Bloggin v. Writing 


Before the Supreme Court of Opinion, or snobbery...... 

Earl wrote in his blog today about two articles that discuss whether blogging can be considered writing and why journalists hate bloggers. It tapped a real sore spot in me....

Writing Snobs

As an educator I am appalled that anyone, especially a WRITER, would tell another writer that they cannot write, or that their writing or expression is invalid.

What - do they think writing is only Dickens and Faulkner and Hemmingway? Losers.

I had to comment, somewhat angrily, on Earl's entry about it. This is something I am passionate about.

Private schools drive me looney, cause the kids we get from them CAN NOT WRITE. They know their spelling and punctuation, but they have never ever had to write more than a paragraph in their lives! And they cringe when you ask them to write --- they are terrified.

Some freakish closeted nun or monk beat them with a ruler at every spelling, capitalization or punctuation mistake. They were taught that form, grammar and correctness matters more than meaning. I see this all the time.

What we teach in public school is that writing is communication - its sending a message that will matter to others. Grammar and spelling and punctuation are conventions so that we can understand each others' messages. Our students have written a ton and do not usually fear putting pencil to paper.

I know my own brother loathes writing cause he always turned stuff in for assignments and got it back bleeeeeding red ink. so why try to communicate if they don't pay attention to your message and criticize your use of the conventions?

When I taught, I assigned two grades - one was on the content - you grabbed me, you made sense to me, or you didn't. One was for the mechanics - you used the conventions and it was easy for me to understand, or you didn't and I had to work really hard to get to your meaning.

For an adult, especially someone who writes for a living, to tell someone else who is putting their expression out there tentatively, that they are NOT writers, and should not think of the weblog or online journal or whatever as WRITING (imagine it with gold shining letters. and angels rise up around the word strumming harps because the word itself is so magnificent), that is just plain sick and sad.

How dare you? Who are you to tell me and any other blogger out there that our expression lacks meaning, substance, or does not qualify in the sacred terms as important as yours? You suck.

OK - that still tapped anger in me. grrrrrrr. My poetry may not rhyme nicely, it may follow nearly no convention whatsoever, and when I finally do read it at a slam event, everyone may go "Damn why did they let him up at the mic" but ya know what? It's mine and it has power and meaning to me. And I know that for at least one other person in the world out there who has read it there is a connection to it also...

and that is all a writer needs - to touch one other human soul with their craft. 

Posted: Sun - January 25, 2004 at 02:42 PM          
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