Kyle's writing seems to be very choppy and fragmented. Yet, it makes sense and flows well. He uses lots of personal experience and it all seems to have some of the elements of a memoir. His personal experience seems to show his grasp of the argument and topic he is writing on.

Jamie's writing has also had quite a bit of personal experience. She tends to begin her writing with a story/narrative and then reflect on the experience described. She also uses dialogue quite a bit in telling about her personal experiences and narrative. She often uses compromise in presenting her arguments. These techniques seem to show that she draws understanding of the topic from personal experience and she can see both sides of the argument and how they might work.

Jessica uses a lot of personal experience as well. She tends to start her writing with backround and information on the different scholars' points of view then draws conclusions for her argument from her personal experience. This seems to show her understanding and the time she takes to understand the various stances of the topic as an academic.

Voice as Style that Grows

Writing with voice is writing into which someone has breathed. It has that fluency, rhythm, and liveliness that exist naturally in the speech of most people when they are enjoying a conversation...Writing with real voice has the power to make you pay attention and understand --the words go deep.[1]

Part I:

            In reading this quote by Peter Elbow, my definition of voice is that it is determined through style of a person’s writing. The reason that I see voice as style of writing is because a writer tends to, or should write, write like he or she speaks or as Elbow puts it, voice should come through like a person’s personality comes through in a conversation. However, while writing does not always come as easily as conversation because it is usually a one ended conversation, the vocabulary and the expressions in which the writer speaks during conversation should not vary much from his or her writing. Writing like a person speaks is seen in a variety of ways such as vocabulary, expressions, and the varying stages of education. Voice as style is never-ending growing process.

            Over the years, I have sat through many English classes where there was a great deal of emphasis on lists of vocabulary words and definitions. Usually, I was encouraged to use these words in my writing and projects for class. Some of the words I have picked up over the years, and they are now part of my everyday speaking, writing and conversation but then, if I added the words on the lists into my writing and projects, it usually sounded awkward and forced. I have also spent some time in English classes talking about sentence structure. Again, I was encouraged to use these various structures in my writing for class and it usually came off as awkward and forced. When teachers encouraged and often required me to use these various vocabulary words and sentence structures it did not always sound like my personal voice.

            Elbow’s quote seems to say that voice is found in writing is just as natural as participating in a conversation. The style in which a person speaks is the way their writing should sound. The vocabulary and various sentence structures I learned in my previous English classes were forced and awkward but eventually some of them became part of my regular everyday conversation and then my writing. In my experience, this picking up of different, and new vocabulary and sentence structures show that voice in writing varies through the different stages of my education.

            For example, my 12-year-old brother is going to have a different voice in his writing for his sixth grade English class than I do in my English classes as a sophomore in college. And a graduate student will have different more advanced voice in their writing than I do. This is not to say that all graduate students write in the same voice nor do the hand full of English education majors in this class writes with the same voice. But, it can be said that the various styles of writing in this class are more advanced than the various styles in my brother’s sixth grade class in that a graduate student has a more expansive vocabulary and a better understanding of different sentence structures. The differences in voice come through the way we like to write, and what comes natural to each individual based on understanding and knowledge of language.

            Thus as writers grow in their style, the find that There are certain words that they like to use in writing. Also, they find that there are certain phrases and sentence structures that become second nature to writers. These words and phrases are what make the writing fluid and natural. And no matter what the words and phrases are, they will come through in any type of writing whether it be academic writing or informal.

Part II:

            Spinoza believes that because a person recognizes that they have joy from someone or something on the outside, they love that someone or something. He sees love as the way we respond to what is giving us joy. So, according to him, the things that cause people happiness or joy are the things that we love. No matter what, they love the things that seem to help them in life and further enhance who they are. I think Spinoza is heading in the right direction. Many example models of love show that people tend to love what helps them become more of who they are without changing themselves.

            Spinoza adds another factor to his definition, “One who loves necessarily strives to have present and preserve things he loves” (Ethics, part III, proposition I I, scholium). The things that a person loves mean a lot to him or her. His life and his well-being depend on the things he loves. So, he keeps track of the things and makes sure he can get to them easily.

Part III:

            As I was doing the Frankfurt imitation I was not really looking at the content of the passage. I was not looking at the argument. Instead, I was taking what he was saying and putting it into my own words. I was using the words, phrases and sentence structures that come easy to me in my writing. And in doing this exercise, it has helped further emphasize and go along with my points on the definition of voice.

