Here's How I Think About Writing:

Writing is thinking. My entire approach to learning rests on this idea: that we shape our thoughts through language, and therefore learning to manipulate, play with, and adjust our language is one way to train our minds. 

Writing is communal. Although we might feel like writing a poem and sending it into the formless void, in fact, all writing has an intended audience (whether or not that person ever sees it is a different story; sometimes the person is dead, or a past self, or a future self, or across the world). Knowledge is something we build by forming tentative ideas and testing them with other people. We ask questions, try out answers, adjust our thinking, and consider the ways in which our learning interacts with our diverse lives and backgrounds.

Writing is active, not passive. In this class especially, you will get from it what you put in. In online classes, much of our active learning takes place through reading and writing. Learning activities--whether they are discussions, annotations, quizzes, or assignments--are opportunities for you to build forms of understanding that you can use, now and in the future. Please take the assigned course activities seriously–yes, by being polite and following PCC’s guidelines for online communication–but also by understanding the assigned activities as learning opportunities. They will be valuable and beneficial if you treat them as valuable and beneficial. If you see them as boxes to check, they will be exactly that.