Writing as an Exploration

After reading the chapter in The Allyn & Bacon Guide to Writing on exploratory writing, I feel much less stressed about our upcoming assignment. Since I’m already filled with questions regarding teaching composition, this assignment will help me pinpoint the most urgent question, dwell and research on it, explore and discover, and eventually become less uncertain about it. It’s something I’d like to do anyway, so the assignment will not feel like a burden.

It seems what separates assignment from being enjoyable is usually the sense of imposition it carries. Once students do not feel imposed upon and recognize the relatedness between writing and life, they will probably be less reluctant and more enthusiastic about their assignment, and an exploratory essay will then be truly exploratory.

The logic of exploratory essay can actually apply to all kinds of writing, whether creative or academic. All writing starts with a motivation, which oftentimes is the desire to understand something. We write to orientate ourselves, to search for direction from both inside and outside. The inside searching is contemplation and the outside is research. Then we make what’s outside inside – internalize.

But whether we’re enthusiastic or not, writing always involves work. Boice’s advice for us is to write with constancy and moderation. Like A&B Guide, he emphasizes on writing as a process. Jot down ideas, pause, reflect, jot down more ideas, form mental pictures, outline, pre-write, free-write... Work is thus spread out into the flow of everyday life and does not loom in front of us as an obstacle.

Making order out of chaos?

Writing an exploratory essay offers a very useful training in how to ask a question. As a student, we are accustomed to answering questions posed by others instead of asking questions ourselves. Asking questions is more difficult than answering because before one poses a question, he or she must first challenge certain assumptions or conventions or see certain issues from different approaches. Besides, when one tries to answer a question, s/he has a direction or goal in mind, but posing a question is like making order (creating a direction) out of chaos. There are too many questions one can ask. Which one is worth asking? Which one is worth exploring?

In this regard, Ramage et al. offer a useful suggestion: finding questions through controversial issues, such as gay marriage, immigration, health care reform and so on. These questions are often worth exploring because there is more than one answer to these controversial questions. The interesting thing is that we finally find a direction (a productive question) out of chaos but this question will not lead to any definite answer or bring about order. It only raises more questions because it is controversial. And this, I think, is the most interesting aspect of writing an exploratory essay. One seems to make order out of chaos by posing a question, but this question does not really create order. It possibly brings about another chaotic condition that prompts one to continue asking questions.  

    Boice’s suggestion of adding mindfulness to freewriting has the similar nature of making order out of chaos. He suggests that before we feel ready, we can do some freewriting. But this practice is easily given to excess so we can exert mindfulness to pause and reflect on our image-influenced freewriting. He argues that doing freewriting with mindful moderation can produce a clearer writing and image. But I am not sure if the process of switching back and forth between writing and image can really help foster a clearer writing or image. Could it possibly produce a vaguer picture when we pause and complicate what we freewrite? And a final question about Boice’s argument. How do we use our “mindfulness” and at the same time believe that we are not working (but just waiting actively)?  

Exploratory Writing (with a sneak peek into my writing journal!)

The outline of the process of exploratory writing in the Allyn and Bacon Guide was actually very helpful to my own current writing. I've been brainstorming ideas for a seminar paper in a critical theory class, and at the time that I read this selection my notes looked something like this:

naomi klein/zapatistas
film (Benjamin + WoAitAoMR)
Wordsworth + psychology
(illegible) Copyright/twain
Fish + interpretive communities -
avant garde/electronic music? - Internet forums and stuff
zizek + marxism
auerbach + mimesis

Don't try to make sense of any of that; I can't either. The thing is, at the time I wrote this I felt like each of these ideas was brilliant. Each of them had at least an initial question or concept attached that I felt was worth exploring. However, I stopped working on it for several days and now I can't remember the shape any of my initial arguments were supposed to take. If I had free-written about each of these instead of taking haphazard notes, I would have at least retained the initial thoughts behind each one. Then, I could have chosen one or two to begin researching in earnest.