            One thing I thought about was that I do not necessarily write in the same voice as Frankfurt. He has a PhD and I do not even have a bachelor’s degree. He better understands the subject than I do so his style seems to come off as more wordy and thorough than mine would. While imitating, I had to take his sentence and imitate it in my style so that I could understand his point better. His voice is much more complicated than mine. For example, his first sentence says,  “Now, if a person who experiences joy recognizes has a certain external cause—that is, if the person identifies someone or something as the object to which he owes his joy and on which his joy depends—Spinoza believes that the person inevitably loves that object” (Frankfurt 44). Whereas, I wrote, “Spinoza believes that because a person recognizes that they have joy from someone or something on the outside, they love that someone or something.” I had to take his sentence and simplify it, using the vocabulary and sentence structures familiar and natural to me, so that I could understand it and so that it sounded more like me speaking otherwise it would sound awkward and it would not sound like myself. It sounds more like my voice because I am a college sophomore while Frankfurt has had four plus more years of education than me; throughout his further education he has had more of an opportunity to add to his vocabulary and explore and learn different sentence structures, thus making them part of his natural voice.

            Another thing I realized was that Frankfurt used some vocabulary, which I had heard and learned before but I do not usually use it in my own everyday language and writing. One example that stuck out to me was when he began one of his sentences with, “Many paradigmatic instances of love...” (Frankfurt 45).  I learned the word paradigm on a vocabulary list in high school. I know what it means and I have seen it in writing before but I had a difficult time getting past it in my imitation because this word in particular is not part of my everyday speech and vocabulary and therefore it is not part of my personal voice in writing. Instead I simplified its definition and used it in my imitation.

            Based on these to examples of trying to imitate from a PhD’s perspective to my own undergrad perspective and using the words that are more natural in my vocabulary, I still see voice in the same way as I did before I did the imitation exercise. Voice in writing is seen through the way the writer speaks. The voice of a writer comes out when it is as natural as speaking or engaging in a conversation. Their style of writing is similar to the style that they speak in.

Works Cited

Frankfurt, Harry G. On Truth. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006.

Elbow, Peter. Writing With Power. NY: Oxford UP, 1981.

From the Joy to Frustration in Writing

            I sat in my desk among my classmates in Mr. Brown's fourth grade class with a one-subject spiral bound notebook, a manila file folder, and a wooden number 2 pencil in front of me. It was the first day of what would become one of the class's favorite activities, writing workshops. Along with recess, gym class, and art, most everyone in my fourth grade class seemed to enjoy these writing workshops as much as I did.

            The notebook was supposed to be used to generate writing ideas or journal; writing in it every night was part of our homework. The folders would eventually be bursting at the seams with loose-leaf notebook paper filled with fragments of ten-year-old handwriting of stories and essays.  The sky was the limit for some of our writing while other assignments were more specific. I loved every aspect of writing that year, whether it was a book report, a personal story, or writing from the teachers prompt. As soon as the assignment was given, the words, phrases, and ideas that I would potentially put down on paper would run through my head. I couldn't wait to get started. It was going to be brilliant!

            These writing workshops were used for mostly creative writing in class. There were just a few rules: skip every other line, so we had room to add content later if we wanted or needed to. Also, instead of erasing what we didn't want in our writing we could only cross out with a single line; this enabled us to go back and potentially re-write the unwanted content into our writing. With those two rules, a notebook starting to fill up with ideas, and a pencil, we were off writing from our ten-year-old experience and imagination. Writing was easy.

            I find that I do not have as much opportunity to write as creative as I would like anymore. And if I can be creative, it usually does not allow room for endless possibilities or wild crazy imagination, but creativity within a particular topic or guidelines. The list of rules has greatly increased and the original two of never erasing but only crossing out and skipping every other line are the only ones necessary for the writing process. They are often the only two rules and guidelines that enable writers to improve their writing. The new and added guidelines vary and are now a nuisance and occasionally an encumbrance in my writing. These new rules usually do not have anything to do with improving the writing but limit what can be said and how it can be said in writing.  The creativity no longer comes from the great depths of my imagination or the experiences of my childhood but through my personal voice in writing. Even when I can write about a personal experience, guidelines can limit what that experience can be. It must be because of the limitations often put on the writing I do. Nevertheless, I still begin to think about what I am going to write as the assignment is given-whether it be a research paper, an expository essay, etc.

            Writing down lists of ideas, or reflections of potential paper topics continues to help me in my writing however, they are not done as carefully and as thoroughly as my fourth grade teacher would have liked as they are usually scribbled down notes and jotted lists of ideas. There is no cohesiveness to my lists of ideas, but there is not much variety either. These lists and reflections stay within the boundaries of the assignment topic. I do not write as easily because often times I am held down by the novel, historical event, or scientific report I am supposed to be writing about. My writing has gone from writing in my personal "expertise" to writing in a basic (at best) understanding of the topic, often times with the "expert" critiquing it.

