Baby Steps to Imagination, Baby Steps to Reflective Thinking

Boice’s chapter on “Imagination” builds on the habitual discipline of daily writing established in chapter 1 in order to implement exercises for finding the ever-elusive writer’s imagination.  Toward the beginning of the chapter, Boice discusses how “imagination leads to simplification including greater clarity” (49). I noted when I read this section that having a set method for recording notes that includes limiting oneself to a certain number of words and practicing what Boice calls “list-and-gist” strategy could be very helpful as it helps writers simplify toward clarity. I often find myself recording long lists of quotes from sources either because I am looking for thesis statements and themes and do not want to take the time to read the source first and then revisit it or because I get overly excited about the “quotable” possibilities of a text. Thus, I was intrigued when Boice declares, “As writers practice noticing, organizing, and associating ideas, imagination becomes more controllable” (49). When Boice gets to the point in his chapter where he discusses the participant’s reactions and apprehensions about his detailed system of drafting notes, reviewing and revising them, and finally filing them, one of his participants admits to taking too many notes in the past: “I took reams of notes, most of it useless” (60). Using Boice’s suggested method, this same writer felt he was able to gain focus and achieve depth in his ideas.

In my master’s program, I had two friends who both had established strategies for researching and note taking that they used for every single text they encountered. Both create brief abstracts for themselves on the source, which essentially contain the details Boice encourages writers to include. They then use an electronic and/or paper filing system to organize these sources, making sure that the keywords for the source were at the top of the page. This allows them to quickly scan what they had previously read and remember where certain ideas could be found. When their “list-and-gist” was not in-depth enough for a project, they would simply return to the source and make additional notes. In talking to them, however, it seemed that their abstracts were often adequate, freeing them from being tied to long quotations from these outside sources in their own writing. 

Such anecdotes turn my attention toward the next unit in my English 1000 classes. The version of the exploratory essay that I am having my students do involves formulating a question and then completing an annotated bibliography with sources that somehow address that question. The informative nature of the annotated bibliography is then paired with a brief reflection on how their sources have influenced their initial question: what direction can they see a paper on this topic going as a result of these sources? How have their thoughts changed over the course of their research? With all the technicalities of conducting research (I can’t even find books in the Ellis library – how am I going to expect them to?), I am worried that students will relegate the exploration and reflection of their question and process to the last minute. I am also concerned that attempting to teach them healthy research methods at this point will be overwhelming. I remember being forced to try the notecard method for a research paper in high school and disliking the tediousness of writing out citations and extremely abbreviated notes on 3x5 cards. How can I give my students tools for developing their own methodologies while encouraging them to try ones that have worked for me and other writers in the past? Ultimately, I am wondering how I can emphasize prewriting in my version of the exploratory essay by essentially casting the entire essay as a “prewrite” for the argument they will formulate in their next formal writing assignment. I might even consider introducing a few of Boice’s “rules” – without using the “r” word. Rule#6 “The most fluent, efficient, comfortable, and imaginative writers spend as much time at prewriting as at prose writing” (53), could be a great place to start.

This also leads me into Carol Rodgers’ article “Defining Reflection: Another Look at John Dewey and Reflective Thinking.” John Dewey’s educational philosophy obviously permeates the modern American school system, but I have had very limited exposure to the pedagogical theory of Dewey himself. Therefore, I was surprised to learn that Dewey placed such a strong emphasis on reflection, especially since I consciously engaged in very little school-related “reflective writing” in my secondary and post-secondary education. As a result, I particularly related to Rodger’s noting that “without a clear picture of what reflection looks like, it is difficult to talk about...practitioners find themselves using terms that are common but hold different meanings or are different but have overlapping meanings” (843). I fear I was guilty of using multiple terms with slightly different meanings last week when describing reflection to my students.

