Audience(s)

There are several teachers here and a few others who read this blog. So as I write, I have some of them in mind. How would this blog be different if I knew students would be reading it? This makes me wonder about the power of audience.

I always knew inherently audience was vital to writing. However, it wasn’t until graduate school when I read an essay called “Closing My Eyes As I Speak” by Peter Elbow that the impact audience can have on student writing became clear. In that essay Elbow makes an argument for having students ignore audience all together. I guess the first few entries here were with no audience in mind. But now I can’t help but feel like several of my peers and colleagues and loved ones are peering over my shoulder as I read. How has audience impacted my writing?

In high school I wrote just to please myself. So therefore my spelling and punctuation were horrible, as were most of my papers. But then during my freshman year I had the greatest high school teacher in the world, Mrs. Christianson (there is an entry about her and the impact she had on my life somewhere on this blog). She became the perfect audience for me - she marked me down for spelling and punctuation errors; however, she loved my voice and passion. This was all I needed. As I look back at those essays (thankfully Mom had saved them all), I cringe at some of the basic errors that I made (usage errors and run-ons galore). But her encouragement and response to my writing did more for me than any number of grammar exercises ever could have. Even though she left after only one year, Mrs. Christianson would remain sitting on my shoulder and offer support on everything I wrote the rest of high school.

When I went off to junior college, it took me awhile to find my audience. My first few papers were horrible, mainly because I came from a high school English program that was one of the worst in the state (Mrs. Christianson was a godsend, but she was there for only one year - but what a year it was). Then I was fortunate enough to find Dr. Drake, a professor who basically chewed me out for being lazy and slacking off. Then she lit a fire under my ass. As I roasted I realized it just wasn’t a couple of flames. It was a damned bonfire. And she was throwing a party. For during that year, I found a lot of other students who she motivated in a similar fashion.

My writing took off with Dr. Drake's encouragement. It reached its peak when she asked to use a story I had written in one of her creative writing classes during my freshman year in one of her sophomore English classes. It’s still one of the high lights of my college career. Luckily, she showed it around to some other faculty members and part way through my sophomore year I found myself in a writing group with this professor and several other faculty members.

After receiving my AA, I transferred to Bemidji State University. There I teetered on the edge of becoming a history major, but in the spring of that year I found two professors, Dr. Bonner and Dr. Christensen, respectively, who would take up residency in my ideal audience. I had Dr. Bonner for World Lit, Expository Writing, and Literary Criticism. I had Dr. Christensen for two Methods classes.

I credit Dr. Bonner with showing me how to really write. But this time it was a lot more difficult that when Mrs. Christianson taught me. I got my essays back from Dr. Bonner with Bs scrawled at the top. I was frustrated. In high school I excelled in writing. I did even more so at the junior college level. But here I couldn’t break the A level to save my soul.

Finally, I sat down and actually read her comments, rather than sulking about the grade. Sure enough, she was right. It was only when I actually went back and began revising my papers with her comments in mind that I began to cut out wordiness, flowery language, and began to focus on images. By the middle of my Expository Writing class, I knew I had made significant progress when Dr. Bonner read the opening paragraph of my newest essay to the class. In fact that essay was voted by the class as the top essay in a ‘writing awards’ contest she had us all enter. Sure it was nice to have that honor, but it was even better knowing how far my writing had come.

When I enrolled in my Methods class, I wasn’t sure what to think. Unlike my Expository Writing class, we had total (and I mean total) freedom over what to write about. We also had total freedom over form too. Looking back on this, I think it was essential that I had these classes in such an order. While Dr. Bonner taught me the rules and form, Dr. Christensen taught me not only how to break them, but, more importantly, he also taught me how to enjoy breaking them.

Dr. Christensen also physically became the audience for my writing. He was the first professor who had students actually present their papers to the class. This scared the hell out of me. Despite reading my first few essays at light speed, I remember looking up and seeing him beaming at me, obviously proud of what I had written. Soon he had me addicted to sharing my work with my classmates.

Unfortunately, I had to graduate and get a job. Oddly enough teaching high school English damned near killed my writing. For whatever reason - panic, stupidity, sheer survival - I forgot all the things they taught me. Instead of encouraging voice and experimentation with style, I became a grammar and form nazi. I think this was because I could control and measure student writing this way, which gave me, as a new teacher, some measure of control (and control was something I desperately needed those first few years). I could correct their papers for spelling errors and sentence fragments. I could show them how they needed to place a thesis at the end of their first paragraph. I modeled each essay for my students. I began to write in the voiceless and unoriginal five paragraph thesis support form (and unfortunately my file cabinet here is full of a lot of five paragraph themes written by me for my students. What the hell was I thinking? Now I imagine those teachers who comprise my audience booing at me and throwing rotten fruit at such writing).

Finally, Dr. Christensen came to my rescue again when I took a year off for graduate school. I was fortunate enough to team teach two Methods classes with him. There I rediscovered my voice and style. I jettisoned that five paragraph thesis support crap forever. It was also at graduate schoo,l with Dr. Christensen as my audience, that my writing took off again. Thanks to those nine months of graduate school, I began really writing again. In that school year, I cranked out more writing than I had in all the years prior (thankfully that writing has pushed all those horrible five paragraph themes of mine to the very back of my filing cabinet).

Now a new member has been added, my fiancé. She is an English major who has an eye for detail and imagery that I can only marvel at. Though my defense committee for my thesis were quite glowing in their praise, the highest praise came from Kristie when she read my final draft. She would balk at this, but it’s true. And what was that praise? She giggled. I knew when I heard her chuckle - I was upstairs - that it was worthy. In fact, I had consdered cutting out the scene that she found so amusing. And had she not reacted as she did, I would have cut it out. Good thing I didn’t. My committe said that was one of the most effective scenes in my thesis.

Now in my classes instead of being the grammar nazi, I borrow from the key members of my audience. I try to use Mrs. Christianson’s encouragement, Dr. Drake’s refusal to accept work that is devoid of thought and voice, Dr. Bonner’s eye for wordiness and grammar, Dr. Christensen’s push toward experimentation and presentation, and Kristie’s eye for the humor and blithe that makes the best writing personal and meaningful.