The Scribbles We Call "Writing"

Writing. It's something that we all do, whether we want to or not. Some of us have wonderful writing; in fact we pay them for it. Others, well... Not so much. Some enjoy it. Others hate it with a passion. (Fire, lots of fire. Fire will fix the evil assignments, right? ... Yes, that was probably very nearly a direct quote at one point in an English/Writing class.)

Writing is both one of my loves and one of my banes. If you give me constraints on my writing and want me to pick my own topic, kiss any kind of happiness goodbye. Ask any of my friends, and they'll likely tell you stories of me complaining to them about my writing assignments and how I hate writing.

On the other hand, I regularly create quite a bit of literary content. Most of the content I create for enjoyment is just never really written down. Being a math major, I create a lot of technical writing in the process of proving mathematical conjectures. The rest of it is just a lot of snarky, ironic statements about the world and its state of affairs. Or puns. Puns are great. (Sadly, I can't think of any at the moment.)

When I was a junior in high school, one of the writing projects that were assigned was a persuasive research paper. The topic was one of my own choosing, and I chose the topic of Dihydrogen monoxide. I can't recall whether I was arguing in favor of banning this chemical, or opposing the ban, but I loved researching the topic, finding new facts to support my position. The reason:

Dihydrogen monoxide is Water. Yep. H2O.

The instructor didn't catch on until the very end of the assignment as he was awarding final grades for the research paper. The look on his face as he realized what had happened was PRICELESS.

If I can find a topic, I'll be happy as a clam. I can find the research, I can build the sentences, and work for a long time on making the writing of good quality. But topic generation is a pain for me. I just don't do it very well. Hence, the complaining about writing assignments to friends and roommates.

That's the thing though.. If you can't come up with things to talk about, how do you say anything meaningful? And yeah, I know there are always the topics that are rehashed so many times that teachers and society are sick to death of the the entire topic in general. (This happened my senior year of high school with respect to abortion.) But are those rehashings actually meaningful? Sure, they mean something on the report card, but at the end of the day, has anything been contributed to society, to the world at large? Has a distinguishable mark been made by anyone?

I say no.

Assignments that simply maintain the status quo and say the same thing as a million other assignments by a million other students can be good for the student, but usually are not so great for the world. How does mathematics change and grow? By original thinking and by doing something that has never been done before. I'm not saying that every student has to create a new, fantastic, game-changing proof of epic proportions, but there are a lot of different ways to look at concepts in mathematics. A new mnemonic here, a new metaphor there, here a proof, there a spoof, everywhere a ... wait a second...

ANYWAY. It all adds up. Original thinking drives the world. By the time I get access to my students, they will probably have had all of the capacity for original thinking beaten out of them by their experience in grade school. This will make my life hard and possibly quite boring. I don't like boring. (See my explanation of "Normal" here) Nurturing it back to life is a hard job, but a necessary one. I want it to happen, and assignments that will further that goal are a must in every classroom. So, to make life interesting again, and NOT boring, interesting assignments that foster creativity are going to be present.

(Only issue is... I have to be creative myself to make that happen. Crap.)