I. IN WHICH I AM CHASTISED BY A WOMAN WHO ONLY WEARS PINK
Junior year of high school, freshman year of community college, we are required to take a paper every week to the writing center as part of the early college program, whether or not we have a new paper to work on. I begin so sure of my mastery of language (the dreaded Good Writer, who has nothing but basic encouragement and good grades in English classes.) Drafts upon drafts upon drafts are accumulated in neatly labeled $.50 folders that clutter the backseat of my car. I become convinced a draft is never done, writing is never done, it is always improved upon. I don’t name it, but now it becomes process over product, “better writers versus better product” as North says. The writing center is a small, windowless room in a library lit up by a woman in a mobility scooter who makes her way around the carefully placed tables, chatting about comma splices and the best way to use semicolons and how important brainstorming really is (“You use really too much when you talk and when you write,” she’d chided, waving a neon pink highlighter in the air, always pink, everything with her was pink. I agreed. She digressed.) She takes the time to go through each draft, makes comments in her always-present pink pen, but most important is her address of progress. In pink scrawl, she encourages me to grow in each paragraph, to explore my ideas, to not be so concerned with decorum and more concerned with what I’m really trying to say. I learned more about writing and composition in that tiny writing center than in the composition classes where we transcribed passages from grammar handbooks and learned how to create a thesis statement (both useful, but more prescriptive, less generative of creative, engaging content.) She kept a copy of each draft in her own folders and shows me how I change, how I lose the Thesaurus-dependence and develop a genuine voice, that essays can be both research based and personal. She buys us all a pink pen when we graduate.
II. IN WHICH I LEARN THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CLASSROOM AND CONFERENCE
I am asked to write my very first literary analysis my second year at Florida State and I flounder. I turn in one draft, get it returned full of red marks and a final grade, a suggestion to see the writing center for help on the genre -- a Storehouse answer to a greater question. I never so hated a red pen, or British Romantic Literature, and so I made an appointment with the teacher. In office, he was pleasant and accommodating, and agreed to let me turn in two drafts, understanding and willing to discuss, a far departure for the slightly frigid classroom presence that demanded we pay more attention because this was history, this was important, who railed in upset when we did poorly on the essay as a collective. I am reminded of Tobin, of a need for consistency. In teaching, I think consistency in attitude and approach is important, especially with grading and individual response. If the teacher had taken the time in class to be as helpful as he was in conferences, students could have grasped the subject better, been less disappointing in their responses. This instructor was the initial reason why I didn’t pursue a graduate degree in literature. His authoritarian approach kept me distant and afraid to connect with the text. But I learned that, in order to get students to connect, we must remember that we are not the end all, do all of any subject, we are always on a journey, just as students are. Especially in literature, insisting we are the masters of interpretation denies us the opportunity to grow with our students, to invite new perspectives.
III. IN WHICH SCIENCE FICTION TEACHES ME ABOUT LIT ANALYSIS
My next literature class at FSU, I take a class on science fiction as a break from the perceived general monotony of undergraduate literature classes (here’s to looking at you, British Romantic Literature, and the month we spent on Wordsworth.) We are encouraged to come to class only if we have something to say -- if we are just going to sit there and not contribute to discussion, we might as well not attend at all, and attendance is not strictly taken, so if you genuinely have nothing to say, you are no punished (though participation points are given for those who attend and speak.) I ask about drafts: as many as we want, so long as the final product is turned in by the due date. The teacher has a new baby, isn’t planning on sleeping much anyways, and says it will give him something to do in the long hours between crying and bottles. He responds helpfully, critically, without a large delay. We learn about dystopias and utopias and science fiction as a vehicle for political and social commentary in class, with active discussion and personal opinions are welcomed. Literary analysis becomes easier. Orwell relates to public surveillance. Stepford Wives and media portrayal of femininity go hand in hand. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed discusses capitalism versus communism, the self versus the whole. I decide that reading a genre I am legitimately interested in, when all the texts to be analyzed were books I really liked reading, I was more engaged in analyzing. This is the first teacher I have that encourages personal connection to reading. I receive less red pen. I buy handbooks on how to write literary analysis. I am encouraged to turn in draft after draft, and for the first time since high school, feel as though process is perhaps the most important, that my grade includes improvement, not just product. I would like to include that in my teaching strategy; that marked improvement is as important as a polished piece. The availability of the professor was also admirable – I found myself wanting to do better because he took the time to help. He was dedicated to my writing process and learning, and so I was, too.
