budding scholar

I’ve always dreamed of writing children’s books. Bilingual stories that take children on journeys through other cultures, peoples’ homes who are different from them. Opening up the world through books. Teaching kids to be curious rather than fearful of people who are different from them. Starting conversations about tolerance and the kind of society we all dream of. (Decidedly not the topics of the beloved books I remember!)

It would be really neat to pick up this dream. Go through the library, read all the stories I can find that try to do what I’d like to write about. Learn about children’s book authors, who is out there doing the kind of work I’d like to do. Find an illustrator. A good place to start would be to begin collecting ideas, writing snippets. This seems far from my academic work, but in fact is not so far since it involves cross cultural learning, potentially immigration, language issues.

Children’s books shaped my thinking so much when I was young. Through stories I grew to know other families, imagine other worlds. I would love to create this for a new generation of kids.

In other words, what are we doing here? A discussion in Language and Identity class that started with a study of undergraduate writing turned to a debate about what academia is supposed to do, especially in Schools of Education. What is our voice supposed to be in universities? When we’re writing for an academic audience, what are the constraints and expectations re how we express ourselves?

Our teacher describes the purpose of academia as defining problems. She also said, academic papers are supposed to build and extend a field. Academic writing is about having texts speak to each other. Writing is such a significant part of the identity you learn in academia. Who are you as a writer, how are you drawing on others’ writing? At the same time, who are you as a thinker, how are you drawing on others’ thinking?

Am about as far from reaching my goals with writing as I was high in the sky when I took this photo. I feel like I shoot myself in the foot again and again with writing, never leaving enough time to do things I’m satisfied with. Especially when I have small assignments, 5 pages or less, it’s easy to think they’re an easy task, and before I know it the deadline is nearly here and I haven’t left enough time to do a good job. The only way of getting around this I think is to have a steady routine of times I write. This was working for a while, but like all good habits, as soon as my focus wavered, it faded into the vague list of things I don’t quite get to each day.

The thing about good habits is they take cultivation, time, to instill, including multiple tries. At least for me. I can’t seem to pick up new good habits very easily.

There is also the small issue of planning a wedding, which is fun and exciting and easily takes away loads of my free time away from me as it did this weekend.

Excuses, excuses. Time to focus on writing the best paper I can with the time I have.

Wrote this morning, got up and sat at the keyboard with bleary eyes searching for quotes and ideas in the texts I’ve read for my Language and Identity class. It feels good to write in this way, taking on small chunks at a time, not pressured, not worrying about perfection but simply putting placeholders with the ideas to come back to.

This is a beginning, writing consistently for classes. In many ways the assignment for the Language and Identity class is ideal, as it’s about creating responses to the readings that could be useful to us later (including summaries, quotes, connections, critiques). Tonight, I will write again in this way, drawing on the concrete task of a class assignment, working on it well in advance as a way of learning more and overcoming the writing blocks that happen as the deadline nears.

The next step will be to begin writing for my own work, my own self. What is my voice in this academic work? What contributions will my work make? Who do I seek to serve with the academic work I do?

Wrote yesterday for 15 minutes before leaving for a birthday dinner. Wrote today for a half hour. Both times working on a reaction journal that I have to write for my language and identity class. Was thinking on my run today (4 miles through the Noe Valley hills in glorious spring weather) about how writing is so much easier when I do it in small chunks with no pressure. I think it is also more fruitful, since the kind of writing I’m doing requires thought about what I’m reading. When I write about readings in small bits, I think about it more in between, mull over ideas. And I also find it so much easier to write.

Yes, I work with goals, and after the week I’ve had, need some very manageable ones. So for the next week, starting today, I’m going to write for at least 15 minutes a day, on topics related to upcoming assignments. Maybe one day I summarize an article, the next day I link it to another one. Maybe I critique the work. Whatever it is, it needs to be connected in a loose way with something I’d USE later, and needs to happen every day. And oh yeah, I’m going to post about my progress here, maybe even post some of the writing. Maybe this will help me stop feeling like such an ape about all this.

…of course, a few hours before the paper is due, but not too stressful because I had a good draft to work with. Giving myself raw material is so important-just starting somewhere. Yet creating the space to be a writer is also important. I know I write better in the morning so I dragged myself out of bed and wrote for 40 minutes this morning. It always pays off. But most of the time the willpower not to snooze or reset the alarm escapes me.

When do you write best? What do you do to inspire yourself when it feels like drudgery? How do you find a rhythm for scholarly writing? Is it similar or different to how we find rhythms for other kinds of writing?

I have the bulk of two papers to write in the next two weeks. We were told at the beginning of the year (in orientation I think) that writing the same paper for two classes was not cheating, but a smart way of doing things. I tried for it but it didn’t quite work out that way in my History of American Education class, and my Power and Inequality in Higher Education sociology class.

For History I’m writing about responses to immigration in schools for the past 100 years. How have the changing purposes of education more broadly impacted the way that immigrants are integrated into public schools? Are immigrants different today than they were 100 years ago?

For Sociology I am writing about Latinos in higher education. Who are Latinos, and what do trends for college look like for them (compared to other groups, and comparing different Latino groups, like Cubans and Mexicans)? What is the role of higher education in integrating or assimilating immigrants into a new culture?

I write best in the morning, so plan to spend time each morning from now until I turn these in really working on my writing. Trying to break out of the academic bad writing that is so prevelant in academia in general, crafting my prose a little more carefully. I’d like to take some writing classes at some point, to improve my writing for professional purposes and because I have always wanted to take some creative writing classes.

When I finish the semester at last I will be going to China! At the end of May I have a trip for work. Also hope to buy a new bike (ours were stolen a week ago), and start riding up Twin Peaks again. Looking forward to having only one job again for a time…having time to spend with the people I love, read some novels, and enjoy some of the movies I’ve missed in the last 9 months, like The Namesake. Also looking forward to cooking!

 The time of the semester has come when final papers loom large, and I know that to manage I need to be writing more. An important part of academics is writing papers, and academics are famously bad writers.  I’d like to take a class or two to hone my writing skills (have wanted to for years). But I know how I write, I know when I’ve done my best writing, and I know that I don’t need a class to do that (though it can only help). The key is to write regularly. And for some reason, my classes have required little writing this semester, and the page looms bigger and bigger in front of me as I think about tackling my two big final papers.

Tonight writing two small papers for tomorrow, I realized again the truth of my writing process. Put some words to the page from the beginning. Allow the thinking that happens only as I write to begin flowing. Don’t seek perfection in the first paragraph. Such basic writing advice. But crucial to remember as I try and get over these blocks and put ideas to the page little by little in preparation for writing these big papers.