I live a great deal of my life inside of my head. That being said I have had to find ways to translate that internal monolog into useable thoughts and emotions. As well as once that being done, to bring it forth in a way that is compatible with what is going on in the rest of the world which I find myself interacting with. This has been very interesting in dealing with my time in the writing world that lies outside of my comfort zone which is creative writing. I fought it for a time not wanting to immerse myself in the cold seemingly unforgiving waters that are technical and analytical writing. ENG 271, which is the theory of interpretation, was the equivalent of jumping headfirst into a pool of cold water. Much like my experiences with the dark side of literary theory, I suggest you jump in and see what happens.
What you are reading is in effect the way I which I have found I can navigate in this dense forest of critical theory and shifting paradigms. Fraught with falling pedagogies and the ever elusive controlling purpose, I took what was comfortable to me, my strengths if you will and bent the analytical and technical side just a bit to find a space where I could just squeeze in. I learned the paths that I had to tread in order to navigate the forest and walked them by moving with my eyes open to what they had to show me but always I fell back on my creativity to support my writing. I won’t say I excel in this often times confusing and foreign land that I find myself but I have found it possible to survive and even do an acceptable job of the no creative writings that have come my way.
If you come right down to it my pedagogy seems to have lodged itself in the expressionist field and appears to be there for the foreseeable future. What does that mean? Well I eluded to it in the beginning of my attempt to explain where I stand in the forest of Writing disciplines. “The composition pedagogy of moderate expressivism is characterized by a focus on language as a tool for personal rather than social expression, based on the process theory of composition, a belief that the process of writing should be more important than the final product.” This is a quote from Wikipedia and comes pretty close to where I am trying to lead. To summarize this in my own unique way I take in information swirl it around in my head till I understand it then deposit it back out onto the proverbial page in a hopefully competent manner that fulfills the requirements of the exercise.
In doing this I am able to come to grips with some of the technical portions of writing that seem out of my element and combine them with my creativity till they if not fit he mold at least don’t break it to the point where it doesn’t make sense anymore. It has been interesting realizing that a large part of this hidden knowledge was really not all that hidden, and when combined with what I already knew it became much less unfamiliar and much easier to work with.
My specialties will most likely always be creative writing so by all means if you would like to come sit down and talk world building or character development I would be happy to lend a hand. I tend to run away into the poetry vein on occasion as well, I can’t say I will be able to check off all the traditional boxes but I have penned a line or two that were not half bad if I do say so myself, and often times I do have to say so myself. It is sometimes surprisingly difficult to get your poetry read by those that would have the most to say about it. Forget about getting it understood that’s another matter altogether. I would however love to read your writing whether it be fiction or non, poetry or prose and give you my opinions as well as guidance as you walk the dark and twisting paths that are collegiate writing.
What you just read over was an example of my personal style of writing; I try to follow a four step guide to any piece of writing. These four steps work from beginning to end and have so far been able to translate into any type of writing that I have yet come across.
· Cohesion
These steps have the ability to take an idea from beginning to end in the completion of a piece of writing. My tutoring pedagogy falls into this same pattern. The steps translate well into the process with the tutee bringing in the piece of work and the two of us taking it one by one through the steps. My own personal style can be seen in the writing sample above that details the way in which I tend to approach my writing. This may or may not work for you but the four steps will still be relevant. So if you have a writing conundrum, essay that you are not sure about, need to polish your resume, or just want to toss around some ideas for that character that you have been writing about? Stop on into the writing center and pull up a chair, I would be happy to meet you and discuss one of my favorite topics, writing in all it’s forms and functions.