Response to Readings for 6/25

Yancey (2009)
Yancey brought up an interesting concept with the phrase "citizen writers." In "Historical Perceptions" she talks about how receptive modes of oracy and literacy have been preferred, especially for young students, as vehicles for transmitting and preserving societal values. But I never see her go back and directly address alternative possibilities -- what the power and potential of a citizen writer might be, or what that might look like in our context today.

What could a citizen writer be, or do? Apparently they can play large-scale practical jokes (see "This is Sparta,"), but what else? In Yancey's conclusion, she calls for a way of imagining writing that fosters "a new kind of citizenship." However, she does not go on to describe how writing might help create a new kind of citizen, which I think is very interesting. Are we talking about national citizens? Global citizens? Web citizens? Traditionally, citizenship has been a dividing line, between us/them, haves and have nots. Could the Web be changing this in some ways? -->

Yancey (2004)
In the other piece by Yancey, she uses two phrases on p. 319 that seem to go along with this idea of citizen writers. In talking about how technology changes constantly and in unpredictable ways, and she mentions "worldwide distribution" and "democratization of authorship," which both have something to say about citizenship. Is the Web actually making the globe more democratic in some ways? Is it making writing more democratic? How could these things be interrelated, and what are their limits? We've tried artificially creating and militarily propping up democracies: should we be air-dropping wireless-capable laptops instead of bombs? I've heard it argued that the means of production, distribution, and networking have radically changed the playing field of knowledge and power -- that those who never had "voice" before are gaining it now, and are finding each other and joining together in new ways and for new purposes. Does Yancey's idea of a new kind of citizenship come down to increased agency (and therefore, maybe, increased responsibility)?

Baron (1999?)
There are plenty of other interesting things in the Yancey pieces to comment on, but I thought I'd try to stick to a theme. I will say, in reading the chapter by Baron, I learned much more about pencils than I expected. :-) It did strike me how everything comes back to money, from the development of writing itself through the various technologies of writing into our present-day issues about access and even copyright. And the first page struck a chord, as I mentioned in class: I hate composing without a computer, and I never do it unless forced. I often use pen/pencil to think -- I prefer it for notetaking and prewriting -- but I never begin to compose until my fingers hit the keyboard. My writing and thinking processes are radically different between print and screen media, and writing virtually anything out by hand is a stymying, frustrating experience for me. Realizing that has made me suspicious of a common schoolhouse model of the writing that places all computer work -- presumed to be typing and maybe formatting -- at the end of the line under the "publication" umbrella, something like dessert after all the meat and potatoes work is done. I really can't work well that way, and I wonder if my students may not have a similar experience.