Yet, what surprises me most about Rodger’s analysis is the systematic criteria that Dewey establishes for reflection. Most of my English 1000 students seem relatively excited about our first formal writing assignment and are more or less looking forward to the chance to create a narrative that reflects who they are as writers. However, I have a few students who have been very resistant to the idea of reflection or really any type of open form writing. Letting these students know that “Reflection is a systematic, rigorous, disciplined way of thinking, with its roots in scientific inquiry,” could be a helpful way to engage students who think in more scientific or mathematical ways. This criteria is of course balanced by the rest: “Reflection needs to happen in community, in interaction with others,” and “Reflection requires attitudes that value the personal and intellectual growth of oneself and of others” (845). I realize that I was wrong in seeing reflection as an individual activity that could border on narcissism with the wrong ends in mind; a reorientation toward community helps promote the type of progress Dewey supports. I also find it fascinating that reflection, in Dewey’s analysis, is a “means to essentially moral ends,” which again leads us away from the idea that reflection involves spending endless hours considering ourselves as the center of the universe and instead points us to the type of moral “action” that will benefit the community. This also points to the fact that “reflection is not an end in itself but a tool or vehicle used in the transformation of raw experience…”(863). For me, the notion of reflection as a tool is a large incentive to begin attempting this type of writing as I try teaching for the first time.

Hurry Up, We're Dreaming

I am your classic writing-procrastinator. I even procrastinated writing this blog, which, among the many high-pressure, intellectual, career-affecting writing a graduate student feels she must produce is pretty low on the “drudgery” scale. Yet as the title of Boice’s book recognizes, writing truly is “A Psychological Adventure.” For me, this means that writing has progressively become harder as I grow older and more “educated” (example: I’m re-reading the sentence I just wrote and seriously doubting whether it is grammatically correct or not; you’re re-reading this sentence and deciding it’s not). Thus Boice’s chapter on “Motivation” seems not only the perfect place to begin How Writers Journey to Comfort and Fluency but also a perfect way for me personally to begin afresh in this new PhD program.

Boice begins his piece with an epigraph that describes Jane Austen’s (think a poorer-man’s Downton Abbey) writing environment – the idyllic late-eighteenth century English countryside of the landed gentry. Quickly rushing over this epigraph in my reading, I did not even realize it was about Jane Austen until Boice states, “When we write with both calm and confidence at hand, we work in an ideal state of motivation, one marked by patience and enthusiasm much like Jane Austen’s” (2). At this point, I noted that “reading” could be interchanged for “writing” in this and many other places throughout this first chapter.  The word that comes to mind is “ruminate.” I thought about this concept as Boice goes on to describe why motivation thrives on “calm and confidence.” “First,” begins Boice, “positive motivations originate in self-assured emotions. Doubt is no friend of motivation. Second, emotion in writing functions best at Moderate levels. We do our best problem solving in a state of mild happiness”(1).  If “doubt” is no friend to motivation, then how am I, as a very self-doubting graduate student, ever supposed to discover the motivation to write in a calm, scheduled, and confident way? I also felt as if Boice was not speaking directly to the place I am as a writer or the expectations that are placed upon me as a graduate student in English. Unlike the writers in Boice’s workshops, I have never felt “guilt” after a late-night writing marathon or weekend-long writing bender. This is perhaps because Boice’s primary audience in this piece seems to be adults writing as a profession, particularly adults who write creatively as a profession. While I as an (aspiring) literary critic may hope that Virgil’s Muse graces me with her presence as I summarize the scholarly conversations I am entering and as I craft (sometimes) nuanced positions of my own, I have certainly never expected it.

Focusing on audience also helps clarify some of the myths that Boice wants to dispel: “The belief that good writing must be spontaneous” (2) or that “most writers write only because they have unhealthy motives and personalities” (10). If there’s anything that graduate school convinces you of, it is that good writing is never best when it is spontaneous. And while I’m sure all of us have read a scholarly article or two that seems to have come from a pretty dark place in an academic’s life, I do not assume that “unhealthy motives”  inspire my colleagues.  So, in my reading, I was compelled to examine my own perceptions of some of my favorite contemporary American authors (who I do assume engage in unhealthy behavior and some pretty manic-depressive writing practices at times), and Boice’s answers to the “forcing” that I’m sure every writer (no matter the genre or purpose) has felt at times.

