Peter Stillman, 1989
Families Writing, 1989
I found this reading quite moving - as well as confirming the benefits of 'meaning-centred' rather than 'form-centred' approaches to the teaching of writing.
WRITING TO REMEMBER
Stillman makes the case that so much of what matters to us is about our family memories - as many in NWP have already found (This is the 'Floor Plan' exercise)! Yet these are sometimes so fleeting. It therefore seems an obvious thing to write them down. Not only can sharing these connect present generations, but also provide for anyone in the future precise, living accounts of sequences and feelings deeper than photographs can record. And Stillman believes that the minutiae of daily life are intrinsically more revealing than the 'big moments', so there is really no excuse for having nothing to write about! "We wait for something to happen, something worth the bother, when the liberating truth about this kind of writing is that mundane matters of life are what matter. I'd rather know William (an ancestor) for his tinkering and his toothaches than for some uncharacteristic deed, however remarkable. We're mostly what we daily do and think about, and thus there's always much to record, far more than anyone could ever put on paper.
WRITING TO FIND OUT
"I don't intend that this book be used to help youngsters earn flashy scores on standardised tests, because
a) as a society we're already far too unhealthily obsessed with scores;
and b) I've never seen a standardised writing test that had anything to do with writing's real purposes ...
The truth is that writing is a central means of learning, whether it's academic or personally revelatory. It's as much for FINDING OUT (my capitals) as reporting. Writing is for fun, too; it was never meant to be the ponderously serious medium that educators have made of it." (Hm. How much has changed in the last 24 years?) "Writing fosters vision (although it's usually, erroneously, put the other way round)" - as in the conventional sequence plan, draft, edit, proof-read, present (cf Richard Gebhardt's discussion in the next reading). Stillman also quotes EM Forster's character saying:"How can I know what I think till I see what I say?"
The extract concludes with the virtues of writing lists to jog the memory - and a good list for the purpose!
I found this reading quite moving - as well as confirming the benefits of 'meaning-centred' rather than 'form-centred' approaches to the teaching of writing.
WRITING TO REMEMBER
Stillman makes the case that so much of what matters to us is about our family memories - as many in NWP have already found (This is the 'Floor Plan' exercise)! Yet these are sometimes so fleeting. It therefore seems an obvious thing to write them down. Not only can sharing these connect present generations, but also provide for anyone in the future precise, living accounts of sequences and feelings deeper than photographs can record. And Stillman believes that the minutiae of daily life are intrinsically more revealing than the 'big moments', so there is really no excuse for having nothing to write about! "We wait for something to happen, something worth the bother, when the liberating truth about this kind of writing is that mundane matters of life are what matter. I'd rather know William (an ancestor) for his tinkering and his toothaches than for some uncharacteristic deed, however remarkable. We're mostly what we daily do and think about, and thus there's always much to record, far more than anyone could ever put on paper.
WRITING TO FIND OUT
"I don't intend that this book be used to help youngsters earn flashy scores on standardised tests, because
a) as a society we're already far too unhealthily obsessed with scores;
and b) I've never seen a standardised writing test that had anything to do with writing's real purposes ...
The truth is that writing is a central means of learning, whether it's academic or personally revelatory. It's as much for FINDING OUT (my capitals) as reporting. Writing is for fun, too; it was never meant to be the ponderously serious medium that educators have made of it." (Hm. How much has changed in the last 24 years?) "Writing fosters vision (although it's usually, erroneously, put the other way round)" - as in the conventional sequence plan, draft, edit, proof-read, present (cf Richard Gebhardt's discussion in the next reading). Stillman also quotes EM Forster's character saying:"How can I know what I think till I see what I say?"
The extract concludes with the virtues of writing lists to jog the memory - and a good list for the purpose!