Writing and its Complexity

When I look back at school and think of what I was considered to be ‘good’ at, or where I was most proficient as a student, my English teachers always redirected back to writing. However, I never really felt like I learned much in any of English classes short of maybe how to place a comma in its or it’s, or when to use a semicolon in a sentence. The start of my sophomore year I had started to build a habit of taking a number of AP courses in varying subjects. There was only one class I ever ended up with just a ‘B,’ but in contrast to English teachers, no one in particular ever said, “Hey, I think you’re really good at this; you should keep at it.”

While those types of subjective comments never had an impact into my choice to eventually major in English, they still come to mind when I think of writing and the theory of writing. From what I gained of the reading for this week, there is a certain formality to the approach and mechanics of writing- a sort of shift/change where something similar to that of a apprentice turns mentor, or a disciple turns teachers. The formality is demonstrable in writing by the likes of profession and major, where writing and varying styles of writing can differ, or in the audience of who we write for and what of the content it is that we are writing. All of these components in a sense of formality dictate and define our individual calibers of writing and reflect differing dichotomies of approach and reason. Russell also has a penchant for sports with his ‘ball handling’ theory of explaining writing.

Of the majority of what his article contained, one aspect I took as an imperative to my own experiences with writing twined with his aforementioned ‘ball handling’ theory- that is that some people may be good at some types of writing, but are not as proficient in skilled in others as they have not had the experience of being engaged in that said activity. With the varying modems of writing and conduits to express, post and share writing we have available, this is entirely true to both the formality of our skill and experience in varying writings practices, and how we engaged through or with them.

In high school I played a lot of sports, and I also played guitar in a few bands. In tandem with thinking of a progression of moving from a displace to a teacher, the same could be said with the activities I made my focus of interest to many long afternoons.  The more time I put in, the better I became, especially with guitar. Learning bass afterword became exponentially easier, and learning music theory from that sacrifice of time helped me to learn other instruments. The same to me is comparable of our subsets of varying types of writing and how similar/ likewise styles can be fluid with one another.

Lastly, another aspect I took of Russell was that writing can not be autonomously without human involvement. Besides what I consider of writing to be genred and quantative, that our engagement is necessary when in comes to writing. In thinking of a practitioner to virtuoso development for the certain things and activities we really are passionate about, the same is demonstrable and of even more relative importance that I could argue with writing and the varying formalities (who we write to and for what), is most evident and founded upon those ‘enjoyable’ writing based activities that drive us to authentic, genuine inquiry and continually motivate the want to progress and improve.