Re: freewriting

Michael J. Salvo (gkmjs@ttacs1.ttu.edu)
Wed, 24 Jul 1996 16:29:58 -0600

i think claudine's goals goals are very similar to mine ... i think one thing
i'm harping on is that i learned my own writing process *in spite of* my
formal instruction. i'm wary of offering anybody a system or set of
possibilities (beyond a class' set of goals and projects) that replaces
students' struggle against confusion. they have to make sense of the
onslaught of thoughts, ideas, texts, interactions, experiences that are part
of learning in the classroom i consciously attempt to construct. if
anything, my process of sharing my story encourages students' own struggle --
directly, i say "i do not know." i follow that up with the possibility
of building a shared knowledge together.

so i think that here, in collecting our stories, *i'm* looking for
confluences and differences that may help me understand different
composing styles. i don't want to define or characterize what i find,
but become familiar with difference/(s).

i'm working at trying to understand how becky's critique can inform what
i am saying here. are we at odds? am i missing something fundamental?
help is appreciated ...

mike

On Wed, 24 Jul 1996, Claudine Keenan wrote:

> My experience, if anything at all, has allowed (compelled!) me to become
> less prescriptive, to learn the most difficult aspects of teaching
> writing--when to simply shut up and let them go, and more importantly how to
> help them ask the right questions of their *own* about their writing, so
> that they can improve *without* me (or my textbooks or my theories or my
> advisors).