My dialectical notebook: Lamott, King, Diaz

Hopefully, by looking at what I am doing here, you will get an idea of how to do your own dialectical notebook.  You get to pick what you are responding to.  In the process, you will have hopefully had a fuller experience reading and have connected with the text better.

Anne Lamott, "Shitty First Drafts"
I like this section because Lamott comes across as truthful.  She is saying what Allen tried so hard to say:  that everyone works at writing (except for her).  And she is managing to be funny about it.	"I have known some very great writers, writers you love who write beautifully and have made a great deal of money, and not one of them sits down routinely feeling wildly enthusiastic and confident.  Not one of them writes elegant first drafts.  All right, one of them does, but we do not like her very much" (301).
Process.  The final product is often worth the work.  Lamott is telling her reader that writers are not what Allen would call the Inspired Writer.	"We all often feel like we are pulling teeth, even those writers whose prose ends up being the most natural and fluid.  The right words and sentences just do not come pouring out like ticker tape most of the time" (301).
I agree.  I have never found writing rapturous.  And as I get older and have a better idea of what I am doing, my first drafts get worse and more painful in the making.	"For me and most of the other writers I know, writing is not rapturous.  In fact, the only way I can get anything written at all is to write really, really shitty first drafts" (302).
This is a first part of the writing process.  This is where words first meet paper.  This is where we find direction.  Mine don't look like this, but I have had quite a few students who find what they are looking for at the end of their writing and not at the beginning.	Just get it all down on paper, because there may be something great in those six crazy pages that you would never have gotten to by more rational, grown-up means.  There may be something in the very last line of the very last paragraph on page six that you just love, that is so beautiful or wild that you now know what you're supposed to be writing about, more or less, or in what direction you might go—but there was not way to get to this without first getting through the first five and a half pages" (302).
Should I admit to this one?  I have never had dogs, but I understand and identify with the metaphor.  I know how hard some writing pushes to get on paper and never wanted to know the consequences of keeping it in.  This may be why some writers carry notebooks/daybooks/journals around like Steven King carries books.  I do both.	And there are also the dogs:  let's not forget the dogs, the dogs in their pen who will surely hurtle and snarl their way out if you ever stop writing, because writing is for some of us, the latch that keeps the door of the pen closed, keep those crazy ravenous dogs contained" (303).
Stephen King, "What Writing Is"
They are transporting.  I like this phrase because there is no other thing that can transport a person to another world and be so engaging that pain and the rest of the "real" world is tuned out.	"books are a uniquely portable magic" (305).
I do this.  I carry books to read at any given moment.  Having a smart phone has only made carrying the books easier.  I currently have five of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Mars books on my phone for when I have the moments to read them. I agree with the purgatory comment.  And it is funny.	"You just never know when you'll want an escape hatch:  mile-long lines at tollbooth plazas, the fifteen minutes you have to spend in the hall of some boring college building waiting for your advisor (who's got some yank-off in there threatening to commit suicide because he/she is flunking Custom Kurmfurling 101) to come out so you can get his signature on a drop-card, airport lounges, laundromats on rainy afternoons, and the absolute worst, which is the doctor's office when the guy is running late and you have to wait half and hour in order to have something sensitive mauled.  At such times a book is vital.  If I have to spend time in purgatory before going to one place or another, I guess I'll be all right as long as there's a lending library (if there is it's probably stocked with nothing but novels by Danielle Steel and Chicken Soup books, ha-ha, joke's on you, Steve)" (305-06).
The magic of books allows a reader to enter the conceived world of the author.	"We're having a meeting of the minds" (307).
Writing is serious business.  Some writers do have the weight of worlds upon them.  A beginning writer, or any who is starting a new page, should revere the process and how daunting that blank page can be.	"Come to it any way but lightly.  Let me say it again:  you must not come lightly to the blank page" (307).
Junot Diaz, "Becoming a Writer"
I know this place.  It is transitional.  I like this section because it gives form to a place that many writers have been.	"All the other novels I tried sucked worse than the stalled one, and even more disturbing, I seemed to have lost the ability to write short stories.  It was like I had somehow slipped into a No-Writing Twilight Zone and I couldn't find an exit" (319).
I agree.  It is like anything.  If you give up, despair, scare away, not work at it, you won't be accomplished at it.  It won't be worth the doing.	"You see, in my view a writer is a writer not because she writes well and easily, because she has amazing talent, because everything she does is golden.  In my view a writer is a writer because even when there is no hope, even when nothing you do shows any sign of promise, you keep writing anyway" (320).