            Writing workshops did not consist of just writing but also editing and sharing our writing with our classmates. There were three spots in the classroom designated for two students to go and share their papers with each other. These were times when we gave each other ideas and helped each other with our writing. These were times used to show off how much we accomplished and to tell our stories to each other. After ideas were exchanged and the bragging was done I would go back to my desk and keep working.

            I would work until I felt like I came up with the most impressive story I could. After writing a final copy I shared it with my teacher and then waited patiently until he went through it correcting grammatical errors and making his own suggestions. Even then it was still a work in progress. I would rewrite it yet again and again until it was perfect if that was even possible. But, I wanted the best story I could possibly make. At ten, I wanted to be the best writer ever and through my inexperienced and young writing, I felt that I could be.

            No one wants to hurt a child's feelings and say they suck especially when it was straight from the child's imagination. When writing about whatever we wanted, all that usually mattered was that we wrote and we wrote with correct spelling and grammar with occasional sentence structure variations but as inexperienced writers the latter was still being grasped.

            Through time, I have learned that no writing is perfect, even the writing I am most proud of. And as I have grown as a writer, I have realized that not everyone will like my writing. Growth in writing means more complications in writing. There are more obstacles in grammar, structure and content. As I read my stories written in the fourth grade I see simple, straightforward writing:

My Pen Pal

January 1999

I met my pen pal in Florida at the beach. She is really nice. After we met we went to my aunt's house to play. A few days later she came to sleep over at my aunt's house. The next day she really wanted me to sleep over at her grandma's house, so I did! The next day we woke up at ten o'clock. We had breakfast and then went out to play. We had lunch at two and played in her grandmother's school bus, because she drives it pick up kids. So she let us play in it. We had dinner at eight, went back to her grandma's house and celebrated New Years! Now we write letters to each other, and I like that.

And now, I could summarize my entire story in 3 or 4 much more complex sentences, leaving out the unnecessary that I felt was absolutely necessary at the time.

I met my pen pal in Florida during Christmas vacation. We became fast friends during our couple short days of play and laughter. Now we maintain that friendship by writing letters to each other.

More complexity and complication in writing leaves more room for unfamiliarity and making mistakes.  Thus, I am not as eager to show off my writing. There are only a select few that I would show my writing to and even that are done reluctantly. As my writing grew, I eventually stopped being proud of my writing and usually did not see myself as much of a writer at least not from other's points of view.

            Yet, it is absolutely necessary and in many cases required to share my writing with others just as I had done so eagerly in the fourth grade. As hard as it may be, I have to force myself to share my writing with others voluntary, not just because I have to. When I show my writing to other people, rather than being proud and eager to show it off, I anxiously await for them to scrutinize and tear apart my work. Immediately following is either a sense of relief when my work is praised or a sense of confirmation when my writing is not liked. However, either one of these scenarios can help me to improve my writing by either showing me what I did wrong or what I did right.

            The most exciting part of writing workshops was when I was able to bring my story to the publishing center at my school. Parent volunteers ran the publishing center in an empty classroom down the hall from my class. I brought two pieces that I wrote during my writing workshops, one being My Pen Pal. The other was a reflection of what my life would be like one day called In Ten Years. Ironically it has been ten years since I wrote this and I am not even close to what my life is like now. I had grand ideas of becoming the first female president, or a veterinarian, or an actress and ten years later I am a poor college student.

In Ten Years

October 1998

In ten years I wonder what I'll be....An astronaut that is the first to step on Pluto? A teacher who does animal experiments? An actress that is very famous? The first girl to play in the NFL? Maybe I'll be a famous ice skater?

            Before I brought my story to the writing center, it had to be perfect. It was proof read and written out in the neatest handwriting possible. Once I was able to go publish my story I would take it over to the publishing center and go through it and divide the sentences up for the pages of my book. A volunteer would type it up and then I would pick out a cover for my book, a "This book is dedicated to ______" page, and a "Meet the author" page. The pages and cover would all be sewn, stapled, or bounded together and then given to me. I was almost done. All that was left was the illustrations.

            I could not wait to get started drawing elaborate and cartoon-like pictures to illustrate my story. Finally I was done and could show them off to my family and friends. I was a published author! According to everyone I showed my stories to, they were great works; I was an amazing writer.

