Writing Project 3: A Theory of Writing
Title: A way finding
I have one thing to confess. To be honest, I had not given a thought about "Writing" itself in my life. Writing had been a way of delivering my ideas, a method of communication and a tool for organizing things in my mind; however, it was always overshadowed by contents it was delivering. If there was a miscommunication or something unclear, I tended to ascribe such failure to ideas and contents that were supposed to be delivered, not to how I wrote to communicate them. The most important lesson learned from this course during last six weeks is how I write is as much significant as what I want to write about, in terms of achieving effective and efficient communication.
A struggle that I had with my writing was I did not know how to write but also I did not recognize that I need to learn about it. At the beginning, the primary reason why I signed up for this course was not to learn about writing. I needed credits to get my AICPA license. I passed the exam and had more than enough experience, did lots of paper works to apply for a license, everything was ready except just three more credits and then boom! there it was the class. However, as I have been keeping up with the curriculum, I am getting serious about writing. I didn't know that I didn't have proper strategies and methods of writing. I didn't realize why I was diffident about writing except keeping daily journals, but now I am getting confident as I have more clear vision about where to go and how I can get there. Moreover, to be a good reader, critical thinker and writer is such an attempting goal for me.
Along with the curriculum, I've learned and practiced writing about my own things which was not familiar with me. I am a kind of person keeping thoughts with me rather than showing them to others. Even using SNS is not an exception. I don't have a blog, I have an instagram account but it is for the purpose of letting people know that I am still alive. I am not using them to show what I am thinking to other people. Thus, those writing projects were the very first attempt as far as I remember that I openned up my minds to readers.
Let's see how four outcome areas of the "WPA Outcomes Statement" have changed my writing and writing process. While I was composing the writing project #1, what I kept in my mind was rhetorical knowledge. I chose to write about my personal experience with a candlelight vigil in South Korea, therefore, I expected that readers had no knowledge regarding such a political event in a foreign country. I tried to be as detailed as possible so that readers can imagine how it was like. I used pictures and narrative tone to depict the event graphically. (the 3rd bullet point of Rhetorical Knowledge : Develop facility in responding to a variety of situations and contexts calling for purposeful shifts in voice, tone, level of formality, design, medium, and/or structure, and in terms of that I used strategies, the 4th bullet point of Critical Thinking, Reading, and Composing : Use strategies to compose texts that integrate the writer's ideas with those from appropriate sources)
Link to Writing Project #1 : http://yullyandme.weebly.com/writing-project-1.html
One of the pictures that I used in the Writing Project #1:
Title: A way finding
I have one thing to confess. To be honest, I had not given a thought about "Writing" itself in my life. Writing had been a way of delivering my ideas, a method of communication and a tool for organizing things in my mind; however, it was always overshadowed by contents it was delivering. If there was a miscommunication or something unclear, I tended to ascribe such failure to ideas and contents that were supposed to be delivered, not to how I wrote to communicate them. The most important lesson learned from this course during last six weeks is how I write is as much significant as what I want to write about, in terms of achieving effective and efficient communication.
A struggle that I had with my writing was I did not know how to write but also I did not recognize that I need to learn about it. At the beginning, the primary reason why I signed up for this course was not to learn about writing. I needed credits to get my AICPA license. I passed the exam and had more than enough experience, did lots of paper works to apply for a license, everything was ready except just three more credits and then boom! there it was the class. However, as I have been keeping up with the curriculum, I am getting serious about writing. I didn't know that I didn't have proper strategies and methods of writing. I didn't realize why I was diffident about writing except keeping daily journals, but now I am getting confident as I have more clear vision about where to go and how I can get there. Moreover, to be a good reader, critical thinker and writer is such an attempting goal for me.
Along with the curriculum, I've learned and practiced writing about my own things which was not familiar with me. I am a kind of person keeping thoughts with me rather than showing them to others. Even using SNS is not an exception. I don't have a blog, I have an instagram account but it is for the purpose of letting people know that I am still alive. I am not using them to show what I am thinking to other people. Thus, those writing projects were the very first attempt as far as I remember that I openned up my minds to readers.