As Boice discusses, “Most of us know the familiar, somewhat diabolical scenario of forcing: We wait until the last minute and then we write at breakneck speed, defying our internal editors…to keep pace with our frantic outpourings” (3). The result is physically, mentally, and emotionally taxing, which anyone who has written a seminar paper in twenty-four (or even forty-eight) hours can tell you (not that I have done it, I am just saying).  The result of such writing is that it is “hurried, under-revised and under-edited” (4). Ideas are not allowed to take full form, sentences are verbose and sloppy, and the vocabulary we use is often imprecise.  While forcing is different from other obstacles writers face, such as the notion that they must “wait” for inspiration, the two work hand-in-hand. Thus, when Boice states that he wants to “salvage some parts of waiting and forcing” (14), my attention is immediately piqued. His answer to the conundrum is “moderation,” a beautiful word for those of us with obsessive-compulsive tendencies. “We conclude the discussion by recognizing the possibility that ideal motivation comes with compromises between forcing and passive waiting. That is, we recall the famous writers who employ a modicum of forcing moderated by habit (‘they just do it because they are used to doing it’) and of waiting enhanced by preparing (‘by the time they start, they are already doing it’)” (18). Boice’s encouragement toward moderation, which involves “regular work in daily sessions, regardless of mood”(15), and is expressed in his Rule #4, “Practice a regular habit of writing to instill reliable motivation” (31), reminds me of advice that one of my professors gave our graduate seminar a few years ago. He told us that if we started treating our graduate education as a “real-world” job now, we would be in the habit of reading, writing, and engaging our field’s conversations before we even dreamed of applying for an academic position. He compared this habit to spiritual disciplines or habits, not in order to argue that academia should become a religion, but rather that the process of consciously forming our identities as individuals in society requires meditation, repetition, and ultimately, dedication.

For me, this is the same idea I am attempting to instill in my students when I write syllabus sequences for assignments that stretch out the writing process to a series of calculated steps that require a habit of writing.  Somehow I have also found this idea comforting when thinking about the overwhelming amount of reading one must complete for each graduate seminar in any given week. If I am in the habit of reading for 6-7 hours a day (and oh, how easily can I slip out of this habit?), then it will be more manageable to imagine having to read for 10 or 12 during crunch times or in preparation for writing articles or exams. What is helpful about Boice is that his focus on writing in particular helps me begin to imagine how I can set writing goals for myself during any given period of time as well (what he would call “brief, daily sessions”). Why delay beginning those big papers I have due in November until Halloween? As Boice and the participants in his workshops realize, these resolutions are easier said than done. This is why Boice turns to Donald Murray’s advice to “wait.” The word alone reminds me of a song titled “Wait” on the band M83’s 2011 album Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming (referenced in the title of this post). “Wait” is track no. 5 out of eleven, an interesting position for a song that both lyrically and sonically implores the listener to wait. The lyrics, while simple, still remind me of the desperate urgency I feel sometimes when faced with writing deadlines as the chorus repeats “no time, no time, no time” (you can watch an unofficial video here:  http://vimeo.com/28418196). The song’s position on the album also reminds me of Boice and Murray. Just when a writer feels the overwhelming urge to tensely type away on an ill-conceived argument, these process-focused practitioners encourage us to “reframe,” to literally take a breath and pause. This is all part of a long process of what I would think of as prewriting – the bulk of the work that goes into a “final” piece of writing. As Boice states, “We agree that above all we need to practice patience and a willingness to try things” (23). My writing will continue to happen in frantic writing-binges after bouts of guilt-ridden procrastination unless I can learn to practice patience (to wait!) while ALSO developing a habit of writing. There is something paradoxical about such advice, which makes me wonder if Boice will continue to elaborate on the steps in this writing journey throughout the rest of his book.