The Fun Of Writing And The Fun Of Authentic Voice

By Author: Kevin Garnnet
Total Articles: 24
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Here is a quotation by James Moffett, another past stalwart of our tribe. It's from his brief essay titled "On Essaying," the best piece I've ever read about writing that genre: "English literature has maintained a marvelous tradition [of the essay], fusing personal experience, private vision, and downright eccentricity, with intellectual vigor and verbal objectification. In color, depth, and stylistic originality it rivals some of our best poetry".

Does that characterize the kind of expository writing your students are doing? Do they see room in their essays to express private vision with color, depth, and stylistic originality? When students write, I want them to come to know that the real fun of writing is producing a no-holds-barred draft and then engaging in a conversation with the words, revising and tinkering with the language until they've come to Womens Shoes a place of satisfaction. I want students to realize that few of us get writing right with the first draft. I want them to know that they are not stuck with those essential and replaceable first words and initial ...
... thinking that volunteered them. I want students to come to know the pleasure and fulfillment that Bernard Malamud voiced: "I work with language. I love the flowers of afterthought".

In 39 years I've not tired of coaching students to write (Strong). When given latitude in topic choice, when convinced to be bold on the page, when engaged respectfully about their writing, when nudged to be specific, inventive, simpler, and clearer, students write remarkably well. There's no deeper fun in language arts.

In Crafting Authentic Voice, I argued that most appealing authentic writing voices provide substantive information, use narrative at least a little to make their points, and surprise readers with interesting perceptions. I also maintained that an authentic voice employed humor, lightness, wit. Long ago Ken Macrorie wrote directly to high school students: "You can write so persons will enjoy reading your words. Why not do that? Something sinful about enjoyment: You landed with the Mayflower? Wear a wide-brimmed tall black hat? Put on a fool's colors and be wise for fun".

I've wondered if I should have made humor not a requirement of authentic voice, but a possibility. In the world of writing, after all, there are plenty of stone-serious authentic voices. Even so, I balk and want to hold out. Often, authentic written voices I am drawn to have a lightness about them, some spark of wit, some humorous perception.

In an op-ed column in the New York Times on December 20, 2008, Bob Herbert wrote about the "war against working people in the U.S. that has taken such a vicious economic toll over the past three decades." It's a serious essay. Early on in it, though, he describes President Bush's grudging announcement Men's Shoes that emergency loans would be made available to the auto industry. Herbert uses this simile to characterize the president: "He looked like a boy who had been forced to eat his spinach."

Students can use a humorous sensibility in their writing, even their academic writing, provided they know their audience. In a written reflection speculating about her upcoming field experience in a high school classroom, Emily notes wryly, "Hopefully, I will be able to find a Muse regardless of whether the students respond well to me and my pal, Academic Rigor. Or better yet, I could just be the Muse and be satisfied. That would make waking up at 5 a.m. for two weeks quite worth it."