Voice

LIfe is full of coincidences.  Or some call it serendipity.  Either way one happened this morning in my Composition class at the ALC.  I'm re-reading Tom Romano's superb Crafting Authentic Voice.  Just as I finish a chapter, a student turns in their first draft of their first essay (describe your favorite time of the year).  It's handwritten, sloppy, and in need of revision, but just listen to this voice . . .

As I'm standing trying to decide whether the gnarled green sweater I just snatched off the rack is fashionable or looks like I stole it from a hobo, a prissy 'sales associate' present to me fiver shirt she found while 'searching the back room just for her special customer."  Yeah, right!  First, I just saw you grab them from over there.  Two, I'm not wearing a helmet and drooling, so I'm perfectly capable of picking out my own clothes.

That is voice. 

Now what does it have to do with a favorite time of year, we'll that leads in to how this students loves back to school shopping which is the last signal in the transition from summer to fall.  It also embodies all the anxiousness that builds toward school starting.

It's a nugget of pure gold that could be refined and polished.  I wish all of my College Comp students walked in with this kind of voice oozing from their sentences.