Wednesday, August 01, 2012

How Reading Influences Your Writing?

This summer, I have been reading poorly written discussion posts in my online class and  various old books from my undergraduate days in the late 1980s.  I realized that my writing style is screwed up due to what I chose to read. At the time I was into the Beat Generation writers and Eastern European authors. Later in the 1990s I got into reading Japanese authors. One common theme in all of these novels was the stream of consciousness or at least the appearance of a stream with no visible plot. Although reading these books again (currently I am reading The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass) I have identified the underlying plot and am more impressed with these writers.   They had fooled the 19 years old me thinking "story telling is easy", and to this day I try telling stories before getting to the point.
Next I noticed how after reading students posts full of 'i' instead of  the capitalized 'I' for the first person pronoun, and 'u' instead of 'you' the second person pronoun, that I was doing the same in my responses to them. Was I mimicking them or was it my little mobile device? (the medium)
Is it the speed of the digital medium that makes me careless. I assume that all of these authors wrote and revised their writing many times before publishing them. How can I implement this realization in my classes?
1) Have them write on a topic.
2) Have them read each others work.
3) Have them rewrite their work.
4) Grade both on the content and the number of revisions the writing went through.
Dear English Faculty please comment and share your expertise.

5 comments:

  1. Just in case you are wondering. All of my writing on this blog is the first draft. No Revisions.

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  2. I like your comments. Tin Drum is a good read--- don't miss the chapter on the Onion Therapy. It's not in the movie. --Vern

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    1. There is a movie of the Tin Drum? I have not seen it. I read this book back in 1985-6 sitting and perspiring in my Government Issued Chemical Suit on a Beach with my M16.
      Where?

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnston_Atoll

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  3. Johnson Atoll sounds worse than Camp LeJeune!

    The film is outstanding, and it won an Oscar. Netflix has it, and here is their summary. -- Vern

    The Tin Drum (Die Blechtrommel) 1979 R
    Young Oskar Matzerath, who grows up witnessing the rise of Nazism at the eve of World War II, decides at age 3 to stop growing -- effectively shutting out the world and communicating only by banging on his tin drum. Volker Schlondorff's epic unfolds with cinematic artistry, psychological insight, political vision and symbolic richness, as Germany falls prey to Nazism while Oskar's protests go unnoticed. The film won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film.

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  4. Mike don't miss the scene with the horses's head in his mom's bed.

    Johnson Atoll sounds like fun duty. You must have missed the nuclear tests, but did you get to burn chemical weapons?

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