This week’s post is more of a general question to the blog sphere rather than a specific topic. My question here is based on my experiences over the last 3 years as a writing consultant and a teacher of freshman English composition. It seems to me that writing, even academic writing, unlocks a certain amount of emotional baggage within many students. What I mean is, as a teacher, I have had students come to me wanting to share all kinds of intimate information about how they feel when they put their thoughts down on paper. They are often intimated by the process which, in turn, leads them to visceral connections to their lives. Through their writing process, it would seem that they somehow tap into recesses of their psyche that they are otherwise unwilling to examine. In most of these instances, they weren’t writing about themselves, rather, they were fulfilling some assignment writing requirement that they had no real emotional attachment to. Somehow, the exercise of writing opens expressive doors that they aren’t quite sure how to close once they have them unlocked. There have many instances where a simple conference about a writing assignment has turned into a long, protracted counseling session. I realize that in the first instance I am talking about young, first time, college students who are often emotionally frail anyway. I might be willing to attribute it to their immaturity and inexperience, but I have had many similar experiences working in the Graduate Writing Studio at Fresno State with more seasoned, and at times, very mature adult graduate students. I have had many graduate students break down and cry, lament over their lives, and tell me about their relationships, perceived failures, and regrets all while asking me specific questions about APA formatting and literature review structure for their class assignment papers in an economics or linguistics class. So my question to you all, oh learned blogistas is:
Why?
Why does the process of writing an academic paper become so personal to these students? What is it about composition that leads beginning academic writers as well as veteran graduate students to believe that they are leaving a piece of their soul on the page? I find it both unnerving and quite beautiful at the same time. Yet, I am at a loss to fully explain or understand this phenomenon. So I leave it to you at there that have far more experience than I. As a teacher, consultant and academic writer myself, I would appreciate your thoughts. Thank you in advance.
William Anderson
Graduate Writing Studio of Fresno State
fresno state graduate writing studio 