            As a fourth grader it was easy to stay focused from start to finish in a piece of writing and end with as much confidence and pride in it as I began with. It was in the fourth grade that I learned to love writing but since then, I have never had the same confidence and pride in my writing. It is strange to say that because as I look at my writing now and compared to my ten-year-old writing I do not know where the pride came from or why I was so proud of my writing. I usually do not share my writing with anyone except a teacher or an occasional classmate. Sometimes, I wonder where the pride and confidence went and why, if I enjoy writing, I do not share it more often.

            Perhaps, I do not care to share my writing with others because it is no longer something I take the time to enjoy, especially on the academic front. It is possible that I do not take time to enjoy writing because I am constantly producing paper after paper following specific guidelines and topics. I am continually writing something but I never take the time that I should unless it is required of me. I write a paper on a book I only half read hoping the teacher will not notice; another piece of writing is written responding to something in class hoping I paid enough attention and can remember everything we talked about. Very rarely, does it take weeks to write a paper but rather a day, an afternoon, an hour or two. And then there is always a sigh of relief to find out that I actually pulled it off. Looking back I cannot believe it took me weeks to write a story the length of a paragraph and now I rarely spend more than a few hours on any kind of writing.

            I do not share my writing with others because I am stuck in a set of guidelines to the point that I need them in order to produce something I am somewhat confident with. Yet, while these guidelines produce a slight sense of confidence, the writing is not something I necessarily enjoy doing. It has gotten to the point that I have more trouble pulling something out of thin air to write about than coming up with something within the limitations of guidelines. Perhaps, that confidence and joy in writing is a thing of a past and may never be found again. And if it is ever found, it probably won't be found very often in the academic setting because there is too much stress, urgency to get it done, and need for approval.

            However, I have found the joy I once had in all writing in some writing many years later. Journaling is, the writing I enjoy the most these days. It is where I can get my thoughts out and unwind from everything else in my life, including other kinds of writing. Most likely no one else will critique it; no one else will read it. It is the writing that comes from experience, feelings, and the depths of my imagination and there are no rules. I find the joy in writing through writing for myself because I do not have to impress anyone else; I do not have to feel self-conscious about my writing. I still like writing but at times the joy in it has been lost.

I sat in my desk among my classmates in Mr. Brown's fourth grade class with a one-subject spiral bound notebook, a manila file folder, and a wooden number 2 pencil in front of me. It was the first day of what would become one of the class's favorite activities, writing workshops. Along with recess, gym class, and art, most everyone in my fourth grade class seemed to enjoy these writing workshops as much as I did.

            The notebook was supposed to be used to generate writing ideas or journal; writing in it every night was part of our homework. The folders would eventually be bursting at the seams with loose-leaf notebook paper filled with fragments of ten-year-old handwriting of stories and essays.  The sky was the limit for some of our writing while other assignments were more specific. I loved every aspect of writing that year, whether it was a book report, a personal story, or writing from the teachers prompt. As soon as the assignment was given, the words, phrases, and ideas that I would potentially put down on paper would run through my head. I couldn't wait to get started. It was going to be brilliant!

            These writing workshops were used for mostly creative writing in class. There were just a few rules: skip every other line, so we had room to add content later if we wanted or needed to. Also, instead of erasing what we didn't want in our writing we could only cross out with a single line; this enabled us to go back and potentially re-write the unwanted content into our writing. With those two rules, a notebook starting to fill up with ideas, and a pencil, we were off writing from our ten-year-old experience and imagination. Writing was easy.

            I find that I do not have as much opportunity to write as creative as I would like anymore. And if I can be creative, it usually does not allow room for endless possibilities or wild crazy imagination, but creativity within a particular topic or guidelines. The list of rules has greatly increased and the original two of never erasing but only crossing out and skipping every other line are the only ones necessary for the writing process. They are often the only two rules and guidelines that enable writers to improve their writing. The new and added guidelines vary and are now a nuisance and occasionally an encumbrance in my writing. These new rules usually do not have anything to do with improving the writing but limit what can be said and how it can be said in writing.  The creativity no longer comes from the great depths of my imagination or the experiences of my childhood but through my personal voice in writing. It must be because of the limitations often put on the writing I do. Nevertheless, I still begin to think about what I am going to write as the assignment is given-whether it be a research paper, an expository essay, etc.

            Writing down lists of ideas, or reflections of potential paper topics continues to help me in my writing however, they are not done as carefully and as thoroughly as my fourth grade teacher would have liked as they are usually scribbled down notes and jotted lists of ideas. There is no cohesiveness to my lists of ideas, but there is not much variety either. These lists and reflections stay within the boundaries of the assignment topic. I do not write as easily because often times I am held down by the novel, historical event, or scientific report I am supposed to be writing about.