McCloud

Here is the video we watched in class (in case you want to watch it again):

Scott McCloud:  Understanding Comics

You will also want to remember to write a 100 word response to the video that connects it to the reading, which should then be posted on your blog.

Also, those of you who are looking at constructs related to authorial identity and/or personal pronouns may want to look at Donald Murray's other article in your WAW book, "All Writing is Autobiography."

Comic

For Monday (September 10) you are engaging visuals.

Here is something I came across that connects with what we are doing in class (click to enlarge):

and this one (click to enlarge):

Project #1 Topic Proposals

If you have not yet, please either post your current Project #1 Topic Proposal on your blog or send it to me via email.  Please do this today by midnight.  Also, please note any difficulty that you had searching for articles.

Those of you who were searching for terms related to how the author comes across in the writing may want to look at "authorial identity," "authorial persona," "authorial intent," "personal pronouns," and "first person pronouns."

One more thing:  the slideshow used in class today has been posted on Blackboard under the Course Documents tab.  AND you have a lot of reading and responding to do next week.  You might start early.

As always, please let me know if you need any help of cannot find the information you are looking for.
Have a good weekend.

Assignments and Response Groups for September 10, 12, and 14

September 10

READ:  ROW: McCloud, "Vocabulary of Comics" (p. 2); Berger, "Ways of Seeing" (posted on Blackboard)

DUE:  (Questions on Blackboard in the Apparati folder under the Assignments tab))

• McCloud:  one "Before You Read" activity; Reading Response, and answer QD 2 and AE 1 and 4
• Berger:  one "Before You Read" activity; Reading Response; and answer QD 2 and 3, AE 3, and MM 

Response groups

1. Michael and Peter
2. Wesley and George
3. Taylor and Megan
4. Quinn and Greg
5. Gina and Aaron
6. Allison Sharpe (respond to the blog of your choice)
7. Allison Shenk and JD
8. Abby and Aubrey
9. Maia and Ally

September 12

READ:  ROW: Allen, "The Inspired Writer vs. The Real Writer" (p. 29), WAW: Chapter 2 Introduction, "Writing Processes:  How Do You Write?" (p. 170), Berkenkotter, "Decisions and Revisions:  The Planning Strategies of a Publishing Writer" and Murray, "Response of a Laboratory Rat--or, Being Protocoled" (p. 216)

DUE:  (Questions for Allen posted on Blackboard)

• Allen:  one "Before You Read" activity; Reading Response; and answer QD 2 and 3, and AE 2.
• Berkenkotter and Murray:  one "Before You Read" activity; Reading Response; and answer  QD 1 and 3, AE 1, and MM

Response groups

1. Michael and Ally
2. Wesley and Peter
3. Taylor and George
4. Quinn and Megan
5. Gina and Greg
6. Allison Sharpe and Aaron
7. Allison Shenk (respond to blog of your choice)
8. Abby and JD
9. Maia and Aubrey

September 14

READ:  RAW:  Elbow, "Voice in Writing Again:  Embracing Convictions" (p. 46);  WAW:  Lamott, "Shitty First Drafts" (p. 301), King, "What Writing Is" (p. 305), and Diaz, "Becoming a Writer" (p. 319)

DUE:  (Questions for Elbow posted on Blackboard)

• Elbow:  one "Before You Read" activity; Reading Response; and answer QD 1 and 4, AE 2, one "Connecting to Other Readings" question, and MM.
• Dialectical Notebook for Lamott, King, and Diaz (template posted on Blackboard in the Apparati folder)

Response groups

1. Michael and Aubrey
2. Wesley and Ally
3. Taylor and Peter
4. Quinn and George
5. Gina and Megan
6. Allison Sharpe and Greg
7. Allison Shenk and Aaron
8. Abby (respond to blog of your choice)
9. Maia and JD

Friday, September 7

On Friday, September 7, we will meet in Gordy 009.  You need to do three things for Friday's class:

1. Reply to someone who has commented on your blog.
2. Visit the Eng 1510 website set up by Lorraine Wochna in the Library.  Explore the site, especially the "Writing About Writing" tab and the "Tutorials" tab.
3. Watch the 5 videos on the "Tutorials" tab, and write three 100+ word summaries over the videos of your choice.  Please post these summaries on your blog before the beginning of class on Friday.

Rhetorical Situation

You might find this image helpful as your read Kantz.