Writing With, Through, and Beyond the Text: An Ecology of Language
Rebecca Luce-Kapler
Language: English
Pages: 208
ISBN: 0805846107
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Writing With, Through, and Beyond the Text: An Ecology of Language elaborates an understanding of writing, its influences on our interpretations of experience and identity, and its potential for enabling individuals to learn about and connect to the world beyond themselves. Rather than considering writing a process, the author describes it as a system, an ecology that engages the individual in a variety of socially constituted and interacting systems. The book examines the pedagogical and curricular implications of this approach to writing, considering what it means to write and teach writing in ways that understand and acknowledge the ecological character of writing. This is an illuminating text for a wide audience of faculty, professionals, and graduate students in English, writing, education, and women's studies/feminist theory.
them and become a writer. Two small children who shunned naps and seemed always busy exploring the nooks and crannies of our small house did not allow much time for quiet, for reflection and contemplation. The words moved from my typewriter with excruciating slowness. Now that my children are grown, however, I still find it difficult to make it to my computer to spend the hours writing that I imagine I desire. So time and quiet perhaps are only part of the issue. Why is it so difficult to be a
different ways, we discover new aspects of our topic and our relationship to it" (2000, p. 923). In writing a poem, for instance, I focus attention on specific details and the central significance of close interpretation. Creating a narrative of experience helps me re-vision its implications and connect it to other aspects of my life. Writing a book such as this brings together many threads of memory and experience and creates a meaningful coherence to my work. Writing also reveals the contours
1, the group structure with the older women did not transpire as I had hoped and I ended up with individual meetings where we discussed their writing. After her participation in my research, Carmen joined a women's writing group for an eightweek session, exploring spirituality through writing. Although she felt more discomfort at times with having to be part of a larger collective, her thinking and writing developed quickly and her insights deepened through such interaction. In my work as a
circling me, that army of cats, purring and rubbing, following my every footstep, (p. 6) In these journal pages, she directed her efforts to the interpretation of the spirit of creation through painting. For Emily, as for many successful artists, the drive was to represent a moment of being fully present in life. She reminded herself: Do not try to do extraordinary things but do ordinary things with intensity. Push your idea to the limit, distorting if necessary to drive the point home and
Casey2—who also taught and wrote, and we began meeting in winter of that year. It was not long before I recognized that this structure was productive for thinking about writing, and the project grew beyond my course to become part of my dissertation work. From this association, another group evolved with adolescent gids from Sidonie's school. As my one writing group ended, the second began with Sidonie and me writing with seven young women. Here is how I described them in my research journal: The