Voice cannot be directly taught. You can make suggestions as to what might aid one in finding a voice in their writing, but it has to be manufactured internally. To take the time to manufacture or perfect anything, you have to give a damn. The problem I had with all the exercises laid out in the Elbow piece regarding development of voice is that they're all contingent on a student caring enough to practice. When I was a freshman in college, I cared about beer, sex, and video games, with order of importance depending on the day. I don't feel this is an uncommon set of passions for an 18 year-old male (or a 24 year-old one, for that matter). How do you make that guy care about his writing voice?
The only answer I can think of is to let these kids play to their passions as often as possible, no matter what those passions are. Make the classroom comfortable. Convey to them that they won't get in trouble if they write, say, a persuasive piece entitled "Why A Guy/Girl Should Sleep With Me", if that's all they care about. If you've got a socially conscious kid in the group, let them write about about why we should save...something. What's trendy these days? I was about to say "whales", or "rain forests", but the reference felt disturbingly dated. It would be upsetting to be that far out of touch.
I do agree with Elbow in that I think voice is born of passion/motivation. If you can't get a kid to find his voice on something he's passionate about (with the extra motivation of writing for a grade), there's no hope. You don't need voice on a TPS report, anyway.
-Golsan Out
6 comments:
I think it is very true that voice cannot be taught. but if that is the case, are we penalizing the student that does not know/have a voice when we grade the student that has a great voice with a better grade, even if the content and the mechanics are the same, yet one just "sounds" better?
There is so much that can't be taught or transferred to a student simply or easily; some things have to be earned. Whatever voice is (it still doesn't make sense to me) I think it fits into the category of something that has to be earned, something that takes passion and motivation and work.
In a freshman composition class maybe the best that we can expect is to help students become better prepared as writers and to help them understand that if they really want to be good, they'll really have to work.
I think voice can be taught - the problem I have is with the "how." I mean, can you really break a composition class into exercises in formal technique, then stop to have everyone work on "voice?" It occurs to me that, like Bill Condon does in his classes (re: Take 20) - either one is either "all in" for teaching voice in this class, or it is an exercise in futility?
I agree that voice can't be taught. Think about how we originally found our voices...as wee little ones. Though Mom brought her face close to mine and said "Momma" repeatedly, I found my voice on my own. We are still finding our voices; it is a long, drawn-out, extended process, and perhaps we never completely finish. But whether as children or adults, we always do it on our own.
James, I think you're dead on. If students are invested, they will be better writers. If they are not invested, they will be mediocre at best, and they are more likely to cheat--because they don't see value in what's being done anyway.
I also think you're wise to talk about how we can design assignments to coincide with what students value. I'm not sure about "why he/she should sleep with me", but perhaps a comparison of beer. Of video games. An argument about how video games really are learning devices. And so forth.
I also think you can bring in excellent readings, videos, movies. Youtube is amazing in this respect. I have found AMAZING illustrations there that really resonate with students--so much so that, given the opportunity to teach FYC on my own again, I'd like to have at least a couple youtube type projects.
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