Let's see how four outcome areas of the "WPA Outcomes Statement" have changed my writing and writing process. While I was composing the writing project #1, what I kept in my mind was rhetorical knowledge. I chose to write about my personal experience with a candlelight vigil in South Korea, therefore, I expected that readers had no knowledge regarding such a political event in a foreign country. I tried to be as detailed as possible so that readers can imagine how it was like. I used pictures and narrative tone to depict the event graphically. (the 3rd bullet point of Rhetorical Knowledge : Develop facility in responding to a variety of situations and contexts calling for purposeful shifts in voice, tone, level of formality, design, medium, and/or structure, and in terms of that I used strategies, the 4th bullet point of Critical Thinking, Reading, and Composing : Use strategies to compose texts that integrate the writer's ideas with those from appropriate sources)
Link to Writing Project #1 : http://yullyandme.weebly.com/writing-project-1.html
One of the pictures that I used in the Writing Project #1:
Then, I decided to investigate and write about mothers' community in South Korea for the writing project #2. I traced tensions between working mothers and stay-at-home mothers in cultural context. This time, hardship came from my ignorance of conventions. I haven't much read about such works using a lot of interviews and fieldnotes, at least in English. Therefore, at first I felt lost and purplexed as I could not decide what structure and tone I should use for the project. I frequently revisited reading materials of the week which helped me a lot. As purposes and motives are vary, writing about myself and writing about a certain community as an observer must be different in terms of genre conventions. Gradually, I could understand why and how genre conventions for structure, paragraphing, tone, and mechanics vary (the 2nd bullet point of Knowledge of Conventions).
However that was not the end of the story. As I received comments from peers and faculties, things got more complicated. I had to decide which comments are relevant and valuable for my project to make a progress while not forgetting my original intention.
Link to Writing Project #2 : http://yullyandme.weebly.com/writing-project-2.html
Feedbacks from peers and a staff:
However that was not the end of the story. As I received comments from peers and faculties, things got more complicated. I had to decide which comments are relevant and valuable for my project to make a progress while not forgetting my original intention.
Link to Writing Project #2 : http://yullyandme.weebly.com/writing-project-2.html
Feedbacks from peers and a staff:
A peer mentioned that I was looking at only negative side of the community. To some extent, I agree with this comment. However, I thought if I cover other aspects of the community, I cannot avoid a distraction from the main theme which is a conflict between two distinct sub groups. Therefore, I decided not to reflect the comment to my project even though it gave me a fresh perspective. On the other hand, I got another comment from a faculty, and this time I felt like off-guarded. As I struggled at the initial stage of the project, I didn't have much time remaining to finish my work. Consequently, the last paragraph looked like a half-done. Anyway, I have learned a lot from both of comments regardless of my decision to reflect them. (the fourth and fifth bullet points of Processes : Experience the collaborative and social astects of writing processes and Learn to give and to act on productive feedback to works in progress)
Come to think about habits of mind, I am "curious" about the things I haven't explored. Up to now I have written only about the things people won't disagree with me. As I had told my personal story, readers would have felt something about my story but that would not necessarily involved judgements or opinions. What will be different if I need to argue about certain issues? It won't be just like story telling. I wonder how I can be a good writer in such contexts. It seems like there is a mountain of boxes that I haven't touched yet. I want to open them each by each figuring out what are in there. I want to taste them, play with them and grasp them as my own.
