I am an English major. The usual response I hear from people when I tell them that is “I hate English,” or “How are you ever going to find a job?” or even “Ew, why?” I understand that most people don’t enjoy English as much as my classmates and I do, but it always does hurt to hear that view of a subject that I obviously hold so highly. Why don’t people see English and writing as I do? Why don’t they see how powerful, important and transformative it can be?
In my rhetoric class, we have been reading “Naming What We Know” which lays out a number of threshold concepts of writing studies. I realized some of these threshold concepts form a foundation for how I personally understand and participate in the act of writing, which I’d like to share with you all. I think it will help you to see why I love my major so much, and why I finally feel like I’ve found where I belong in college. English has always been my favorite ever since I can remember. I have always loved to write. There was just something about language and the power of writing that made me feel great. I’ve never been able to express myself well verbally because I’m a very nervous person. I feel like I can never verbally express myself as well as I can through writing. My teachers picked up on my strong writing skills at a young age and every year I could count on that being one of the best things they had to say about me. That began to reinforce me that I was a good writer, and encouraged me to strive to always be better. This stayed with me through high school. When applying to colleges I completely stressed myself out because I couldn't find a major I felt good about. I wanted to go for English but everyone, including my family, told me that wasn’t feasible or rational and I’d never find a job. I actually applied to college as an English major, but when enough people told me these crazy things, I started to believe it. I was crushed, because it was the one subject I loved and the one gift I felt like I had was my writing ability. I went through my whole senior year of high school and freshman year of college feeling this way—like the one thing I felt like I was good at was useless in the real world because that’s what everyone kept telling me. I ended up going into college undecided because of this, and feeling completely lost and miserable for my first year and a half of college. I let my family influence me into being a business major because then I’d get a job after I graduate, but I was miserable. I hated it. But then I found my way back to English with the help of Ball State’s wonderful English Department and their Stars to Steer By programs. Once I was writing again, I felt like I was a completely different person. I was much more confident and happy and enjoyed doing what I was doing. I found my way back to being an English Studies major, with minors in business, creative writing and professional writing. What changed in my mind about writing after being away at college for a couple years to make me comfortable and excited about being in a major focused around English and Writing? I’ve realized that writing is integrative. It is an important technology and tool (26). Writing mediates everything. Think about the writing on stop signs and other road signs. What if we didn’t have writing? It would impact our daily lives immensely. How would you ever pass classes without writing? Or how could you do something as simple as make a grocery or to do list? What about sending an important email to your boss without writing? If you try to tell me writing isn’t important in everyone’s daily lives, I challenge you to try to go one day without writing or using writing. See how far you get. Written words last longer than speech. What about the Ten Commandments? Would we know about them today if they weren’t written down? What about the Constitution? Or laws in general? Writing of the Ten Commandments, the Constitution, and laws allowed for more people to see them over a longer period of time. Writing is a technology in which writers create and recreate meaning (32). Writing can be seen as a technology for thinking and communicating. Tools and media shape how and what we can write, and those ideas can express and condition the expectation of those reading it. For example, writing an essay on the computer shapes how we can write within that technology (32). Furthermore, digital technologies and today's widespread use of social media has also shaped our writing. Today's connectivity allows people to access and participate in writing without really giving it a thought that that’s what they’re doing.. For example, Facebook and Wikipedia allow for huge collaborative writing projects. Social media sites are really pretty much micro blogs, and blogs are where writer’s often share their writing. With as much as we use digital technologies and social media in today's society, writing is used much more than we realize in our daily lives. Writing is irreversible; it creates change that’s permanent. “Written messages can circulate from one material and social situation to another, and in fact are usually intended to. A newspaper report about events in one city is read in another, even in another country, and further events have evolved between writing and reading. A poem written for a small circle of friends is read centuries later in a literature classroom” (36). Writing lives on, often long after we meant for it to. This creates a permanent change because once writing is published, it’s out there for everyone to read. Writing represents the world, ideas, events and feelings (37). We typically talk or write about things we see or do, our feelings, or our thoughts (38). We don’t always think about how the things we write about are represented, which actually changes what is shared and how people think about the things we write about. We learn about history throughout our education through books and writing. This writing we read shapes our views on history. Writing about our ideas and feelings can create a change in views by putting information out in the open that wasn’t known by all before. Writing about the world can put information out there that we may never be able to know about if we didn’t live in the part of the world where it happens/ed, but through writing we can access this information. In each case, the language the writer uses definitely has the power to influence how the reader will view the information, so this should be kept in mind. Writing is transformative; it changes the way you think and view the world. The last one can also fit in with this concept, but I think the most important point to make under this is how writing creates and enacts identities and ideologies. This is probably my favorite threshold concept. Ideology means system of ideas and beliefs that together create a worldview (48). Writing is very much linked to our identity and ideologies (50). We can write to develop a sense of who we are, and to display our identity. Similarly, every writer’s histories, processes and identities vary (52). No one’s experience are the same; every writer is unique in that way. Writing is informed by our prior experiences, which shape who we are and shapes our writing (54). Lastly, writing provides a representation of ideologies and identities (57). I resonate with the identity forming of writing the most, and this goes back to my period of struggle in figuring out my true identity between my senior year of high school and sophomore year of college. Once I started writing again, it helped me to figure out who I am and who I want to be, and lead me to pursue a different degree entirely. I believe that writing will continue to help shape my identity, just as my identity will continue to shape my writing. Adler-Kassner, Linda, and Elizabeth A. Wardle. Naming What We Know: Threshold Concepts of Writing Studies. Utah State University Press, 2016.
0 Comments
|
AuthorI'm a junior at Ball State University. I'm an English major with minors in creative writing, professional writing and business. I love traveling, dogs, and Doctor Who. ArchivesCategories |