            Writing workshops did not consist of just writing but also editing and sharing our writing with our classmates. There were three spots in the classroom designated for two students to go and share their papers with each other. These were times when we gave each other ideas and helped each other with our writing. These were times used to show off how much we accomplished and to tell our stories to each other. After ideas were exchanged and the bragging was done I would go back to my desk and keep working.

            I would work until I felt like I came up with the most impressive story I could. After writing a final copy I shared it with my teacher and then waited patiently until he went through it correcting grammatical errors and making his own suggestions. Even then it was still a work in progress. I would rewrite it yet again and again until it was perfect if that was even possible. But, I wanted the best story I could possibly make. At ten, I wanted to be the best writer ever and through my inexperienced and young writing, I felt that I could be.

            No one wants to hurt a child's feelings and say they suck especially when it was straight from the child's imagination. When writing about whatever we wanted, all that usually mattered was that we wrote and we wrote with correct spelling and grammar with occasional sentence structure variations but as inexperienced writers the latter was still being grasped.

            Through time, I have learned that no writing is perfect, even the writing I am most proud of. And as I have grown as a writer, I have realized that not everyone will like my writing. Growth in writing means more complications in writing. There are more obstacles in grammar, structure and content. As I read my stories written in the fourth grade I see simple, straightforward writing:

My Pen Pal

January 1999

I met my pen pal in Florida at the beach. She is really nice. After we met we went to my aunt's house to play. A few days later she came to sleep over at my aunt's house. The next day she really wanted me to sleep over at her grandma's house, so I did! The next day we woke up at ten o'clock. We had breakfast and then went out to play. We had lunch at two and played in her grandmother's school bus, because she drives it pick up kids. So she let us play in it. We had dinner at eight, went back to her grandma's house and celebrated New Years! Now we write letters to each other, and I like that.

And now, I could summarize my entire story in 3 or 4 much more complex sentences, leaving out the unnecessary that I felt was absolutely necessary at the time.

I met my pen pal in Florida during Christmas vacation. We became fast friends during our couple short days of play and laughter. Now we maintain that friendship by writing letters to each other.

More complexity and complication in writing leaves more room for unfamiliarity and making mistakes.  Thus, I am not as eager to show off my writing. There are only a select few that I would show my writing to and even that are done reluctantly. As my writing grew, I eventually stopped being proud of my writing and usually did not see myself as much of a writer at least not from other's points of view.

            Yet, it is absolutely necessary and in many cases required to share my writing with others just as I had done so eagerly in the fourth grade. As hard as it may be, I have to force myself to share my writing with others voluntary, not just because I have to. When I show my writing to other people, rather than being proud and eager to show it off, I anxiously await for them to scrutinize and tear apart my work. Immediately following is either a sense of relief when my work is praised or a sense of confirmation when my writing is not liked. However, either one of these scenarios can help me to improve my writing by either showing me what I did wrong or what I did right.

            The most exciting part of writing workshops was when I was able to bring my story to the publishing center at my school. Parent volunteers ran the publishing center in an empty classroom at my school. I brought two pieces that I wrote during my writing workshops, one being My Pen Pal. The other was a reflection of what my life would be like one day called In Ten Years. Ironically it has been ten years since I wrote this and I am not even close to what my life is like now. I had grand ideas of becoming the first female president, or a veterinarian, or an actress and ten years later I am a poor college student.

            Before I brought my story to the writing center, it had to be perfect. It was proof read and written out in the neatest handwriting possible. Once I was able to go publish my story I would take it over there and go through it and divide the sentences up for the pages of my book. A volunteer would type it up and then I would pick out a cover for my book, a "This book is dedicated to ______" page, and a "Meet the author" page. The pages and cover would all be sewn, stapled, or bounded together and then given to me. I was almost done. All that was left was the illustrations.

            I could not wait to get started drawing elaborate and cartoon-like pictures to illustrate my story. Finally I was done and could show them off to my family and friends. I was a published author! According to everyone I showed my stories to, they were great works; I was an amazing writer.

            As a fourth grader it was easy to stay focused from start to finish in a piece of writing and end with as much confidence and pride in it as I began with. It was in the fourth grade that I learned to love writing but since then, I have never had the same confidence and pride in my writing. It is strange to say that because as I look at my writing now and compared it to my ten-year-old writing I do not know where the pride came from or why I was so proud of my writing. I usually do not share my writing with anyone except a teacher or an occasional classmate. Sometimes, I wonder where the pride and confidence went and why, if I enjoy writing, I do not share it more often.

