The second post of the semester

I decided to choose a passage from Donald Murray's work because I don't really think Christensen has the most profound quotes in the world. Don't get me wrong, I though the Christensen piece was extremely helpful, but it seemed to read more like a set of intructions or more specifically what worked the her class. Again helpful, but I believe that every class is slightly different and the instructor needs to realize this and tailor their teaching method to best fit said class. I DO believe that there are many useful way on which a teacher can go about doing this within the work. I guess what it really comes down to is that I just didn't like the way Christensen put lengthy thank you notes to herself in the essay.
Way back at the beginning of the last paragraph I mentioned that I decided to choose a quote from Murray and havn't even so much as touched the issue. It's hard to imagine that I will be teaching children to write even though I can't ever seem to get to the point, and have an even harder time staying on it once I finally do. To this point Murray has tossed a slew of quality quotes at us. Out of this latest batch I found one that really seemed to perk my interest: "Voice is one of the most complex and yet least-investigated areas of composition. It is a subject that often makes academics uncomfortable because it does not seem intellectual, but we all speak and write with voice." I chose this not because it was the most profound or enlighting quote out of the essay, but simply because it was something I strongly agree with. I find that every writer, scratch that, every person has a different voice that is strangly similar to their speaking voice. It may get masked in MLA format, over-flowery lauguage and spellcheck, but it is always present. Readers/writers will never agree with "intellectuals/academics" (whatever those title really mean) because readers and writers alike both look to find voice in literature. Once I do find the voice of a certain person, I find reading their writing to be far more enjoyable. An example would be one of my favorite authors Dave Barry, at first his comedic writings seemed a little lost on me, but once I found the flow and tone and all the other elements (known and unknown) that go into a persons literary voice then an entire new world opens up. I had the oppurtunity to hear Dave Barry speak which I treasured as a rare occurance, not because Dave Barry seldom speaks in public, but rather because you seldom get to hear and author of a literary work speak, here is where the classroom is truly a fantastic place. In the classroom you not only get know your students on a personal level, but you also get to hear both the literary and non-literaray voices of your students, but you also get to help them merge the two into one.