What’s Nature Got To Do With It?
I am taking a course in writing technology, and the last thing you would imagine as a topic is how natural writing can or cannot be. Our teacher for this course had us come up with a writing project. We were asked to make twenty words or less using any tool that was natural and did not involve high technology. This means we could not use computers, paints, or markers. In discussing what we could use, the class quickly broke down the options. It appeared almost impossible. We got nothing. This is where begging and pleading for ideas came in to play, and perhaps our instructor is a little financially better off if someone offered him a bribe, who knows.. How could it be done? Why? What would we learn about such an unnatural task that would even relate to the topic writing technology?
What I learned rather quickly was that these very questions were all apart of why the assignment was given. What at first seemed to be a pointless exercise really answered these questions in a profound way which I want to share with you today. My hope is that you too get a renewed appreciation for writing and it’s history.
In the essay from Pencils to Pixels, Dennis Baron details the world’s journey from the use and making of the pencil to the computer. Barron states that the pencil wasn’t originally intended to be used as a writing device. There’s a bit of information you probably hadn’t heard before. Yes, pencils were actually adopted as a tool by “note takers.. ..scientists...and others who need to write”. They were taken from artists and adapted it for use as a writing tool ( Dennis Barron 44).
And so, in engaging in my project, I found myself thinking of how I could adopt a natural tool and adapt that tool to my writing task. I first thought about writing some letters in water, but I could really find no natural container to hold the water. I could have used some sticks or some type of colored liquid and take a snapshot of it, but there was no natural platform to hold the water. This was not going to work.
Upon asking a random individual in what they thought of when they heard the word fairy tale, the response I received involved "princesses, pixie dust, castle 's and princes," all elements that Walt Disney specifically highlighted in his renditions of fairy tales. Although these elements exist in the Charles Perrault or Brothers Grimm tales, they were not dramatized as largely as in
Fairy tales are one of the longest lasting forms of literature. Though now they bring to mind classic movies engendered by Disney, many of these stories were first passed on in an oral manner, meant to convey a message, moral, or lesson. Alison Lurie’s “What Fairy Tales Tell Us” covers a broad range of classic tales, discussing how under the guise of an entertaining story comes life lessons we would all do well to follow. To begin this paper, some of the tales Lurie examines in her article will be looked at and critically examined beyond what she discusses. This will then move the text towards its remaining sections, which will take Lurie’s ideas and have them applied to folk and fairy tales that have not yet been contemplated; for the purpose
A pen and a pencil are not merely tools used to create something, it’s a barrier between the actual artists and their work; stated an artist called Brent Sommerhauser. One of his artworks is called “Arch,” and it technically wasn’t even created by him; Sommerhauser created a machine that produced what he calls “Arch.” The machine was a vacuum like cylinder that would create a small wind storm inside the cylinder when activated. Sommerhasuer would tape paper on the inside of the cylinder and would toss in pencils after. He watched as the pencils would rotate around, leaving bits of graphite marks on his sheet of paper. Many trials later, “Arch” was created. “Arch,” can be described as a steep hill losing altitude as you look to your right, after
The development of the pencil is not all that different from the development of the computer because of the way it was produced and the way it evolved through time. When the pencil was first introduced it was very expensive because they were hand carved one by one for the use of artists. Now that they have become more popular you can buy one for three pennies due to the development of mass production. Baron explains, “One pencil historian has estimated that a pencil made at home in 1950 by a hobbyist or eccentric would have cost about $50” (Baron
Warner, Marina. From the Beast to the Blond on Fairy Tales and Their Tellers. New York: Chatto & Windus, 1994. Print.
For centuries, cursive handwriting has been considered an art. However, to a increasing number of young people the form is becoming extinct. The graceful letters of the cursive alphabet have been transcribed on innumerable love letters, acted as the method for articulating thoughts in journals and diaries, and have been scrawled across elementary school chalkboards for generations. Yet, cursive is gradually vanishing due to the accessibility to keyboards and smartphones. While the loss of the cursive alphabet may appear inconsequential, recent studies have revealed that in fact the gradual death of the fancier ABC’s instigates concerns for future generations.
All three examples above serve as first steps to the larger world of literary theory and criticism. Writing prompts like this ask you to examine a work from a particular perspective. You may not be comfortable with this new perspective. Chances are that since your instructor has given you such an assignment, the issues in question will be at least partially covered in
Unlike any other form of literature or entertainment, Fairy Tales help children to discover their identity and suggest experiences needed to develop their character. In Bruno Bettelheim’s “Life Divined from the Inside” Bettelheim states that “Fairy Tales intimate that a rewarding, good life is within one’s reach despite adversity-but only if one does not shy away from the hazardous struggles without which one can never achieve true identity (Bettelheim 106). Anne Sexton’s “Cinderella” is a perfect example of Bettelheim’s definition of a Fairy Tale.
Not only has writing revolutionized, nevertheless writing utensils have as well. Writing utensils have gone from bone, to clay, to pen and pencil in thousands of years. With bone, you would scratch the bone against the clay to create the letters. With clay, cuneiform was formed and written by taking a wedge utensil and make the letters on a clay tablet. And today we use pen and pencil to take notes, write down information, and communicate.
The natural process for writing is writing learned without being force upon on children. Natural writing is done when a child want to write or scribble on their own. The natural writing process takes place when children scribbles in a lin...
The first part of the process is to understand that not only do you need to make a writing tool, but something to use the tool on. There are two things that someone needs to take into account when doing this: 1) permanence and 2) portability. Each rival each other in importance and both are vital to the process. We must first look at the pros and cons of each part of the equation: the snow and the finger.
..., Maria. “An Introduction to Fairy Tales.” Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum. Ed. Laurence Behrens, Leonard J. Rosen. Toronto: Longman, 2013. 230-235. Print.
In my project I attempted to write without the assistance of normal technologies that are often taken for granted. It proved a difficult undertaking. Before beginning to write I had to find something to write on. As I searched my house and yard I realized that technology-free materials are difficult to find. I eventually found a birch log by the fireplace, which was once used by Native Americans for the purpose of writing. After tearing off the bark, and shaking off the dirt I had my “paper.” The hardest part was still not over; I needed to find a replacement for the normal writing aid of a pencil or pen. I replaced ink with honey and traded a pen for a feather. My next step was the very slow process of streaking honey on the bark to form words. The honey was the same color as the birch and blended in with the wood. To f...
Ink manufactured for writing originated in Egypt and China originally dating back to around 2500 BC. This ink was composed of soot bound together with gums. This paste was formed into rods and dried before being mixed with water immediately before use. Ink of this time was only used for handwriting. Printing would then be created by the Chinese in 3000 BC. The invention of the writing brush made from hair is attributed to General Meng Tien of China. This allowed writing to be done on silk rather than with bamboo pens on strips of bamboo. Bamboo is heavy, bulky and awkward, but for all its virtues, silk is expensive. They used a mixture of coloured earth, soot and plant matter for pigments, again mixed with gums for a binder. Actual printing consisted of ink being drawn onto moveable slabs outlined with letters and signs. Then in 1440, when Johannes Gutenberg invented the first printing press with moveable type, was beginning to be made of soot bound with either linseed oil or varnish, materials extremely similar to those that are used in ink today. Following this in 1772 colored ink was introduced, however, the drying agents for colored ink would not be introduced until the nineteenth century....
As early as 2,800 years before Christ, the pen was beginning to appear as a writing implement in the world. Its first form was that of a dried reed, its tip cut at an angle so to create a line of ink instead of a blot. To write with it, simply dip the cut tip of the reed into an ink supply, then gently press the dipped tip against the paper .