Luckily, I've since followed at least the initial stages of exploratory writing described here. What I feel is really being described is active waiting in a much stricter (and more active) sense. Instead of just jotting down ideas in between other activities, it is often better to follow those ideas for as long as it takes to get to some conclusion. Obviously, it is difficult to free write for "as long as it takes" if you are, say, on the bus or waiting for a phone call. But expanding into a more exploratory mode, when possible, can provide a link from active waiting into more substantial research.

Critical vs creative writing

The ideas presented in the readings for this week all relate to one another, I can see that. I understand the logic of exploratory writing, and how it can create a map for reference, in case you get lost in your writing. This makes sense to me, since I often make "outlines" for myself while writing. They're really nothing more than a haphazard list of bullet points that I write illegibly on a notebook, but it happens to be a way for me to see where I've been and where I would like to go in my writing.

The only thing that I get caught up on is the several steps it takes to get there. It's an overly explanatory explanation of writing. I took a class once where we were put into groups for a research presentation. We were required to turn in a research question, then a hypothesis, then sources, then annotated sources, then an outline, and finally, at some point in the semester, we were able to give our presentation. On the holy grail. We showed a video clip of Monty Python. I have to think that at some point, students need to work at their own pace, however fast or slow that might be. Exploratory writing is a great way to start out, but you cannot force a student to do something that simply doesn't work for him/her.

Similarly, I can see the logic behind active waiting. I actually think I could employ it a bit more when it comes to writing. I have to distinguish though, the style of writing these "rules" address. There have been times in which I have written at my best when I have sat down and made myself write, creatively speaking. I understand the need to actively pause when writing critically, but not creatively.

The reverse goes for the begin writing early "rule." I often write my way into my narrative when I write creatively because I needed to sort it out on paper, to begin telling the story before I felt comfortable. But critically, I'm not sure if this is true for me. I often sketch out my plan for the paper before I begin writing, or else I feel like I will end up somewhere I didn't want to be. I'll write myself into a corner, with no way out. So in a sense, I agree with the "rules" Boice has laid out, I just disagree with the context of the writing.

Boice: 'Prewriting is a kind of foreplay'

The idea of an exploratory essay seems to be a possible gateway into intellectualism for some students, but it’s also frustrating. After all, what’s the point of producing something that has no purpose? The expectation for the way that a piece will be received—either as a requirement for a grader, a scholarly article to be read by literally dozens of people (!) or a great American novel—undeniably plays into the writing process. The idea of an exploratory essay seems to de-emphasize the role of audience in favor of allowing a teacher to micromanage the writing process.

Much of Boice’s advice seems frivolous and impractical. He seems to ignore the existence of deadlines or the desire students have to enjoy life; you know, drink, carouse, set a new high score on Big Buck Hunter Safari. Moreover, it runs counter to the advice that I’ve always received on writing. In one of my writing classes, we had an assignment to describe our writing process. So, I described mine—spend a week or so really thinking about the thing, get terribly drunk and then write the thing in the course of a six-or-seven our hangover. My professor told me that this was, in fact, a good writing process for me because if allowed me to first ‘actively wait’ in formulating my ideas and then settle into a writing session that was devoid of distraction. I could use my whole mind to write.

I know my method won’t work for most students, but I’m wondering where that enters into the plan. My greatest writing has been largely experimental, and I’ve seen the same thing in other writers. They do something kinda crazy, step back and look at it, and then do the real work of writing—thinking about what just happened on the page.

As a last point, Boice likens prewriting to foreplay, which was nice. I just don’t know why he’s so focused on the foreplay, especially when so many students are actually just trying to become masters of the “quickie.”

So you don't like Freud, eh?

Being an undergraduate major in psychology, I actually spent less time with Freud than what one may think. I was introduced to an outline of his major concepts of psychoanalysis in my introductory psychology course, and again in developmental psychology. Freud's ideas were quickly dismissed by Skinner's behavioral model, considering human behavior purely from the viewpoint of external conditioning. If I'd pursued some form of clinical or counseling psychology further, I'm certain I would have been forced to consider Freud's ideas more thoroughly; but being that my interest lay in Behavioral Economics the prevailing school of thought aligned with a model that combined the formulaic interpretations of human behavior used in economics with Skinner's 'Robot-man' model.