IV. IN WHICH I USE EVOLUTION AS A METAPHOR FOR FAILING AT AN MFA
Freshman creative writing class, we are crowded into a room with ill-placed support posts and perpetually blasting air conditioning. I write a short story about a kelpie, a mythical creature that turns into a horse and eats people from the inside out to wear their skin. It was not nearly macabre as that sounds. After hundreds of often-painful revisions and drafts, I tenuously submit it to a call for submissions. The story is accepted by an online podcast -- I am resplendent. I write another story about faerie rings, and the value of saving someone. I write another story about a river witch and ecological disaster. All accepted, all paid, I feel like a fish finally crawling onto a dry bit of land. I burn copies of all of them when I am not accepted into an MFA program because my writing is not literary. I return to the sea. I turn in a draft of a short story I wrote in my second year at FSU to an honor society’s literary journal as a last ditch effort to feel validated, and after I press send, I feel wrong. The story was about sunflowers and rebirth and dry counties. I win Best in Fiction and Best Overall, am invited to read at a conference for it in Savannah, Georgia, the story doesn’t feel like its mine, though I am overly thrilled and grateful for the opportunity to travel to a conference and present. It was like winning for a disguise, a case of mistaken identity. I get a tattoo of a sunflower and a cicada and put it behind me, a permanent reminder to stay genuine, regardless of how an institute perceives my abilities, without seeming irreverent or blasphemous or arrogant. I inch forward onto dry land again. I am trying not to sound bitter. I am trying not to sound bitter. I found security in my failure, I learned to expand, be more flexible in my identity as a writer, and was humbled. I have improved because of it. I don’t take things quite as seriously anymore. I have learned to experiment, to improvise, to move between genres, and to not try to write for a program’s acceptance.
V. IN WHICH I CONSIDER A LITERARY DEGREE AND READ AN ALARMING AMOUNT OF BOOKS
I take a year off between undergraduate and graduate degrees. I work at a home health care agency and handle insurance claims. I consume books by the stack, getting a library card, and burning through Christmastime gift cards to Barnes and Nobles. I get the free classics available online. I spend a slightly embarrassing percentage of my paycheck on cheap ebooks. I actually buy ebooks, something I would have never considered before I ran out of room on my bookshelf and found hauling several books around was clumsy and lead to me knocking things over with my bag. I read at my desk in between collection phone calls and filling out paperwork. I had never considered a degree in literature until I woke up one morning in a bed so filled with books that I had half read the spines off, my partner had to sleep in the other room, and I find myself missing school, missing the busy flow of campus and sitting in a classroom at a right-handed desk (I found out my last semester that FSU does, indeed, have desks for left-handed students, which entirely dictated where I sat in class until I graduated) and learning more about how literature and history inform society. I didn’t appreciate being challenged in an academic setting until I wasn’t in one anymore, and each day dragged into the next in a monotony of paperwork and phone calls. Between my undergraduate in my graduate degree, I develop a gnawing love for history which I never had before, and it encourages me to think critically about literature in ways I never did in undergrad, and I try to have conversations about it, and realize I need to learn more, that I am grossly unaware. I wonder how the ghosts of the Eastern Front may have haunted Nabokov, how the change of the place of the Southern Woman influences the words and people O’Connor chooses to write about. I read interviews with dead writers, their words reflecting their world. I write a few essays, remind myself of the form and function, and enter into the English Education program as a final rebellion, hoping to be able to take some extra courses on the side so I can teach at community college. The timeline was too strict though, so I applied last minute to the MA in Literature when I realized I could never handle teaching under NCLB, couldn’t teach to a test and down play the important of personal creativity and connection with literature in favor of lead-filled bubbles, and got into the program with an essay on literacy.
And so here I am, pink pen in hand, standing firmly on dry land.
Junior year of high school, freshman year of community college, we are required to take a paper every week to the writing center as part of the early college program, whether or not we have a new paper to work on. I begin so sure of my mastery of language (the dreaded Good Writer, who has nothing but basic encouragement and good grades in English classes.) Drafts upon drafts upon drafts are accumulated in neatly labeled $.50 folders that clutter the backseat of my car. I become convinced a draft is never done, writing is never done, it is always improved upon. I don’t name it, but now it becomes process over product, “better writers versus better product” as North says. The writing center is a small, windowless room in a library lit up by a woman in a mobility scooter who makes her way around the carefully placed tables, chatting about comma splices and the best way to use semicolons and how important brainstorming really is (“You use really too much when you talk and when you write,” she’d chided, waving a neon pink highlighter in the air, always pink, everything with her was pink. I agreed. She digressed.) She takes the time to go through each draft, makes comments in her always-present pink pen, but most important is her address of progress. In pink scrawl, she encourages me to grow in each paragraph, to explore my ideas, to not be so concerned with decorum and more concerned with what I’m really trying to say. I learned more about writing and composition in that tiny writing center than in the composition classes where we transcribed passages from grammar handbooks and learned how to create a thesis statement (both useful, but more prescriptive, less generative of creative, engaging content.) She kept a copy of each draft in her own folders and shows me how I change, how I lose the Thesaurus-dependence and develop a genuine voice, that essays can be both research based and personal. She buys us all a pink pen when we graduate.
II. IN WHICH I LEARN THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CLASSROOM AND CONFERENCE
I am asked to write my very first literary analysis my second year at Florida State and I flounder. I turn in one draft, get it returned full of red marks and a final grade, a suggestion to see the writing center for help on the genre -- a Storehouse answer to a greater question. I never so hated a red pen, or British Romantic Literature, and so I made an appointment with the teacher. In office, he was pleasant and accommodating, and agreed to let me turn in two drafts, understanding and willing to discuss, a far departure for the slightly frigid classroom presence that demanded we pay more attention because this was history, this was important, who railed in upset when we did poorly on the essay as a collective. I am reminded of Tobin, of a need for consistency. In teaching, I think consistency in attitude and approach is important, especially with grading and individual response. If the teacher had taken the time in class to be as helpful as he was in conferences, students could have grasped the subject better, been less disappointing in their responses. This instructor was the initial reason why I didn’t pursue a graduate degree in literature. His authoritarian approach kept me distant and afraid to connect with the text. But I learned that, in order to get students to connect, we must remember that we are not the end all, do all of any subject, we are always on a journey, just as students are. Especially in literature, insisting we are the masters of interpretation denies us the opportunity to grow with our students, to invite new perspectives.
III. IN WHICH SCIENCE FICTION TEACHES ME ABOUT LIT ANALYSIS
My next literature class at FSU, I take a class on science fiction as a break from the perceived general monotony of undergraduate literature classes (here’s to looking at you, British Romantic Literature, and the month we spent on Wordsworth.) We are encouraged to come to class only if we have something to say -- if we are just going to sit there and not contribute to discussion, we might as well not attend at all, and attendance is not strictly taken, so if you genuinely have nothing to say, you are no punished (though participation points are given for those who attend and speak.) I ask about drafts: as many as we want, so long as the final product is turned in by the due date. The teacher has a new baby, isn’t planning on sleeping much anyways, and says it will give him something to do in the long hours between crying and bottles. He responds helpfully, critically, without a large delay. We learn about dystopias and utopias and science fiction as a vehicle for political and social commentary in class, with active discussion and personal opinions are welcomed. Literary analysis becomes easier. Orwell relates to public surveillance. Stepford Wives and media portrayal of femininity go hand in hand. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed discusses capitalism versus communism, the self versus the whole. I decide that reading a genre I am legitimately interested in, when all the texts to be analyzed were books I really liked reading, I was more engaged in analyzing. This is the first teacher I have that encourages personal connection to reading. I receive less red pen. I buy handbooks on how to write literary analysis. I am encouraged to turn in draft after draft, and for the first time since high school, feel as though process is perhaps the most important, that my grade includes improvement, not just product. I would like to include that in my teaching strategy; that marked improvement is as important as a polished piece. The availability of the professor was also admirable – I found myself wanting to do better because he took the time to help. He was dedicated to my writing process and learning, and so I was, too.
