i write because…
In “Why I Write,” Terry Tempest Williams writes, “I write because I believe in words. I write because I do not believe in words. I write because it is a dance with paradox” (32). I’m reminded of the debate between Peter Elbow and David Bartholomae a few years ago at CCCC (and then in CCC) regarding the difference between teaching students to be a reader/critic (Bartholomae) and teaching them to be a writer (Elbow). While both Elbow and Bartholomae admit (if I remember correctly) that the read/write binary is a true binary and is a lot more complicated, I have been somewhat confused as to why we can’t do both. One of the central issues concerning this debate was that Elbow does not want to teach criticism/ways of reading because it teaches students to distrust language, and then how are they to express themselves? I think, as Williams writes, that it’s important to both trust language and distrust it.
Williams, Terry Tempest. “Why I Write.” On Writing: A Process Reader. Ed. Wendy Bishop. Boston: McGraw Hill, 2004. 31-32.
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Maybe the more students realize that language is a double edged tool (sword? sounds so agonistic - I’m finishing Deborah Tannen’s Argument Culture) - you can trust it but you have to be alert. It’s like fire - you can trust it to be itself - to burn - you can use it - it will warm you - it will light you - it can hurt you - even if it is your own fire. Does trust mean that something is so totally innocuous that it is harmless? But if so, how could it be so powerful? I put Robert Scholes’ quote about textual power on my syllabus. So far, I have only told one of the two sections - well not even the whole section, just some students - about my vision of WR 222 the Video Game, role playing with first person shooter - where they are in the semi familiar land of Rhetorica, marshalling little logos, pathos, and ethos to help them. Maybe I should add some Sim City to this game. The shooter part seems too agonistic, and yet one does need the power to defend oneself, even Tannen admits that.