The President came to visit campus yesterday, along with three Chinooks’ and two Sikorsky VH-3Ds’ worth of Secret Service and support staff, so classes were canceled and we dropped a lesson, making today the last class for two of my composition sections.
On the first day of the semester, I had my students do something called “the envelope exercise,” adapted from an exercise one of my grad school colleagues came up with: first, I gave an empty envelope to everyone in class. We read, out loud, two paragraphs from Peter Elbow on freewriting and how to do it. I then asked them to fill in the endings of the following sentences, in as much depth and detail as possible, on a piece of paper. I wouldn’t see what they wrote.
I expect that in this class, _____.
My biggest worry about this class is that _____.
Writing for this class will be different from / similar to high school writing in the following ways: _____.
The thing I most want to learn from this class is _____.
As a writer, I am _____.
I gave them about 25 minutes to do so. When they finished, they wrote their names on the front of the envelopes, put what they wrote in the envelopes, sealed the envelopes, and gave the envelopes to me.
Today, on the last day of class, I handed the envelopes back, and asked them to write a reflection on what’s changed between Lesson 1 and Lesson 39, based on that first-lesson baseline and on the last essays they wrote. They were surprised to see me open my own envelope, and asked me: “Sir, did you do the exercise too?” I nodded. “For all your sections?” Yes. “Did you write the same thing every time?” No, I didn’t.
Some indicated they were impressed, although I didn’t tell them that what I wrote in some cases answered the spirit of the questions rather than the letter. Here’s a little bit of what I wrote. (I was writing fast, so I hope you’ll forgive the infelicities.)
I believe the most important/difficult/rewarding part of the writing process [for me] is getting started and developing a project. Figuring out what it is to say. The page glares at me, balefully. It bothers me. I feel like I can’t talk back to it. So: getting started, moving along [is difficult], but see freewriting is easy, too. So: [what’s difficult?] Shaping? The middle step. Figuring out what shape, what form.
My own writing processes are a little at a time; a bunch of patched-together ideas. I build from small bits. A skeleton with a stitched-together shell; [one] that ravels, that unravels. When I get stuck, I get un-stuck by reading, [or] by putting my head down and pushing straight through ’til dawn.
I’m looking forward to reading my students’ reflections. It was helpful for me, as well, and I try to model that.
Yesterday, we packed into an auditorium to hear the President speak; students and faculty. I was genuinely curious, and what I’ll say now is that he was extremely precise — and careful — in his use of language, which I found rhetorically interesting. I’ll have more to say about that soon.
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