Re: investing in writing and revision

Marcy Bauman (marcyb@UMD.UMICH.EDU)
Sat, 17 Aug 1996 00:21:11 -0400

Beth's ideas for how to transform the "tired old topic" of "crime" into
something "real" strike me as positively inspired. But I have one small
point to make (and Beth, please correct me if I'm wrong). Beth presents
us with this description of her experience as if she were giving us a
recipe -- but this isn't a recipe that can be followed; we can't all take
her tried-and-true steps and expect this sort experience to come about.
I suspect that what _really_ happened was that somebody thought of crime,
and Beth thought "oh, no," and they more or less improvised together from
there.

In other words, if I'm right, this "real" writing came about because [a]
the topic was initiated by the students; and [b] the teacher was smart
enough to capitalize on their interest, and creative enough to figure out
how. Now, what _I_ want to know is, how do I learn to be that smart and
that creative? (And that's a serious question.)

Marcy

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Marcy Bauman
Writing Program
University of Michigan-Dearborn
4901 Evergreen Rd.
Dearborn, MI 48128

Web page: http://www.umd.umich.edu/~marcyb
email: marcyb@umd.umich.edu
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