In Class: Freewrite

Bruce Ballinger

When I was writing Writing as Inquiry, I was not excited about it. As I began to read I noticed that what I was reading was interesting and not as boring as I thought it would be. Bruce Ballinger is humorous and made me feel like it was okay to not be a perfect writer. His tips of how to read and write helped me know things to help me be successful as a writer. I would lose focus and he would make a joke about me maybe not paying attention to the text and it got me right back on track. Writing as inquiry to me means you should freely write and practice writing and not let yourself get stopped because you 'don't know what to write'. He encourages you to write about anything you think of instead of taking the time to brainstorm to try and write something perfect. He mentions that even experts have to practice and write alot of drafts of their work. You cant just expect to have a perfect paper by writing one draft and letting that one draft be your final piece of work. I thought the diagram of the line was interesting compared to the writing process that bounced back in forth from step to step. I never really thought about how much you repeat steps and go back to steps to complete a paper. I also thought alot about how I write and my style of writing. I thought about if I question myself while writing and if i really focus on my promt and brainstorm alot or if I just let my thoughts flow onto paper. I also thought it was interesting when he talked about people's habits while writing. Like the boy who could only write on yellow paper with a pencil. This made me think about my writing habits and what I do to help me write a 'perfect paper'. I feel like chapter one and two helped me not be so uptight about my writing and maybe will help me write better because I can relax and not stress about my writing, because after going over multiple steps in the writing proccess more than once will help me clean up my paper to be the best it can be.