I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that anyone enrolled in a university aspires to have a career in some professional field. I’ll go a step further and say that a “professional” field is one that relies on written documentation and/or communication. In other words, anyone enrolled in college needs to learn how to write effectively. Our careers, and thus our livelihoods, depend on it. Like anyone who works in an office environment, I write for my life.
My Relationship with Writing
Though I am possibly the only person in our class who currently makes a living off writing, my relationship with it goes beyond my job. My whole life has been saturated with writing. While I grew up, my mom was the secretary at several of the churches we attended. Bulletins, newsletters, etc. were an everyday part of life for me. Mom’s own relationship with writing meant she was a great resource when I wrote essays for school. She would help me proofread my work, often jump-starting my revision process or just helping me polish my drafts.
Since then, I’ve seen how writing can make or break a person’s reputation. I’ve sent a tweet that cost $5,000. But I’ve also sent a tweet that led to me landing the Space Shuttle (okay, it was a simulator…but still). I’ve watched writing bring people to tears (of grief and joy), make people physically move, shape policy decisions, and frankly change the world. I respect writing, and I want to help others better understand how to use it for the forces of good.
Strengths and Improvements
One of my greatest strengths is listening. That’s a weird thing to say related to writing, but for me it makes sense. If I listen well to my audience, I can tell whether my words are having their intended effect. I use that to my advantage in class, reading students’ faces to see how their thinking is progressing. I also use it in meetings and such, where I often find myself pointing out when two people misunderstood one another. Often I seem to be the only one in the room who heard the problem, and I frequently find myself “translating from English to English” to help disparate parties find common ground.
This semester, I hope to find ways to make writing credibly accessible. In other words, with students, I want to present credible research in ways they can access and understand. With fellow faculty, I want to present accessible writing as sufficiently credible that they’ll accept it. For example, the student-authored textbooks I’ve created are all set for wider adoption, but I’ve met a lot of resistance to them in the past. I hope to build credibility for them through meetings with administrators and publishing articles that support their widespread adoption.
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