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Theory of Writing: A Narrative

“Writing is getting your hands dirty”

Once upon a time, writing was simple. It was like a garden you clipped carnations from—a little intro here, a summary there, a bit of cut-and-paste, a bit of paraphrases all-over, and you were done. You were an “A” student. Over the course of my first college semester, however, I had to learn to get my hands dirty. When I began English 110, I believed, like most other Freshman, that writing was a neat and clean activity, devoid of debris and discord. You did not have to actually get entangled in the mess of ideas on a page. You simply had to agree with one idea or another and give your opinion for why. Upon receiving my first assignment, however, I quickly learned that not only did composition involve debris and discord, it also involved a series of processes and strategies to make sense and support of that debris—a process of discovery, deconstruction, and demonstration. Composition, I soon learned, was filled with voices, all competing for the reader’s attention. This cacophony of voices, this wave of situations, surging towards the reader to influence them, was what rhetoric was comprised of—rhetorical situations, authors and audiences, tones and purposes, genres and mediums, stances and languages. These components of composition were unknown to me prior to September 2019, but afterwards, I would become well-acquainted, drenched even, with each oncoming wave of rhetoric. At some point or another, they would each floor me. I cannot be sure of when exactly the tide turned. I could say it was after a Peer Review of the first essay we were assigned, the Source-Based Essay where we chose a topic and found three sources (one scholarly article, one magazine article, one newspaper article, and one web source) and did a rhetorical analysis on the sources. But no. I could even say it was the second essay, the Inquiry-Based Research Essay, a colossal 8-10 page paper where we developed an inquiry from our previous topic. But, no. That was not the turning point. It was not even the third paper, the “C2G” or Composition in Two Genres, where we crafted key messages for a strategic audience using two genres that would effectively communicate those messages. It was none of these. When I look back, the tide turned with the first assignment, a reflection on the Nobel Prize speech by Toni Morrison, where the author narrated a traditional story about an old blind woman who was asked by a group of mocking teens, whether or not the bird in their hands was alive or dead. After a long time, the blind woman responded: “I don’t know.” They laughed at her. “I don’t know whether the bird in your hands is alive or dead. All I know is that it is in your hands. It is in your hands”.

Chapter One: Deconstuction

“Once upon a time . . . The bird was language and language was in our hands”

As renowned author Toni Morrison stated in her 1998 Nobel Prize Speech, “language was in my hands”. What did this mean? According to my Professor and Mrs. Morrison, the bird evidently was language. And that language was either starved and dead in our hands from misuse or it was thriving, alive, yet caged by the prison of our limited and scared understanding. No matter how that word had come to be, it had come to me. Now, I was responsible for it. No matter how I stumbled on the word, no matter if that word were written or oral, I alone, as the rhetorician, was responsible for decoding that debris and deconstructing that discord into meaning. I alone was responsible for composing meaning out of what I was linguistically and rhetorically presented with. For Morrison, language was this bird that young people had to learn to grapple with. They could do so by strangling and manipulating it two make meaning, thereby killing it—or they could make meaning by setting it free, by understanding themselves in relation to it—thereby collaborating with it to bring it to life. I understood the former. Composition, language, rhetoric —if I knew anything about them at the time—was all about a bottom line: get the grade. How far I was from collaborating with the components of composition. The Source-Based Essay was the first assignment to show me this. In previous essays, all I had to do was say something witty, or grammatically and argumentatively “correct”. For this first essay, however, I would have to find something called “evidence”. I would have to limit my assertions to what the text made explicitly clear. I would have to dwarf my personal opinions and focus on the author’s words, the audience, and other key features of the rhetoric. That is when it occurred to me: language was in my hands because I had the power to interpret, but language was also not in my hands because I did not want to get my hands dirty. I wanted to keep my hands clear of other people’s rhetoric. I did not want to entangle my hands in the soil of other people’s ideas. I did not want to break apart and deconstruct the weeds of ‘discourse’ as my Professor called it. I wanted simply to acknowledge the happenings of a text without the responsibility of demonstrating how it happened. For the latter, I adjusted myself to getting my hands dirty by dealing with the rhetorical parts of my sources:

…and though we held language, we did not know what we held until we shared it…

Getting my hands dirty meant more than getting more invested in the rhetorical parts of the text. It also meant connecting with other students to share knowledge and feedback around how I could improve my writing. Here is an example of what changes took place in my text after I got feedback from others.

