All posts by Ser Francis Drake

Some Writers Just Want to Watch the World Burn

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Writing is like water. You can mold it to whatever shape you want, yet without guidelines it is shapeless, free, and random.

You hate that too? Good. Look, it isn’t that I dislike writing without guidelines, its just that there isn’t any  fun in it. You know that feeling you got when you were a kid where you would love the thrill of living on the edge, that “I know I shouldn’t be doing this” high. No? Alright fine, but humor me. Writing isn’t just about the theories and ideas you can craft or the artsy bullshit that comes out of those hipster 80 degree scarf wearers. Most of the fun in writing is knowing you’re getting away with something you shouldn’t. It’s the all or nothing gamble where you throw away the rulebook and hope for the best. Sure, people can write to make themselves feel better or to impress some audience. There is certainly some merit in those practices, but where is your sense of adventure? Back home with my other failing grades, Dylan, now get on with whatever point you’re making so I can comment on it and move on. I guess that’s a fair response from someone as focused and important as you. Whatever, I’ll get to it. You’re wrong. Everything you know is wrong. Your letters, your reading, and most of all, your writing. It isn’t that you don’t try, no you follow directions to the letter and make sure that you’ve covered everything. However in the end, the finished product doesn’t stand out. It doesn’t hook people in or create controversy. It just exists and like the hundreds of millions of other papers written by people like you all over the world, it is wrong.

Writing style doesn’t have to be breathtaking. Sometimes single lines of text are the most powerful. The key thing to remember is to be different. People remember different, they study it and try to fit it into their broken systems so that it can be neatly categorized away and forgotten like last year’s Chem test. Taking risks with writing isn’t easy, you’re going to fail. You’re going to get people that hate it and won’t read past the third line. Fine. Perfect. I wasn’t writing for You anyhow. Not being afraid to take risks is how progress is made. It’s how most advances in technology took place, and it should be the center of your writing process. When you take risks you push yourself and struggle with the systems in place. Risk taking shows that you’re thinking on more than one level. It grows upon the struggle of literacy and branches into every aspect of life. Instead of that bland research paper, you’ve got yourself a series of interviews with children affected by war-torn cities and a narrator that is trying desperately to hold on to a thread of the comfortable past. That is how you write a summary of the children in World War II.

Why is it important? Oh you’re still reading? I thought I’d lose you somewhere in my “wrong” insults. Either way, the importance of risk taking is in the betterment of the writer. Betterment meaning that you step away from that work thinking, “I really like this idea I’ve decided to work with, it isn’t ordinary.” But betterment means more too, it means the unequaled ability to question your surroundings and draw conclusions from every aspect of a work. Betterment means gaining courage to tackle those issues nobody wants to touch and willingness to make enemies. That is how you should write. Write in a fiery defiance that anybody should dare confine your ideas to one space. And above all else, when you write to better yourself, who cares what other people think. They’re all phonies anyhow.

Calvin and Hypers

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In 1985 my favorite comic strip began. It detailed a small boy and his “friend” though some may simply call it his imagination. It didn’t take long for the strip to become famous. I was three when the strip ended. Before the final strip was made, there were hundreds of theories on how it would end. The one that hit me hardest was one that demonstrated the effects of attention focusing pills. The strip didn’t end on this note, but the point of this mystery author still hits home.

Flash forward 19 years, to the day that I read about Hyper and Deep Attention. What bothers me most about this essay is that there isn’t an opinion. Nowhere in this article is there an opinion or a fact that I can rub against, ruffling everyone’s feathers and producing discussion. The worst part about this is that modes of attention and effects of media are so freaking interesting. She paints these two perfect pictures of two different methods of learning or attention and doesn’t give us anything to do besides agree. Its a paper that calls an issue to attention, yet it only functions as a basic definition of the issue.

How does literacy play into this? Simple, attention determines level of interaction with the world of cognitive thought. When engaging deep attention readers are able to concentrate wholly on the task at hand while sacrificing attention to the environment around themselves. This means one thing. An uninterrupted stream of consciousness and understanding to that wonderful world of upper level literal thought. This allows for the reader to quickly internalize and interact with the texts and to develop better thoughts. I’m not knocking Hyper attention just yet, but the benefits of Deep attention on creating that upper level of literate understanding is too exciting to jeopardize. Unlike Hayles, I lean towards this type of thought. It not only creates better experiences, but like she mentions early on, is the mark of a civilized education. On top of this it allows for imaginary worlds to develop. Not the kind that someone else prepares for you, but the imaginary world that you create on your own, from your own ideas, with your own rules.

Hyper attention on the other hand slinks into this topic right at the end and attempts to validate itself. Multitasking is great in the non-literate world. It ensures that you can prepare multiple parts of your dinner at once or other shallow thought tasks. Now this doesn’t mean its useless, but Hyper attention has no right to even be remotely discussed as educationally relevant. You know what you get when you rush your ideas?  You get rotten ideas. The kind of ideas that lead to broken ribs or mild concussions.

Literacy isn’t for those unwilling to experience it wholly. True literacy is for those who are willing to work with an idea and get lost in it. To sit in a bed for the entire day daydreaming. So you can keep your loud music and constant distractions, I prefer to explore.

 

P.S. I’ll leave this here for anyone who is looking for a good cry.

Cringe, Blink, Wince, and Accept.

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Every generation is worse than the one before it. At least, according to every educational article ever. Either Americans are getting worse at every subject, or the rest of the world is pulling themselves out from below a country trying too hard to please everyone. The big hero fails and the small countries of the world rise.