The one time that I was forced to closely examine Freud's viewpoints was actually in my only course in Classics - an introduction to greek mythology. Suddenly every decapitation became castration; every example of following the rules became an example of anal eroticism, and anytime someone disagreed with their father it was because they desired sexual relations with their mother.

Honestly, I thought he was full of shit (scatological reference/pun intended).

But lately, in Prahlad's course on Folk Humor, I've been forced to actually closely read some of Freud's exploratory works on psychoanalysis and not just the application of his ideas to other fields.

Guys, I hate to say this, but I think I'm becoming a Freudian.

His works are fairly convincing - within limitations, of course. When you read his basic exploratory works, you begin to understand the minute details that are important to his models of human behavior.

These works are well-composed exploratory essays. Of course, I have complaints. But, if I've read his works and they changed my mind, then he must have done something convincing.

His book Wit and Its Relation to the Unconscious is now a favorite of mine. He begins with a simple question, which is basically: Why do we laugh at jokes? And Freud follows a coherent train of thought to explore this. He starts examining the different kind of jokes and the techniques employed; then he explores their subject. Nothing he says is very controversial until he covers the topic of jokes, which he then separates into innocent jokes (which he says may not exist - the innocent appearance may be a facade), jokes of sexual aggression, jokes of hostility, and cynical jokes.

Now, if I told you that when someone tells a sexual joke that they receive sexual arousal and gratification from this joke you may find this idea to be preposterous. I agree.

But Freud's use of an exploratory essay is much more efficacious for persuasion than a simple argumentative piece. He even explores the idea of sexual arousal - and it's not actually always about sex. Freud explores the idea of a childlike form of sexuality, a sexuality of curiosity and exposure that is the predecessor to puberty on the onset of 'sex' as we think of it - the sexuality of touching, and, well, I think we all know what follows.

When Freud explores child sexuality in a form of pure curiosity we are able to see sexual jokes in a new light - a form of satisfying human curiosity about something that we aren't often supposed to discuss. Only after this exploration does he begin to actually provide persuasive evidence - for example, the propensity for obscene joking in countries where sexuality is a taboo (i.e. America, home of the brave/ashamed).

Honestly, I don't believe that if Freud had rhetorically approached this any other way that I would have ever found a consensus to his ideas. But using an exploratory essay allowed me to discover these ideas for myself, in a strange sort of way.

Of course I have complaints about the style. Freud can digress on a minute point for pages on end, or perhaps may explore in an area that I didn't want to follow. But the end result is that he persuaded me of something without actually 'arguing' it at all.

Now, having written a blog about Freud's rhetorical methods on joking, I'm going to leave you with a joke from a firm believer in the Freudian method and joke analyst, Alan Dundes.

How many graduate students does it take to change a light bulb?




Only one, but it takes nine years.

It's ridiculous to expect brilliance"

“It's ridiculous to expect brilliance”

You're right. We have a tendency to imagine those who produce brilliant work as, more or less, perpetually inspired. We imagine them as exceptions to the rules that we feel bind us to our mediocrity.

I played classical guitar when I was a kid. One time I had the opportunity to take several lessons with a guitarist who was in town to give a series of performances. I remember the concerts vividly. He brought strange and dark music to life with performances that were brilliant. They were, technically flawless , musically inspired, and executed with ease. This was the first time I saw a master. I heard him practicing when I showed up early for my first lesson, and was shocked to hear him making mistakes. I couldn't fathom this. How could someone who was so gifted at something also sound so...average? I've commited this same sort of mental error many times since then, and when Katie wrote that it is ridiculous to expect constant brilliance from someone, this drove home an inconsistency in the way we see the world that has afflicted me for years.