1) “I believe that the finely textured personal and autobiographical writing now emerging in the academy leads us to public and social contexts rather than private and individualistic ones.” (pp.26)
In high school, I rarely wrote in my “true” voice. It was often mechanical and academic, mainly in the hopes of pleasing my teacher to get a decent grade. I wasn’t taught to write with personality and pizazz, until college…or at least, I didn’t know that I had the ability to do so. Taking personal essay definitely opened doors in terms of how I verbalize my personal thoughts. I didn’t have to write it like a research paper. And then sharing my work with the class opened me up. I was more willing to share my life and discuss it. I find myself writing with the goal to inspire and move whoever so happens to read my piece. I write with the intention that someone is going to read it and that I feel is what the author, Anne Ruggles Gere is trying to say.
2) “…we often consider our students’ voices separate from the particular family history, significant persons, and events that helped to shape them. We forget that ‘authentic’ means relational. To describe a voice as authentic is to put it in relationship to other voices.” (pp. 28)
Okay, so my voice, just like Anne’s, is similar to my mom’s. Whenever I answer the phone at home, the person on the other end says, “Hi, Valerie?” And then I have to correct them, saying, “No, it’s Tess.” And then they go on this rant about how I sound just like my mother. But it’s true. We’re both loud, opinionated, and enthusiastic. If I had a different, mother, my voice would probably change accordingly. I know as we develop from child to teenager to adult, we learn everything from our parents whether it be gestures, manners, or speech. We constantly mirror other people, even when they aren’t our parents. I find myself constantly changing my voice depending on the person on taking to. For example, I won’t talk to my best friend the same way I talk to my crush. But when we write, who are we specifically talking to? This is a question I’d like to bring up in class. Do you write to someone who inspires you like your mom or dad? Or do you write to more general audience? Because odds are, your voice will change.
3) “I began to understand that writing and reading could be done with people and that pleasure I took in writing a poem or reading a novel could be multiplied by sharing it with others.” (29)
I use to hate peer editing workshops. I found them useless and degrading at times. I felt exposed and took the critiques quite personally. But it wasn’t until recently that I saw the light. When I took an autobiography class last year I wanted to have my writing workshopped. I cared about my memoire more than any other writing assignment class like in argument, or poverty, or fiction. Sharing my life was more worthwhile because let’s face it, I’m human, we’re all human and we love to talk about ourselves and hear what people have to say about it.
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