            Perhaps, I do not care to share my writing with others because it is no longer something I take the time to enjoy, especially on the academic front. It is possible that I do not take time to enjoy writing because I am constantly producing paper after paper following specific guidelines and topics. I am continually writing something but I never take the time that I should unless it is required of me. I write a paper on a book I only half read hoping the teacher will not notice; another piece of writing is written responding to something in class hoping I paid enough attention and can remember everything we talked about. Very rarely, does it take weeks to write a paper but rather a day, an afternoon, an hour or two. And then there is always a sigh of relief to find out that I actually pulled if off.

            I do not share my writing with others because I am stuck in a set of guidelines to the point that I need them in order to produce something I am somewhat confident with. Yet, while these guidelines produce a slight sense of confidence, the writing is not something I necessarily enjoy doing. It has gotten to the point that I have more trouble pulling something out of thin air to write about than coming up with something within the limitations of guidelines. Perhaps, that confidence and joy in writing is a thing of a past and may never be found again. 

Frankfurt defines truth as fact, and the only exception to truth is when all parties know the truth and that the lie is a lie. Lying is bad because it becomes the reality and causes loneliness and isolation. When the truth is withheld from a person, his self-knowledge is at stake. Truth is seen through physical evidence and quantifiable evidence.

Miller sees truth as something that is assumed and expected even when it is a lie. It does not have to be proved and it is necessarily fact. Because one wrote it in his or her memoir, it is truth. It is truth because it appeals to the emotions of the reader; the reader can relate with it.

            The notebook was supposed to be used to generate writing ideas or journal; writing in it every night was part of our homework. The folders would eventually be bursting at the seams with loose-leaf notebook paper filled with fragments of ten-year-old handwriting of stories and essays.  The sky was the limit for some of our writing while other assignments were more specific. I loved every aspect of writing that year, whether it was a book report, a personal story, or writing from the teachers prompt. As soon as the assignment was given, the words, phrases, and ideas that I would potentially put down on paper would run through my head. I couldn't wait to get started. It was going to be brilliant.

            These "writing workshops" were used for mostly creative writing in class. There were just a few rules: skip every other line, so we had room to add content later if we wanted or needed to. Also, instead of erasing what we didn't want in the paper we could only cross out with a single line; this enabled us to go back and potentially re-write the unwanted content into our writing. With those two rules, a notebook starting to fill up with ideas, a pencil and some paper, we were off writing from our ten-year-old experience and imagination. Writing was easy

            I find that I do not have as much opportunity to write as creative as I would like anymore. And if I can be creative, it usually does not allow room for endless possibilities or wild crazy imagination, but creativity within a particular topic or guidelines. The list of rules has greatly increased and the original two are the only ones necessary for the writing process whereas the new ones vary and are now a nuisance and occasionally an encumbrance in my writing.  The creativity no longer comes from the great depths of my imagination or the experiments of my childhood but through my personal voice in writing. It must because of the limitations often put on the writing I do. Nevertheless, I still begin to think about what I am going to write as the assignment is given-whether it be a research paper, an expository essay, etc.

            Writing down lists of ideas, or reflections of potential paper topics continues to help me in my writing however, they are not done as carefully and as thoroughly as my fourth grade teacher would have liked as they are usually scribbled down notes and jotted lists of ideas. There is no cohesiveness to my lists of ideas, but there is not much variety either. These lists and reflections stay within the boundaries of the assignment topic. I do not write as easily because often times I am held down by the novel, historical event, or scientific report I am supposed to be writing about.

            Writing workshops did not consist of just writing but also editing and sharing our writing with our classmates. There were three spots in the classroom designated for two students to go and share their papers with each other. These were times when we gave each other ideas and helped each other with our writing. These were times used to show off how much we accomplished and to tell our stories to each other. After ideas were exchanged and the bragging was done I would go back to my desk and keep working.

            I would work until I felt like I came up with the most impressive story I could. After writing a final copy I shared it with my teacher and then waited patiently until he went through it correcting grammatical errors and making his own suggestions. Even then it was still a work in progress. I would rewrite it yet again and again until it was perfect if that was even possible. But, I wanted the best story I could possibly make. At ten, I wanted to be the best writer ever and through my inexperienced and young writing, I felt that I could be.

            No one wants to hurt a child's feelings and say they suck especially when it was straight from the child's imagination. When writing about whatever we wanted, all that usually mattered was that we wrote and we wrote with correct spelling and grammar with occasional sentence structure variations but as inexperienced writers the latter was still being grasped.

