Writing is zMaking Meaning for Yourself zMaking Meaning for Others
Making Meaning for Yourself zWriting for expression zWriting for understanding zWriting for transformation zWriting for aesthetic pleasure (to create beauty)
Making Meaning for Others zWriting to inform zWriting to explain zWriting to persuade zWriting to share beauty zWriting to convey feeling
Ways of Being a Writer zThe artist zThe technician zThe scholar zThe seeker
The Artists Studio z(from The Way to Rainy Mountain by Scott Momaday) zAt a distance in July or August the steaming foliage seems almost to writhe in fire. Great green-and-yellow grasshoppers are everywhere in the tall grass, popping up like corn to sting the flesh, and tortoises crawl about on the red earth, going nowhere in plenty of time. Loneliness is an aspect of the land. All things in the plain are isolate; there is no confusion of objects in the eye, but one hill or one tree or one man. zThe writer conveys his or her feelings and personal perspective on the subject. zThis subjective writing includes figurative language: simile, metaphor, personification, etc.
The Technicians Lab z(z(by Scott Blackman in Patterns for College Writing 5th ed.) zWzWith the grease pencil, label one slide Rh, and place this slide under the low-heat source. Divide your cool slide into two equal sections, labeling one side A and the other B. Apply one drop of anti-A serum to slide A, one drop of anti-B to slide B, and one drop of anti-Rh to the warm Rh slide. zOzObjective writing presents the facts. The language is precise and unemotional.
The Scholars Study z(from Academic Discourse: Community or Communities? by David R. Russell in Critical Strategies, 2nd ed.) zBecause it is tempting to recall academias very different past and hope for a very different future, the term academic community has powerful spiritual and political connotations, but today academia is a discourse community only in a context so broad as to have little meaning in terms of shared linguistic forms, either for the advancement of knowledge (which now goes on in disciplinary communities and subcommunities) or for the initiation of new members (who are initiated into a specific communitys discourse). Thus, to speak of the academic community as if its members shared a single set of linguistic conventions and traditions of inquiry is to make a categorical mistake. In the aggregate of all the tightly knit, turf-conscious disciplines and departments, each of its own discourse community, the modern university consists. Many have wished it otherwise. zObjective and Subjective Writing zAnalysis and Synthesis
The Seekers Notebook zFlower in the Crannied Wall Flower in the crannied wall, I pluck you out of the crannies, I hold you here, root and all, in my hand, Little flower…but if I could understand What you are, root and all, and all in all, I should know what God and man is. (Alfred Lord Tennyson--1809-1892) zSubjective and Objective Writing zAnalysis and Synthesis zExpression and Exploration
Think about how a writer might use the following: *Opinions*Feelings *Facts*Examples *Critical thinking*Reflection *Interpretation*Analysis and synthesis *Deductive and inductive logic *Plan for organization *Strong command of English grammar and style
Considerations zPurpose zAudience and setting zYour writing role