However, what if it is the culture of America that is actually holding the nation back. Stuck in a rut and pushing a system down the throats of uninterested and disconnected youth, American culture won’t admit that it is the poor expectations that are causing the problems instead of the youth themselves. Scapegoat appears! Television, technology, ideology, minorities, spell check,  educational failure, and parents can all share the blame for this poor performance depending on the author’s views. Strong literacy skills aren’t needed anymore, and the gears of the government spitting out the call for literacy are simply coated in old residue.

Johnny can write, not well, but Johnny can do more than write. He can think. In a world dominated by ingenuity, Johnny just jumped to the front of the career line. High ceilings. Writing isn’t as important anymore, our youth don’t have to be poets showing masterful command of the English language because they produce matter and not art. Strong writing command,  the real careers don’t require it, some careers can work around it, and the minimum wage careers don’t need it. Literacy shouldn’t be measured by reading ability or writing ability. Literacy should be measured by depth of thought, that, and the ability to string together a sentence so that the average reader can pull the gist of it from the ugly sentence Johnny just threw together Frankenstein style.

Borders Inside the Nation

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Literacy does not grant citizenship. Nor does it deny it. In fact, literacy should be held above these trivial issues and held upon the same level as critical thought. To be blunt, yes, reading incorrect grammar that switches in and out of the first person or that tosses around articles and verbs like a salad causes this aspiring English teacher to cringe. However, no matter the height of the horse being ridden, it would be careless to deem those same butchers as lower citizens. Literacy does not rely on one ubiquitous language, and it certainly doesn’t revolve around only English. This should lead to the obvious, an immediate divorce between Literacy and Citizenship.

The opposing side of every argument must be fully understood in order for an opinion to be drawn out. Thus, it must be understood that in the attempt to maintain a national identity, America has based its literacy tests on the native language of the country. This statement essentially says; If you want to live and prosper within OUR borders, vote in OUR elections, and be protected by OUR military, then you must be Literate in the English language. On top of all of this, in a world ruled by capitalism, the government places a hefty charge on the test. The idea is simple, assimilate and appease, or forfeit the basic rights given to those willing to do so.

It is odd that a country founded on immigration should receive new immigrants with such hostility. It is even more unusual that they should place such restrictions on these immigrants. The issue at hand however, remains to be Literacy. To these immigrants–in this system– Literacy means citizenship. Literacy is the gate to basic rights, and in collaboration with previous definition, Literacy becomes tough to obtain. This leads to the question, after understanding each side, where do you stand?

Blessed are the Literate, for they shall inherit the earth.

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Most reading occurs as like a quiet stroll through the woods. Sometimes the woods are less than ideal, and you end up knee deep in puddles struggling to get through it. And then, there’s Mike Rose. Rose’s work cascades down upon you like being at the bottom of a waterfall.

This wasn’t my first time encountering Rose as an author, nor was it even my first time reading this particular chapter. “I Just Wanna Be Average” is not only one of my favorite readings, but also has a unique ability to relate to the reader. Perhaps this is due to the storytelling element rather than a strict literary critique, but the chapter still expresses ideas if the reader is willing to submerge.

Driven home by a few different sections, Rose explains how new facets of his life helped him develop. He beings with the chemistry set, moves on to his storytelling in the back of a truck, dances with the stars in the sky, and finally–with the help of a dedicated teacher–ends with his immersion into the literary world. All of these facets share a common bond in their ability to harbor creativity. Rose wasn’t a memorize the facts and regurgitate them later kind of learner, he preferred to allow his imagination to explore. This is the key to understanding literacy, as it applies to Mike Rose.

Literacy as it applies here opens up Rose’s world. It is the idea that the experimental is good. Literacy breeds the idea; better a fabulous failure than a boring success. It encourages the those willing to try new things to push their boundaries. To truly be literate, one must first be willing to fail time and time again. We covered this in class when we talked about our frustrations learning to read. Rose also hits on this fact. He talks about how proficient he became at looking interested in a class. Rose also explains the normal defense mechanism of daydreaming to alleviate pressure. What Rose doesn’t do is praise these thoughts. Instead, he combats them by telling us stories of his success through his motivation. Thus, Literacy is the idea of struggle, to better oneself and expand your world.

Now, while I’m fairly certain that I’ll take some flak for this idea already. I made sure to bold the point of this ramble, simply to make it easier for people to identify my point and allow for discussion. Rather, what I’m trying to get at it seems is the question, “Do you agree and should the idea of literacy be surrounded by the struggle to learn while being surrounded by failure. Or would you prefer to think that literacy is a wholly inclusive idea which can be achieved by anyone.”

 

A Quest Begins

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I never liked reading. Never. As a kid I would “accidentally” spill things on my books all the time so that I didn’t have to read them. I avoided any kind of inside activity like a vampire avoids the morning sun. That is, until I discovered Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye”.

I was able to read well before I had picked up this particular book, but none of them held my attention or caused me to think in the same way that this one did. The childhood me wasn’t actually understanding the novels, I was just remembering the order of facts that occurred. Starting with Sallinger’s novel, I read anything and everything. I wanted to explore the ends of Middle Earth, the depths of the Pacific, and the wild country along the Mississippi river towns. My first memories of literacy emerge when I experienced a phenomenon I’ve described to others as “culture shock”. Culture shock is that moment when you put down a book, and no matter how hard you try, your brain still operates in the laws of the novel you’re reading. After a while you would struggle free and come up for air in the real world. Awakened, confused, and disappointed, I first defined my modern thoughts of literacy to include only this brief phenomenon.

It isn’t possible to consider yourself truly literate unless you’re willing to be changed.