            Eventually I have learned that no writing is perfect, even the writing I am most proud of. And as I have grown as a writer, I have realized that not everyone will like my writing. Thus I am not as eager to show off my writing. There were only a select few that I would show my writing to and even that were done reluctantly. I eventually stopped being proud of my writing and usually did not see myself as much of a writer at least not from other's points of view.

            Yet, it is absolutely necessary and in many cases required to share my writing with others. As hard as it may be, I have to force myself to share my writing with others voluntary, not just because I have to. When I show my writing to other people, rather than being proud and eager to show it off, I anxiously await for them to scrutinize and tear apart my work. Immediately following is either a sense of relief when my work is praised or a sense of confirmation when my writing is not liked. However, either one of these scenarios can help me to improve my writing by either showing me what I did wrong or what I did right.

            The most exciting part of "writing workshops" was when I was able to bring my story to the publishing center at my school. Parent volunteers ran the publishing center in an empty classroom at my school. I brought two pieces that I wrote during my writing workshops. One was a reflection of what my life would be like one day called In Ten Years (ironically it has been ten years since I wrote this and I was not even close to what my life is like now) and the other is a story about how I met my pen pal (cleverly called My Pen Pal).

            Before I brought my story to the writing center, it had to be perfect. It was proof read and written out in the neatest handwriting possible. Once I was able to go ‘publish' my story I would take it over there and go through it and divide the sentences up for the pages of my book. A volunteer would type it up and then I would pick out a cover for my book, a "This book is dedicated to ______" page, and a "Meet the author" page. The pages and cover would all be sewn, stapled, or bounded together and then given to me. I was almost done. All that was left was the illustrations.

            I dedicated one book to my sister and the other to my friend. The reason being: they were nice to me. I could not wait to get started drawing elaborate and cartoon-like pictures to illustrate my story. Finally I was done and could show them off to my family and friends. I was a "published" author! According to everyone I showed my stories to, they were great works; I was an amazing writer.

            As a fourth grader it was easy to stay focused from start to finish in a piece of writing and end with as much confidence and pride in it as I began with. It was in the fourth grade that I learned to love writing but since then, I have never had the same confidence and pride in my writing. It is strange to say that because as I look at my writing now and compared it to my ten-year-old writing I do not know where the pride came from or why I was so proud of my writing. I usually do not share my writing with anyone except a teacher or an occasional classmate. Sometimes, I wonder where the pride and confidence went and why, if I enjoy writing, I do not share it more often.

            Perhaps, I do not care to share my writing with others because it is no longer something I take the time to enjoy, especially on the academic front. It is possible that I do not take time to enjoy writing because I am constantly producing paper after paper following specific guidelines and topics. I am continually writing something but I never take the time that I should unless it is required of me.

            I write a paper on a book I only half read hoping the teacher will not notice; another piece of writing is written responding to something in class hoping I paid enough attention and can remember everything we talked about. Very rarely, does it take weeks to write a paper but rather a day, an afternoon, an hour or two. And then there is always a sigh of relief to find out that I actually pulled if off.

            Perhaps, I do not share my writing with others because I am stuck in a set of guidelines to the point that I need them in order to produce I am somewhat confident with yet not something I necessarily enjoy doing.  It has gotten to the point that I have more trouble pulling something out of thin air to write about than coming up with something within the limitations of guidelines. Perhaps, that confidence and joy in writing is a thing of a past and may never be found again.

Gates uses this same concept in his memoir by addressing the stereotypes he experienced growing up. He "talks back," by showing that not every person is part of this stereotype and it is not right to assume that.

Voice as Style that Grows

Part I:

            The way I would define voice can be summed up in this quote by Peter Elbow, "Writing with voice is writing into which someone has breathed. It has that fluency, rhythm, and liveliness that exist naturally in the speech of most people when they are enjoying a conversation...Writing with real voice has the power to make you pay attention and understand --the words go deep."

            In reading this quote, my definition of voice is that it is determined through style of a person’s writing. The reason that I see voice as style of writing is because a writer tends to (or should write) write like he or she speaks or as Elbow puts it, voice should come through like a person’s personality comes through in a conversation. However, while writing does not always come as easily as conversation because it is a one ended conversation, the vocabulary and the expressions in which the writer speaks during conversation should not vary much from his or her writing. Writing like a person speaks is seen in a variety of ways such as vocabulary, expressions, and the varying stages of education. Voice as style is never-ending growing process.

            Over the years I have sat through many English classes where there was a great deal of emphasize on lists of vocabulary words and definitions. Usually, I was encouraged to use these words in my writing and projects for class. Some of the words I have picked up over the years and they are now part of my everyday speaking, writing and conversation but then, if I added the words on the lists into my writing and projects, it usually sounded awkward and forced. I have also spent some time in English classes talking about sentence structure. Again, I was encouraged to use these various structures in my writing for class and it usually came off as awkward and force.

