Final Reflection

I would like to think of myself as a fairly capable writer. I came into college with the desire to write creatively and turn those words into images on film. I have taken writing courses for advertising, feature films and the Web and I worked as a newspaper reporter for a year. Each discipline presents it's own challenges and restrictions but one idea is universal: in order for a piece to be effective its elements must be harmoniously composed.

This course has made me think of composition as the writer's voice. Throughout the semester the class has been presented with an arsenal of weapons such as rhetoric, the Toulmin Model and logos, ethos and pathos. Each of these methods of reasoning provides the writer with a framework for effectively communicating an argument or idea.

One aspect of the class that I never gave any thought to before was the Selfish Gene Theory and the idea that language is the great technology that separates us from animals. It makes sense that a species that has developed an advanced system of communication could suppress it's cannibalistic instincts. That said, I agree with Lanham to the degree that the use of language has digressed in recent years. Lanham says that jargon can be a joy, but more often than not it merely serves to separate people more. Watch an interview with the average famous musician or athlete and you soon realize why they do what they do and don't have a career in public speaking. I suppose it is true to say that language separates us from animals, but some people act like talking animals on a regular basis. So maybe what really separates us from animals is simply the ability to express our animalistic instincts more clearly and with greater detail.

I think language and writing should unite people. This is the reason behind the strict structure of newswriting. It's all about the who, what, when's with very little flair. This type of writing can be easy to read, sometimes boring and almost never offensive. This is not the type of writing I am interested in. During my time as a reporter I tried to give my writing some "juice" every chance I got and usually those specific lines of text were highlighted and deleted by my editors.

Scriptwriting takes language to the other extreme. Now the writer is allowed, even encouraged to be creative and write something nobody has ever heard of before. The formatting may be rigid, but other than that anything goes. No matter what type of writing is being attempted, the key to effective communication is the composition.

As a mass communications student I have always been technology savvy, but I never gave much thought to its place in English classes at any level. Kamerin did a presentation on interpreting poetry using digital media that explained it well: kids comprehend things better through the use of multimedia because that is what they have grown up with. Sounds, images, colors and movement stimulate students who are accustomed to this type of entertainment. Simple words on a page, beautiful in their own right, aren't enough to excite many students.

Technology can also be counterproductive, as we all learned during the MOO experiment. If anything I think we proved that under normal circumstances there is no substitute for good old fashioned face-to-face discussions. The great thing about it is the ability to link teachers and students in real time from miles apart.

The blogs we have kept over the semester were a great supplement to our discussions. Without really realizing it, they were a great weekly exercise in composing with limited space. This was often a struggle of mine while newswriting. It's challenging to cover even the smallest subject with a couple hundred words. I think a weekly blog would be a great way to mix things up in a high school English class.

As a non-English major squatting in a class full of future teachers, it was interesting to see how concerned the class was with the student-teacher relationship, whether it had to do with grading systems, gender issues or simply being able to get some honest reaction out of them. I'm very encouraged by what everyone has had to say.

Composition can basically mean any type of arrangement of items that forms a whole. Through my endeavors with photography, I have learned how framing my subjects in a certain way attracts the eye and how different colors and shapes can affect the overall composition.

Writing requires even greater attention to detail. The elements at the artist's disposal are vast, almost endless. Even with photoshop, a photographer is limited by the physical world and what he can and cannot achieve visually. The writer's only limitation is himself and how finely he can hone his ability to compose words into something meaningful.