Writing Doesn't Just Happen.

            My expectations of this class were initially very amorphous. I had the good fortune, based on the opinions expressed in some of your blogs, to test out of College Writing in my freshman year. But, that meant that I’d have to dust of the parts of my brain that used to process the hidden nuances of literature and composition, parts that had not seen the light of day since my senior year in high school. For that reason, I was both excited and a bit weary to be thinking this way again.

            I think one of the ever-evolving foundations of AWD, based on what we have covered thus far, is the idea that all writing occurs with a sense of purpose, recognition of the desire to write. From something as trivial as a tweet claiming ‘I’m eating a sandwich’ to something more substantial like a paper for this class, people are driven to write by some compulsion, whether internal or external, or both. It is this compulsion that interests me most. To communicate in this way, because it takes more effort to organize you’re words on a screen or page than it does to let them flow freely from your mouth, indicates a response to a greater stimulus and the desire to do something, physically, about it. I feel that this class, in various ways, has made us aware of the reasons why we write, not just how we write.

            This course has culminated in a focus on our fields of study/professions, in terms of the genres we employ and why. But I have found myself applying the question why to other instances of writing completely separate from our studies and workplaces. Communication, in terms of the mediums that exist today, calls upon the written word more so than the verbal. While it can be argued that these media in some ways diminish the power of face-to-face communication, I have found they offer interesting insights into human behavior in this day and age. For example people pen tweets, wall posts, status updates, text messages, etc. constantly. And the physical manifestation of their thought process says a great deal. People today are becoming more comfortable with the idea of writing a feeling than they are speaking it, despite the extra effort needed to do so. In fact, the extra effort is considered less of a hassle than having to dealing with someone in person.

            Tying this back to AWD, I think taking an English course again, and having to write papers that force me to formalize thoughts, has made me hyper-aware of how pervasive this form of communication is in my daily life, both work and play. It has made me contemplate the times that I choose to tweet something I find clever or moving or informational, the times I choose to text rather than call, and why. It all comes down to that. It is impossible to scratch the surface of that question in 500 words, but that is my takeaway from Advanced Writing in the Disciplines. That writing doesn't just happen.