Why is it so hard to just say what you want to say? Table of Contents

Julie Tonnesen Major: Middle Grades Education with concentrations in Language Arts and Social Studies ENG 110 Prof: Paula Patch Hometown: Salisbury, NC Table of Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS Title Slide Info about author Framing Concept Project Description My Research English 110 Objective Purpose Audience Voice Awareness How they work together Challenges What I learned

THE PROJECT: Framing Concept “Many of our conceptions, or common-sense understandings, of writing are actually misconceptions that don’t hold up under close scrutiny.” –Elizabeth and Doug Downs, Writing about Writing Table of Contents

PROJECT DESCRIPTION My concept: “Writing is hard because I know what I want to say, I just don’t know how to say it.” To figure out why it is so hard to figure out how to say it, I interviewed several peers about their own writing processes and read several articles pertaining to this subject in Writing About Writing. I found that students have a hard time figuring out how to say it because they are too concerned with answering the prompt in the first paragraph, writing an excellent first draft, and pleasing their teacher/professor. Table of Contents

MY RESEARCH Greg: High School sophomore, football player, hates reading/writing. Katie: Middle school 7 th grader, horseback rider, loves to write but not for school. Wes: NCSU freshman, Civil Engineering major, really hates reading but good writer. Table of Contents

ENGLISH 110 OBJECTIVE A more sophisticated understanding of the relationship of purpose, audience, and voice, and an awareness that writing expectations and conventions vary within the academy and in professional and public discourse. Table of Contents

PURPOSE To figure out: – Why students of all ages have difficulties verbalizing their thoughts – If students of different ages facing the same difficulties – What causes these difficulties Table of Contents

AUDIENCE Professor Patch My classmates Writing Scholars Anyone who is interested in the writing process My research subjects Table of Contents

VOICE Formal but conversational – Important to use proper grammar and punctuation, but not overdo it because I was “entering a conversation” about writing. Informative – Had to present what I learned Positive – Wanted struggling writers, particularly research subjects to rest assured they weren’t only ones who struggled, and it’s possible to alleviate their difficulties Table of Contents

AWARENESS Didn’t have to be as formal as a research thesis Wide range of people had to be able to understand it Able to break some rules, but had to take extra caution with others Table of Contents

HOW THEY WORK TOGETHER Awareness of audience and how to say it shaped purpose Purpose gave flexibility to use real voice; not put on show Audience made me aware of discourse community Voice was affected by who would be reading paper VoiceAudience AwarenessPurpose Table of Contents

CHALLENGES Trying NOT to be too conversational Accepting that my first draft was going to stink and would need to be revised Listening to and learning from constructive criticism Table of Contents

WHAT I LEARNED It’s hard for students to say what they want to say because: – Too focused on answering the prompt in the first sentence – Expect their first drafts to be their final drafts – Too concerned with limits and guidelines placed by the teacher – Too concerned with giving an answer their teacher will like instead of what they actually think Table of Contents