Matt just returned from a weekend jaunt to Denver for a conference about Writing. I know, I know, you're wondering why Student Life Coordinator Matt went to a Writing conference: He went to present along with Shawn Hellman, our department chair, about Writing classes collaborating with their Student Life Coordinators (they discussed a project based on the book and movie The Pursuit of Happyness that culminated in hearing a speech by Chris Gardner at the University of Arizona). Matt texted me during the conference to inquire about books I might be interested in because he was being offered book after book after book. I responded that I would be interested in anything a) creative or b) related to tutoring.
Matt returned with a few finds, including Writers Without Borders*: Writing and Teaching Writing in Troubled Times. I've already found it worthwhile**, and I'm not even past the introduction. Here is the second sentence of Lynn Z. Bloom's introduction:
"Creative writers, the writers whose work we read, remember, quote, and read again, set the agenda and determine the arena--the entire world, the universe unbounded to be created ever anew."
That is why I am involved in helping people understand words and language and how to use them. People who can think clearly and put those ideas down on paper, out into cyberspace, on a t-shirt or a poster or a coffee mug or a billboard, those are people who can ask what the world can be. They learn to ask and answer questions, to explore and in that exploring find new answers they did not anticipate and new questions they simply must pursue.
*All the cool kids use this, apparently: Doctors Without Borders, Words Without Borders, Teachers Without Borders, MBAs Without Borders, Mothers, Sociologists, Engineers, Reporters, Geeks, Builders, Clowns, Burners, Grantmakers, Acupunturists, Chemists, Hedgehogs, Alpacas, and on and on and on...
**I knew it! Matt came through!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment