Reading 1: “All Writing is Autobiography” by Donald M. Murray
Reading 2: “Excellent Academic Writing Must Be Serious” by Michael Theune
Choice: I wanted to read “Excellent Academic Writing Must Be Serious” by Michael Theune because the title of this essay convinced me that it would encourage risk taking in writing.
Summaries: Both of these essays express how academic writing can be personal and creative. In “All Writing is Autobiography,” Murray argues that personal narrative should not be discouraged in the classroom and instead should be given a greater emphasis in education. He makes this case by explaining how every text is unique to its author in some way and by using examples of his own writing to show how all work is autobiographical. In “Excellent Academic Writing Must Be Serious,” Theune argues that the use of humor should be encouraged in academic writing and that teaching how to write humor can teach students how to apply style to their writing. Like his title sarcastically suggests, Theune uses this piece to challenge the notion that academic writing should be objective and boring.
Prompt 2: Both of these essays made me think about the importance of incorporating voice in creative and academic writing. Reading Murray’s essay reminded me of my exploratory essay because my essay was also all about how I think academic writing should be subjective. I like how Murray makes it clear that our experiences shape how we write even when we are writing about things that did not necessarily happen to us. Murray mentions that, “Those of us who write have only a few topics” (226), and I thought that this was interesting because it reminded me that good writing is passionate and shows some kind of connection to the author’s life. This also got me thinking about our class discussion about standardized tests and how students are always asked to respond to a specific prompt, and I know that I never considered my standardized test essays to be good writing, and now I think a big part of that is because I was not passionate about the topics and I didn’t feel encouraged to include my sense of style in my responses. Theune’s emphasis on style also reminded me of writing my exploratory essay because of the challenges I faced while writing. This assignment served as the first time that I can remember where I was encouraged to take some writing risks and explore my voice. Theune states that, “Style often is the first element of writing to go when it comes to teaching young writers—in favor of elements such as developing a thesis, supporting that thesis with evidence, and putting a staple in the upper-lefthand corner” (182), and this was definitely my experience throughout middle and high school. I know that in my future classes I want to encourage students to find their voice and write with authority through encouraging them to write about topics they are passionate about, and I want them to recognize that academic writing can absolutely be personal and funny!
Prompt 5: Reading “Excellent Academic Writing Must Be Serious” reminded me of reading “Only Geniuses Can Be Writers” because of the emphasis both placed on collaboration. Theune discusses how humor is not born from isolation by saying,“The collaboration humor calls for is not just collaboration with other people—it’s also collaboration with other texts, other sources”(183). This reminded me that academic writing serves as a part of a conversation and in order to contribute to the conversation you have to be aware of what is being said. In “Only Geniuses Can Be Writers,” authors Edwards and Paz also discuss the importance of collaboration by stating that good writing, “ [...] isn’t predicated on values of isolation, inward inspiration, or originality; rather, it sees values in sharing, explicit influence, and renewal” (68). I think that this idea of collaboration in writing is definitely something worth sharing with my future students because if they can view writing in this way it can remove some of the pressure they may feel about having to appear original in all their thoughts. Also, I just love the idea of establishing a community of writers, and I think that using collaboration, even if it is just with different texts rather than with different people, will help students to recognize themselves as a writer and show that they have something to contribute to the conversations happening in the real world.
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