teaching what you know and gender issues...

The questions raised by the readings for this week are familiar to me. I have asked similar ones over the past five years. I felt for the longest time that I was missing valuable pieces of what it means to be a writer. Those bits of information that my professors held about the craft of writing and only gave to those of us who had reached a higher level of writing. I kept waiting for them to throw me crumbs, and at one point believed that I was not talented enough to receive these pieces. Then I took a special topics course called Creative Living. Half way through that semester, I realized that the precious bits of information I believed I was not worthy of lay in the realization that to be a writer was more than just words scrawled on paper. To be a writer I needed to live as one. I needed to embrace the writing lifestyle. Not the stereotype of what it means to be a writer, but to make living writing a habit.

The readings for this week reminded me of this and reinforced what I learned two years ago. I also realized that although my professors know more than I do about writing, they are not privy to any information that I cannot obtain with the same hard work and practice. I do believe that writing comes easier to some people and not to others, but so does math, science, music, acting, learning languages, etc. I also believe that you can have all the talent you need to be great, but without hard work and determination, you will never reach your full potential. Teachers give precious gifts to their students every time they teach. How much the student learns is up to them, but just as the student should not stop learning when obstacles block their progress a teacher should not stop teaching when students choose not to listen. The seeds you plant will eventually sprout. The potential of the student is worth not giving up on said student.

This semester I have grown acutely aware of my gender due to a gender communication class that I am taking. The material for this week discussed the issue of gender and how it affects a person's writing. I disagree with the idea that only women should write about women and the same should go for men. I also disagree that only women writers are capable of writing emotional pieces, just as I disagree that only men writers write adventure pieces. I do think that it is our experiences in life that we pull from to accomplish the work we set out to create. I am not saying that one cannot write what they have not experienced. All writers, male or female, pull from their own memories to create an experience for their readers. These experiences do not necessarily have to be about the material the writer creates. The thinking that implies gender biased writing can cause young writers to believe they cannot pursue a particular piece just because their gender cannot possibly know how the other gender thinks or feels. FYI: sex and gender for many are separate.