I had the pleasure of hearing Amy Tan speak a few days ago and one of her answers to an audience member's question intrigued me. She was asked about revising. Like most fiction writers, she spoke of her "compulsive revising" yet also spoke about one of her most reprinted pieces of writing. Mother Tongue is now read mostly in essay form and was included in the anthology, Best American Essays in 1991. This essay was written first as a speech and written quickly, without much revising. I think Amy Tan was making a point similar to the one Terry Elliot makes in his comment to Will's blog post on "Blogging As Genre" :
Weblogs get way closer to the mind's original 'chatter' than some writers are comfortable with...Perhaps this original face we see grinning in weblogs is whole in and of itself instead of being some staging area to a better place. Or perhaps it's both.I think one of Amy Tan's best pieces of non-fiction writing was created in a situation that was much like the way web log writing happens--with quickness and immediacy. It also shares the characteristics that Will mentions,
"... it's first person, it's informal, and it's opinionated."Perhaps student's web log writing will be both as Terry suggests. Original, whole written thoughts, communicating to readers and existing on a web log page read by a few or by many. Some writers may have an experience like Amy Tan and find that their writing is chosen for inclusion in collections. Others may use their web log to play with ideas, capturing their mind's chatter and making it more conversational since there is that sense that readers are lurking and can respond via comments or email. Teen writers have already coined the term POS (parent over shoulder) to describe the lurking presence
of a nearby parent when they are using instant messaging as their digital writing environment. For these writers, the feeling of someone looking over their shoulder as they write is familiar and web log writing in school may seem much the same but with TOS (teacher over shoulder).
I hope the combination of TOS and RWC (readers with comments) will bring educators closer to achieving Vygotsky's ideas of increasing the learning zone for students. In Mind in Society, Vygotsky says that the way to achieve greater learning is to combine problem solving activities with adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers. With web logs, educators have the opportunity to create a learning zone that unifies thinking and problem solving, adult guidance (teacher/guest experts), and peer collaboration. As this learning zone enhances a student's writing voice in a space that can become like a portfolio, this allows a student to impact their digital identity as knowledge collectors and creators. The skills involved take students beyond the skills used in the IM world and might help them appreciate the importance of TOS and RWC. Appreciating POS is another thing altogether.
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