GOLDIE GIBSON’s response to 2008 NCTE Presidential Address: The Impulse to Compose and the Age of Composition

Kathleen Blake Yancey begins this article with the history of writing beginning in 1776.  She discusses how writing has changed over the last century, how it is changing in the current moment, and for consideration of what this history and current practice mean for the teaching of composition in the twenty-first century.  She breaks these considerations into four quartets.

                        Quartet One: An Impulse to Compose Tested

Quartet Two: An impulse to Compose Scaled and Experienced

Quartet Three: An Impulse to Compose Processed

Quartet Four:  An Impulse to Compose Electrified, Networked, Transformed

I will only concentrate on two of the themes in Quartet One.  In theme one, she brings to our attention that “Writing has never been accorded the cultural respect or the support that reading has enjoyed. . .” (318).”  I never quite thought of writing in that respect.  For many people, sometimes reading is easier than writing.  With reading, you take someone else’s work, read it and comment on it and then you are done.  With writing, it is work, a job.  One must use any and all parts of the brain to try and get something down on paper.  The content must be coherent.  If the content is not coherent and easily understood, then the reader or listener may not want to read or listen to the rest of your work(s). 

Theme two: Reading brought the family together with the “feelings of intimacy and warmth, while writing. . . was associated with unpleasantness. . . and episodes of despair. . .” (318).

These words are so true.  I remember as a child that I wanted my sister to read “The Night Before Christmas” in the middle of July.  On the other hand, I recall my mother saying to me, “Goldie, sit down and practice writing your name and then find a book to read.”  The writing was grueling, but the reading was very enjoyable and relaxing.  Even Donald Graves (one of the article contributors) made a similar remark:

“Handwriting was one of those early school experiences I have tried to repress.

. . . Recollections of endless circles, precise spacing, and comments about my untidiness take away my energy. I had no idea that handwriting was for writing. . .” (319).   

Overall, I seem to keep reading great articles that support the claim that we need to find ways to make writing as much of a pleasure as reading.  We as educators must find ways to take the grueling out of writing and show our students that writing can be just as relaxing as reading.