Today we watched the first 8 digital stories in class and I was pleasantly surprised at how good they were. Not to say that I was expecting mediocre work from my classmates, but in the past I was particularly unimpressed by students' ability to make digital stories for the first time. Last spring I took English 103 and most of the stories we watched in the class were good but a lot of them lacked depth.
Some things I found very interesting while watching the digital stories were the similarities between student's and professor's writing process. For example, one of the stories brought up procrastination. That particular professor found it all too easy to put off the writing process altogether rather than sit down in focus. I found this to be very intriguing because I often forget that professors are not perfect writers. Yes, most of them have PhD's and have written dissertations that would make my head spin, but everyone struggles in writing.
Another similarity I saw between students and professors was the idea that writing is a process. This is something I focused on in my digital story because I think it is crucial in understanding what writing is. To be a good writer is not something tangible or reachable. Writing is an everlasting process that will continue to change as we mature and develop intellectually. Not only do we learn different methods of writing in general but a lot changes within our subconscious. Analyzing and contextualizing information becomes increasingly easier as we continue to read and write and that is the case no matter how skilled you are. All in all I was very pleased with the stories we watched in class and look forward to watching the rest to see what other similarities rise to the surface.
I definitely agree with you. I also feel that our writing further develops as the situations in our society and the world changes--whether it is technological advancement (i.e. media-based communication, like our digital stories) or evolutions within academia that cause us to communicate in different ways about different things.
ReplyDeleteI really liked how there was a connection between the student writing process and the professor writing process as well. Often I get flustered when I meet with a professor because I am stumped yet the professor seems to give me no direction. It is comforting to know that our professors have been in the same situation too
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