I think developing one's theory of writing is closely related to developing one's theory of life. I love this potcast named "hidden brain" from NPR. (National Public Radio, http://www.npr.org) One of my favorite episodes is "Episode 56: getting unstuck" which covers psychological tactics to get unstuck when we feel stuck in life not knowing where to go. Dave, a radio guest of the episode who lectures at Stanford University and formerly worked as an Apple engineering designer, said that a typical problem people tend to have in such circumstance is assuming that there must be the one perfect answer for the question: what kind of life I am meant to lead? I loved the idea he said, "there is no optimal version of our lives. it could be a good life or even a great life but doesn't need to be a exclusively good." We never know if we are making exactly the right decisions or we are on the right tracks. If we are trying to live a perfect life, it will never be reachable. Instead, If we accept circumstances and start from something actionable, then we will find there is a better me that is achievable. Therefore, everytime we confront overwhelming problems in our lives, we need to figure out very honestly what are given conditions - such as gravity, and what room we have to maneuver. In a sense, this approach is more like a way finding, since we don't know where to go so we cannot navigate toward the ultimate goal. The idea of way finding is that we try something very practical and very doable, learn from how it works, reflect the original plan and then go back to the world again. The important thing is to keep doing this indefinitely. I think this approch is priceless not only for a life but also for a writing process. Rather than sitting around and thinking about what would be the ideal, trying series of experiments will lead me to be a better writer.
I have been writing about my life in previous projects, so I think it is better to finish this project with some consistency. As a part of my series of expriments, I am trying to change my career. From five years of working experience in an accounting firm, I learned some traits and idiosyncrasies of myself, which need another writing project to discuss about. In a nutshell, I figured out I love learning so much. I am so passionate about learning process as a whole - discovering subjects that attract my interest, getting to know better by trials and errors and eventually reaching a certain level so that I can enjoy it fully without much of struggles. Therefore, as an avid learner, I am planning to go graduate school to pursue a life in academia. I believe writing is getting more inalienable since now than ever. Well, I know my strategy so I won't feel diffident as I did in the past. I can write better tomorrow and I believe that is the spirit.
Come to think about habits of mind, I am "curious" about the things I haven't explored. Up to now I have written only about the things people won't disagree with me. As I had told my personal story, readers would have felt something about my story but that would not necessarily involved judgements or opinions. What will be different if I need to argue about certain issues? It won't be just like story telling. I wonder how I can be a good writer in such contexts. It seems like there is a mountain of boxes that I haven't touched yet. I want to open them each by each figuring out what are in there. I want to taste them, play with them and grasp them as my own.
I think developing one's theory of writing is closely related to developing one's theory of life. I love this potcast named "hidden brain" from NPR. (National Public Radio, http://www.npr.org) One of my favorite episodes is "Episode 56: getting unstuck" which covers psychological tactics to get unstuck when we feel stuck in life not knowing where to go. Dave, a radio guest of the episode who lectures at Stanford University and formerly worked as an Apple engineering designer, said that a typical problem people tend to have in such circumstance is assuming that there must be the one perfect answer for the question: what kind of life I am meant to lead? I loved the idea he said, "there is no optimal version of our lives. it could be a good life or even a great life but doesn't need to be a exclusively good." We never know if we are making exactly the right decisions or we are on the right tracks. If we are trying to live a perfect life, it will never be reachable. Instead, If we accept circumstances and start from something actionable, then we will find there is a better me that is achievable. Therefore, everytime we confront overwhelming problems in our lives, we need to figure out very honestly what are given conditions - such as gravity, and what room we have to maneuver. In a sense, this approach is more like a way finding, since we don't know where to go so we cannot navigate toward the ultimate goal. The idea of way finding is that we try something very practical and very doable, learn from how it works, reflect the original plan and then go back to the world again. The important thing is to keep doing this indefinitely. I think this approch is priceless not only for a life but also for a writing process. Rather than sitting around and thinking about what would be the ideal, trying series of experiments will lead me to be a better writer.
I have been writing about my life in previous projects, so I think it is better to finish this project with some consistency. As a part of my series of expriments, I am trying to change my career. From five years of working experience in an accounting firm, I learned some traits and idiosyncrasies of myself, which need another writing project to discuss about. In a nutshell, I figured out I love learning so much. I am so passionate about learning process as a whole - discovering subjects that attract my interest, getting to know better by trials and errors and eventually reaching a certain level so that I can enjoy it fully without much of struggles. Therefore, as an avid learner, I am planning to go graduate school to pursue a life in academia. I believe writing is getting more inalienable since now than ever. Well, I know my strategy so I won't feel diffident as I did in the past. I can write better tomorrow and I believe that is the spirit.