Hairston

The point I'd most like to explore is the idea that critical thinking skills go by the wayside in a writing course focused on ideology. The purpose of freshman writing classes should be to learn how to think. By learning critical thinking skills, we can develop more organized ideas which will aid us in writing. I'm not entirely convinced that ideological discussion based classes bar critical thinking. By learning about these issues and conversing with our peers, we're taking these ideas and internalizing them, organizing them, and shaping them -  that's a huge part of the writing pre-writing process.

Of course it is necessary to include the non-thinking part of the writing process in the course, but I think it's perfectly acceptable to emphasize thinking and discussion in a freshman writing class to enable the development of ideas and thinking skills.

Delpit on Critical Thinking

Delpit makes the point that many school systems don't allow for the development of critical thinking skills. It's definitely a valid concern, and stood out most to me. Schools are so intent on producing good test scores that they don't provide a method for learning to critically analyze and apply learning to our lives. Often, the course material even becomes watered down to simulate overall better grades.

Critical thinking is the most important building block in the writing process. It allows us to extend our ideas and develop them. Students who lack critical thinking  produce one-dimensional writing. If classrooms and teaching styles included more conversational based learning and peer interaction, where students could draw their own conclusions and apply it to their lives, I think student writing would be much more effective.

Writing and Technology

The affect that writing has on technology is certainly interesting in the new dynamic that has been created, but what is most interesting to me is the affect writing for social media, in particular, has on our attention spans.

Tweets are limited to 140 characters. Facebook statuses are limited to 420. Samsung has developed new technology to make texting even faster. Interactive media tends to be even shorter than the typical middle school relationship - making it perfect for today's youth. It allows us to pay as little attention as possible to what is being said. How can we expect students to write coherently and develop ideas when they are used to spending, at most,a minute, reading and responding to a tweet, a status update or a text?

Kindle your creativity: 3 tactics to help you bolster your writing

By: Ann Wylie

Authors’ shining examples are out there, waiting to inspire
After 15 years of schlepping books from sea to shining sea, I can now fit all of my reading materials into my purse, thanks to Kindle.
I thought the thing I’d love most about my e-reader would be the extra mini-fridge-size space it leaves in my luggage for necessities like thick Marimekko sweaters and airport-size Fazer chocolate bars that I collect on my trips. It turns out that my favorite feature is “My clippings,” a tool that transforms my highlights and notes into text that I can transfer to my laptop.
After a couple of months of using my e-reader, I decided to review my clippings. What I found will help me — and, I hope, you — model the masters, or steal techniques from some of the year’s best writers to make your own writing more creative and compelling.
1. Use metaphor, not modifiers. One problem with modifiers — thin, lean, straight — is that they don’t paint pictures in your readers’ heads. Instead describing your subject with adjectives and adverbs, engage your readers’ senses with analogy.
Meg Gardiner used this technique to describe a charismatic religious leader in her Edgar Award-winning mystery, China Lake:
“Peter Wyoming didn’t shake hands with people; he hit them with his presence like a rock fired from a sling-shot. He was a human nail, lean and straight with brush-cut hair, and when I first saw him he was carrying a picket sign and enough rage to scorch the ground.”
Find yourself writing an adjective or adverb? Could you develop an analogy instead?
2. Coin a word.
Rebecca Goldstein is quite the neologist. In 36 Arguments for the Existence of God, she creates half-and-half words in this passage.
“Auerbach harbors such impatience for the glib literati—the ‘gliberati,’ as one of his own digerati had christened them—that Cass has wondered whether there might not be some personal history.”
Can’t find just the right word? Why not make one up?
3. Twist a phrase.
To call attention to an idea, consider changing a word or two in a colloquialism to give it new meaning.
After seeing David Mamet’s Boston Marriage hilariously performed by the Kansas City Actors Theatre, I read the play to make sure I didn’t miss any lines like this phrase twister:
“ANNA: Have you taken a vow of arrogance?”
Want to call readers’ attention to your point? Surprise and delight your readers with twist of phrase.
Model the masters
Regardless of your reading technology, modeling the masters is one of the best ways to improve your writing every day. When you find a passage or phrase or word you wish you’d written, clip it, study and master the technique yourself.
The better your reading, the better your writing.
What’s in your clippings?

Thoughts

Audiences
I don’t believe in writing for anyone but myself. I don’t imagine my audience, I don’t imagine anyone reading my work, and I don’t write as though I’m writing for anyone in particular. I write what I know, what I’ve experienced, as authentically and truthfully as I can, for no other purpose than to convey a truth.

There is too much emphasis placed on audience centered writing in academic settings. When students try to imagine the audience they are writing for, the writing becomes overworked, oversimplified and its intent is lost. The writing becomes technical, perhaps even formulaic, and inhibits the depth and introspective nature of the work.
If we were all to write without an audience in mind we would be able to find so much more in the writing. If we could immerse ourselves in our writing without giving any thought to the audience, the end result would be so much more authentic than what might have been produced had we specifically written to an imagined audience. My idea of a perfect piece of writing is one that the audience finds for itself. The audience should always choose the writing; never the other way around.
Word Choice vs. Ideas

Which comes first: the word choices or the ideas? It’s similar to the timeless question, “Which came first: the chicken or the egg?” While many feel that word choice is the instrument through which ideas are expressed and therefore ideas come first, I think it’s the word choice that comes first.

For me the ideas are a result of the perfect word choice. Word choice allows ideas to grow organically –  it gives the ideas the flesh they need to have poignancy and truth. If the right word isn’t there, an unstated idea that the author intends to let up to the reader discover may fall flat. 

Brugee

I don't have much a response to this, mostly because I agree with everything that's said.

I especially agree with where he speaks of the importance of introspection. It seems me that many students are focused on learning about the opinions. Understanding various perspectives is one thing; internalizing those perspectives to increase self understanding is much different. I feel collaborative learning allows for the sharing of perspectives among students, but it can often stop short of aiding the student in applying knowledge to themselves. The whole point of gaining wisdom and insight is understand yourself. More emphasis should be placed on this aspect of collaborative learning since the learning style is the perfect set up for allowing students to gain the insight by learning from example.

Cognitive Development

I was so glad to see someone else write about the fact that many students do not possess critical thinking skills. It's something I've struggled to articulate (no surprises there) and I was relieved to have someone express the very things I've been trying to put my finger on for quite some time.

Writing for academic purposes alone explain this lack of ability to analyze and apply given information to other situations. In the academic setting, many teachers spit information at us; often times we are not given an opportunity to formulate our own opinions because of the pace of the discussion.

Writing about said subject should an avenue for us to explore a topic, to understand it more fully. However, I feel that (academic) writing, which is the majority of writing, is so often aimed at proving a point rather than discovering a topic. In proving a point, students often develop a certain formula for proving a thesis. In doing so, they often lose the ability to freely analyze information and gain insight. Again, this seems to be a result of process thinking rather than product thinking.