IV. IN WHICH I USE EVOLUTION AS A METAPHOR FOR FAILING AT AN MFA
Freshman creative writing class, we are crowded into a room with ill-placed support posts and perpetually blasting air conditioning. I write a short story about a kelpie, a mythical creature that turns into a horse and eats people from the inside out to wear their skin. It was not nearly macabre as that sounds. After hundreds of often-painful revisions and drafts, I tenuously submit it to a call for submissions. The story is accepted by an online podcast -- I am resplendent. I write another story about faerie rings, and the value of saving someone. I write another story about a river witch and ecological disaster. All accepted, all paid, I feel like a fish finally crawling onto a dry bit of land. I burn copies of all of them when I am not accepted into an MFA program because my writing is not literary. I return to the sea. I turn in a draft of a short story I wrote in my second year at FSU to an honor society’s literary journal as a last ditch effort to feel validated, and after I press send, I feel wrong. The story was about sunflowers and rebirth and dry counties. I win Best in Fiction and Best Overall, am invited to read at a conference for it in Savannah, Georgia, the story doesn’t feel like its mine, though I am overly thrilled and grateful for the opportunity to travel to a conference and present. It was like winning for a disguise, a case of mistaken identity. I get a tattoo of a sunflower and a cicada and put it behind me, a permanent reminder to stay genuine, regardless of how an institute perceives my abilities, without seeming irreverent or blasphemous or arrogant. I inch forward onto dry land again. I am trying not to sound bitter. I am trying not to sound bitter. I found security in my failure, I learned to expand, be more flexible in my identity as a writer, and was humbled. I have improved because of it. I don’t take things quite as seriously anymore. I have learned to experiment, to improvise, to move between genres, and to not try to write for a program’s acceptance.
V. IN WHICH I CONSIDER A LITERARY DEGREE AND READ AN ALARMING AMOUNT OF BOOKS
I take a year off between undergraduate and graduate degrees. I work at a home health care agency and handle insurance claims. I consume books by the stack, getting a library card, and burning through Christmastime gift cards to Barnes and Nobles. I get the free classics available online. I spend a slightly embarrassing percentage of my paycheck on cheap ebooks. I actually buy ebooks, something I would have never considered before I ran out of room on my bookshelf and found hauling several books around was clumsy and lead to me knocking things over with my bag. I read at my desk in between collection phone calls and filling out paperwork. I had never considered a degree in literature until I woke up one morning in a bed so filled with books that I had half read the spines off, my partner had to sleep in the other room, and I find myself missing school, missing the busy flow of campus and sitting in a classroom at a right-handed desk (I found out my last semester that FSU does, indeed, have desks for left-handed students, which entirely dictated where I sat in class until I graduated) and learning more about how literature and history inform society. I didn’t appreciate being challenged in an academic setting until I wasn’t in one anymore, and each day dragged into the next in a monotony of paperwork and phone calls. Between my undergraduate in my graduate degree, I develop a gnawing love for history which I never had before, and it encourages me to think critically about literature in ways I never did in undergrad, and I try to have conversations about it, and realize I need to learn more, that I am grossly unaware. I wonder how the ghosts of the Eastern Front may have haunted Nabokov, how the change of the place of the Southern Woman influences the words and people O’Connor chooses to write about. I read interviews with dead writers, their words reflecting their world. I write a few essays, remind myself of the form and function, and enter into the English Education program as a final rebellion, hoping to be able to take some extra courses on the side so I can teach at community college. The timeline was too strict though, so I applied last minute to the MA in Literature when I realized I could never handle teaching under NCLB, couldn’t teach to a test and down play the important of personal creativity and connection with literature in favor of lead-filled bubbles, and got into the program with an essay on literacy.
And so here I am, pink pen in hand, standing firmly on dry land.