            Elbow’s quote seems to say that voice is found in writing is just as natural as participating in a conversation. The style in which a person speaks is the way their writing should sound. The vocabulary and various sentence structures I learned in my previous English classes were forced and awkward but eventually some of them became part of my regular everyday conversation and then my writing. In my experience, this shows that voice in writing varies through the different stages of my education.

            My 12-year-old brother is going to have a different voice in his writing for his sixth grade English class than I do in my English classes as a sophomore in college. And a graduate student will have different more advanced voice in their writing than I do. This is not to say that all graduate students write in the same voice nor do the hand full of English education majors in this class writes with the same voice. But it can be said that the various styles of writing in this class are more advanced than the various styles in my brother’s sixth grade class. The differences in voice come through the way we like to write, and what comes natural to each individual.

            There are certain words that people like to use in writing. There are certain phrases and sentence structures that become second nature to writers. These words and phrases are what make the writing fluid and natural. And no matter what the words and phrases are, they will come through in any type of writing whether it be academic writing or informal.

Part II:

            Spinoza believes that because a person recognizes that they have joy from someone or something on the outside, they love that someone or something. He sees love as the way we respond to what is giving us joy. So according to him, the things that cause people happiness or joy are the things that we love. No matter what, they love the things that seem to help them in life and further enhance who they are. I think Spinoza is in the right direction. Many example models of love show that people tend to love what helps them become more of who they are without changing themselves.

            Spinoza adds another factor to his definition, “One who loves necessarily strives to have present and preserve things he loves” (Ethics, part III, proposition I I, scholium). The things that a person loves mean a lot to him or her. His life and his well being depends on the things he loves. So, he keeps track of the things and makes sure he can get to them easily.

Part III:

            As I was doing the Frankfurt imitation I was not really looking at the content of the passage. I was not looking at the argument. Instead, I was taking what he was saying and putting it into my own words. I was using the words, phrases and sentence structures that come easy to me in my writing. And in doing this exercise, it has helped further emphasize and go along my points on the definition of voice.

            One thing I thought about was that I do not necessarily write in the same voice as Frankfurt. He has a PhD and I do not even have a bachelor’s degree. He better understands the subject than I do so his style seems to come off as more wordy and thorough than mine would. While imitating, I had to take his sentence and imitate it in my style so that I could understand better. His voice is much more complicated than mine. For example, his first sentence says,  “Now, if a person who experiences joy recognizes has a certain external cause—that is, if the person identifies someone or something as the object to which he owes his joy and on which his joy depends—Spinoza believes that the person inevitably loves that object” Frankfurt 44). Whereas, I wrote, “Spinoza believes that because a person recognizes that they have joy from someone or something on the outside, they love that someone or something.” I had to take his sentence and simplify it so that I could understand it and so that it sounded more like me speaking otherwise it would sound awkward and it would not sound like myself.

            Another thing I realized was that Frankfurt used some vocabulary, which I had heard and learned before but I do not usually use it in my own everyday language and writing. One example that stuck out to me was when he began one of his sentences with, “Many paradigmatic instances of love...” (Frankfurt 45).  I learned the word paradigm on a vocabulary list in high school. I know what it means and I have seen it in writing before but I had a difficult time getting past it in my imitation because this word in particular is not part of my everyday speech and vocabulary and therefore it is not part of my personal voice in writing. Instead I simplified its definition and used it in my imitation.

            Based on these to examples of trying to imitate from a PhD’s perspective to my own undergrad perspective and using the words that are more natural in my vocabulary, I still see voice in the same way as I did before I did the imitation exercise. Voice in writing is seen through the way the writer speaks. The voice of a writer comes out when it is as natural as speaking or engaging in a conversation. There style of writing is similar to the style that they speak in.

Works Cited

Frankfurt, Harry G. On Truth. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006. 

The book sat on the desk, worn from many years of rereading and covered in dust.

Archibald MacLeish Imitation:

To sleep soundly not just doze for a few hours we must be tucked into bed with a glass of water nearby and a night-light.

John Henry Newman Imitation:

To eat macaroni and cheese and popcorn is the horrid diet of a college student.

James Joyce Variation and Expression:

Quickly, he went through the narrow alley of the Temple Bar, having a good night of it, muttering they would go to Hell.

Quickly he went through the narrow alley of the temple Bar, and he could have sworn they would go to Hell because he was having a good night.