts, as in expository or argumentative writing. Perhaps it is best viewed as a continuum of activities that range from the more mechanical or formal aspects of “writing down” on the one end, to the more complex act of composing on the other end (Omaggio Hadley, 1993). It is undoubtedly the act of
LANGUAGE is the primal vocational tool of any literary writer and the depth of a writer’s insight and evocative creative skills are often conditioned by the relationship between him and the language or languages he is familiar with. From this perspective, a monolingual writer is monocultural, a bilingual writer is bicultural and a multilingual writer is multicultural. The depth of insight as regards a specific cultural perspective is easily associated with a monolingual writer who has mastered a particular language and is therefore a competent interpreter of the culture it represents while the richness of cultural values as defined by the variety of values inherent in multiculturality is reflective of the attributes of a multilingual writer.