After noticing that my peers did not see evidence to support my many claims about the rhetorical components, I began to find textual evidenced to support the claims of the essay. Instead of just saying “the tone is very present,” I wrote “the tone of the chapter borders on unconventional, as it takes on the archaic (some would say boring) landscape of language and adds a new, exciting twist on it to make a thorough stance”. Instead of simply stating ideas, the paper aims to back those statements with clarifying or textual evidence.

Chapter Two: Discovery

…and when we shared what we held, we heard others, distant others, speaking as if with learned tongues, a language we too would come to know…

Getting my hands dirty doesn’t stop there, after the Source-Based essay, I used the Inquiry-Based Research Paper to sift through various sources on the online databases. These databases often returned sources of all kinds, some of them having nothing to do with my topic. I learned how to make a practice of weeding through the tough soil of research. My process of writing involved a growing love for discovery, a process towards seeing what was beneath the surface.

Further into the semester, once I got the hang of the online database, I had to learn how to get my hands even dirtier. Prior to this course, it was uncommon in my opinion for students to compile as many as seven sources fora paper. To take it a step further, our professor insisted that we create a primary source by interviewing a person or non-profit group about our topic. This essay was centered on an inquiry concerning our topic, so it was almost fitting that we should be required to interview someone. Here, I discovered new ways to make my points stronger and oppose unfavorable ideas.

By using the interview to support the thesis of my research, I acquired a valuable aspect of my theory of writing: whatever my hands discover in the soil can be used to make meaning. My inquiry, for example was able to create more inquiries in the interview, which was then able to support my research. This cycle of investigation and investment created meaning that I never before experienced. Asking questions in this manner has truly proved to extend the way I write.

Chapter Three: Demonstration

…then when we spoke, to our surprise our tongues too were learned … then when we learned, our language was heard and so the bird flew…yes the bird of our mouths made meaning…

In addition to getting my hands dirty, my theory of writing evolved to see my findings through to new places where I would demonstrate my skills. This included, but was not limited to reinvesting, reinventing, reinvigorating my ideas until new meaning is reached. Nowhere was this more evident than in the Composition in Two Genres, where I created key messages and targeted them towards an audience. To do this, I would have to utilize two different genres. This meant that as my hands got dirty, they got more investigative, and as they got more investigative, I developed innovative strategies for getting my key messages across. It means a lot to my writing practice to incorporate creativity. Whenever I was told to do a previous assignment, things always felt limited because I could not find ways to make my authorial voice heard. The Composition in Two Genres put my theory of writing to the test and what emerged was validating for me as a creative. I had strategies for what I wanted to say, how I wanted to say it, and who I wanted to say it to.

Using the rhetorical skills I have learned has allowed me to invent new strategies for how to reach an audience. Above, I have employed mediums, genres, and audience strategies that I never thought of before. For example, since the audience for my project was plant lovers of all ages, I chose a simple print genre that would appeal to plant lovers of all ages, remembering how much I myself loved nature as a child. I did not want anyone to feel that the language was too dense or academic. Every reader, from young to old was welcome to the table. The infographic list and the images of young girls makes this strategy clear. These are choices I would never have considered before. Having my hands dirty was not an option before, but since learning more about rhetoric I have learned to embrace the fun and creative joy of collaborating with language—no matter how clean or messy the meaning-making process. Now, my theory of writing has allowed me to get my hands dirty in a variety of fields, from engineering to creative writing to art.

…now these uncouth mouths and these dirty hands make meaning…now these fingers make flight happen with each word they touch. Once upon a time, we held language … and we held the power to make meaning… that is my theory of writing.

The End.