Battle of Selfs in Writing and Teaching

With the question of how to engage students in writing, I find an article by Ryan Ireland, “Talking to One’s Selfs,” relevant to my concerns. Ireland proposes that by helping students become more aware of their different selfs, or voices, a teacher can bring out interesting conflicts in their writing. According to his teaching experience of freshman composition, many students write to appease their teacher, using the 5-paragraph essay template learned from high school, and even though they meet all the requirements, their papers often fall flat. He believes it’s his job to “de-program the students” (Ireland, 64).

He designed a two-part exercise to make them recognize that there’re different selfs at work when they write. First he asked his students to read an essay, pick one point they liked best, and describe why they liked it to someone they felt comfortable with. The goal was to lead them to their comfort zone and let their dominant voice take control. Then he asked them to analyze their writing. The students would locate words or phrases they had crossed out and ask themselves what the censoring voices are. Through the exercise, Ireland wants his students to gain an awareness of “not only the voices composing their writing, but also the voices stifling the writing” (71), so that they can utilize the conflicts between the voices to fuel their work.

Ireland didn’t describe the outcome of the exercise, since he recognizes that the battle between one’s selfs is an ongoing one and may not produce result at once. But whether his students are writing better papers or not, I think Ireland’s exercise is worth trying. Actually I think his wish to make a change itself is appreciable. It seems that teaching, like writing, is also a battle between one’s many selfs. In my own case, my creative writer self, my autistic self, my wanting-to-communicate self, my hoping-to-share self and many other selfs, will all conflict, reconcile, and conflict again. Being aware of that and being able to “wallow in complexities” is probably the first step on my part to engage the students.

Work Cited:

Ireland, Ryan. “Talking to One Selfs.” Writing on the Edge 21. 2 (2011): 64-72