While in college, there are many requirements that need to be completed before being allowed to graduate. Requirements include some classes in the arts, the music, the English, the sciences, etc. With each science class, there comes a lab. Mostly all students dread lab. Why? Because it is a three-hours long where students have to stand and follow lists of instructions.
However, the lab teaches “practical” applications of the topics studied in class. Any student can memorize the concepts and do the simple calculations. Yet learning how to do a practical application is key to understand topics. For example, reading how to light a Bunsen burner is a completely different experience from actually lighting it. Similarly, going on a campus walk and observing a mutualistic relationship between the lichen and the oak tree is different from reading about it in a book.
In “Writing for the Wild”, Bjork and Schwartz both talk about the idea of these practical applications. Dr. John Pedro Schwartz is currently an assistant professor of English Literature at the American University of Beirut. He has done his PhD from the University of Texas at Austin. His specialties include Modern British Literature, Museum Studies, etc. On the other hand, Dr. Olin Bjork is currently an adjunct lecturer at Santa Clara University. Like Schwartz, Bjork received his PhD from University of Texas at Austin. Bjork’s interests include computers and writing, digital humanities, interface design, etc.
Both Bjork and Schwartz talk about the increasing usage of the Internet and how the wireless technology has “reconfigured the space of writing instructions” (Bjork and Schwartz, 225). Today, something can be found on the most random topic online. As a result of the availability of secondary sources online, students have solely begun relying on these sources. However, Trimbur explains the importance of field research because some doubts “can’t be addressed solely on the basis of print or electronic sources” (Trimbur, 549). This made me think of an example of an Environmental class. When a professor assigns students paper about a certain type of tree, the first instinct of the student is that he or she will Google the tree and then find websites related to the tree to write this paper. However, not for one second does the idea of actually stepping out in nature and physically touching and observing the tree strike the student. By searching simply for the answers online, this student has just missed an opportunity to actually discover something about this unique tree. As both Dobrin and Weisser say, “Nature and environment must be lived in, experienced to see how the very discourses in which we live react to those environments” (Dobrin and Weisser, 59).
Today, the idea of writing has been isolated to only certain locations like Starbucks or the library. Often students feel they cannot write in a certain place because the location does not have Wifi. Yet, it is important to have a personal touch with the topic one is writing about. Sitting inside the library when writing a paper about nature when it is seventy-five degrees outside is a missed opportunity to produce better work. Bjork and Schwartz, nevertheless, explicate the importance of “writing in the wild”.
For example, an African American student writing at home is far more disembodied than if she were writing in the visible, public space of an art museum. Similarly, an affluent female student writing at a working-class, male dominated bowling alley feels her status more acutely than she would feel it writing in the library or the dorm room. We argue that students can perceive-and learn to challenge-their social, cultural, and historical locations when they research, write and even publish on location. (Bjork and Schwartz, 225).
These statements made by Bjork and Schwartz are consistent with my beliefs. This reminded me of my trip to the Jallianwalah Bagh when I went to India several years ago. Jallianwalah Bagh was a public garden in the early 1900s where the Indian people would gather to plan for steps towards independence from Britain. One night a meeting was called, and so many men, women, and children gathered in the area. Suddenly, there were gunshots. It turned out that the British had called a fake meeting to kill all of the Indians in the area. Now, how does this relate to the topic we are discussing? Well, writing about this incident while sitting in the Jallianwalah Bagh and seeing the bullets piercing a whole through the walls is completely different from writing about it based on the information found on Wikipedia.
Lately, there has been a trend of mobilizing composition. With the Internet, professors are now able to post lectures slides on sites like Camino and Blackboard. This has been taken a step further where in some schools have made lectures iPod friendly. Even though electric tools like iPods and laptops are easy to use, “laptops have failed to overtake paper as the campus note-taking medium of choice” (Bjork and Schwartz, 228). Yet at the same time, such instruments have also broken the existing stereotypes of what a classroom has always been defined as. Even the definition of the word homework has changed. Today, assignments do not have to be submitted before every lecture in paper form. But blogs, electronic essays, emails, etc. are all means of submitting work. Due to the hand-sized technology we have today, students are able to research anything at anytime regardless of their location. Most mobile devices can connect to the Internet therefore, anything and everything is a simple click away.
I thought this was a very well written article. I completely agree with the idea of “writing in the wild” as I think it gives a personal touch to one’s writing. In addition to such primary sources, I feel it important to have a plethora of secondary sources available to us because it adds more depth to one’s writing. I also agree with the point of mobilizing composition. Yet, there are two ways to look at it. Before the Internet, a professor would not be able to communicate with students outside of the realms of a classroom besides via telephone. However, due to the advanced technology today, professors can simply shoot emails to make clarifications or changes to the syllabus. The other way of looking at this is that fewer students appear in class because everything related to the lecture appears online. So, I think we are at a point where we need to realize the positives of technology as well as the negatives.
There were several links I saw with this article. Felder in Writing for the Web talks about the idea of keeping the writing short yet it should convey the most amount of information. I think this article has done a good job with that as it brought up several different points but synthetically conglomerated them into one. It also reminded me of Lanham’s work when it mentioned primary v. secondary sources. Lanham, in the Economies of Attention, talked about we live an attention age not an information age. While looking at the primary and secondary sources, it is up to the writer what he chooses to use and what he wants to disuse. Therefore, it truly is an economy of attention.
While reading this article, the point about actually feeling what you write about, I think, enhances one’s writing. This made me think an Indian movie I had watched on several years ago. In the movie, the actor, Hrithik Roshan, plays the role of a quadriplegic. While the movie was being made, Roshan had decided that for three months he was going to be a quadriplegic in his real life as well as his reel life. He did this because he wanted to feel the pain of a quadriplegic in order to do justice to the role. Holding a connection with something one is passionate about enhances one’s performance whether that be acting or writing. The movie went on to being a great commercial success. Below, I have attached the trailer.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9QiS6nw1DM