restrictions reveal to us a deeper level of freedom

The thing I like most about this book is the fact that it encourages the writing assignments to be “not personal” and “not introspective.” As I’ve mentioned before, I love personal writing assignments and I do think that a lot of good writing tends to be very personalized. However, this kind of writing also tends to be very limiting. Sometimes students need to think outside of themselves. This book of prompts could help students with just this.

I had a creative writing teacher praise pieces of writing that were “disconnected” from the student. I was always quite baffled by his notion. It went against everything I was taught previously. His explanation was that it shows true creativity to expose a piece of writing that has nothing to do with the writer. He felt that it showed discipline and commitment. I also had a poetry teacher who personally experimented with restrictions within her writing process. This teacher published different books of poems and essays. One book of her poems excluded the letter “e.” She often experimented with no punctuation. Like my other teacher, she sometimes encouraged her students to be “distant” from their pieces of writing. She felt that poetry did not have to be personal, and that some of the best poetry she ever read or wrote was detached from her personal emotions and feelings. I remember her telling my class that sometimes restrictions reveal to us a deeper level of freedom.

I believe that getting students to write outside of themselves is a challenging task. I struggle with this. Even within these blogs, all we ever do is talk about ourselves and our past experiences. “I had a bad experience in my 10th grade English class.” “I always liked to write poetry because it was such a personal experience.” “I think this assignment is stupid and I will never teach it in my classroom!” Even though I would not use all of the writing prompts within the book, I feel that there are some “awesome” ones (as Kaitlyn’s mommy would say). These non personal topics help students to write to a specific audience and create characters that have nothing to do with themselves. Students are going to face assignments that do not revolve around their personal feelings or experiences. Many struggle with research papers and analytical essays because of these issues. These prompts provide practice for students to write about something that is unusual to them. Hopefully, it could also be a fun experience. Maybe it can reveal to students that writing is not as restricting as they thought it to be.

Rachael brings up a great point in her blog. It might be disconcerting to students for a teacher to present writing as being restricting. I agree with her that writing is ultimately not restricting. Yet, not all students feel this way. I feel that by exaggerating restrictions, some writers will be surprised to find freedom, and might even realize that writing is not as restricting as they thought. This could build confidence.

Overall, I love being challenged by a creative prompt. Sometimes I am surprised by what my mind and hand can come up with. Two of my favorites from the book were “What would blue taste like if you could chew it” or “What if the sky were not blue but red.” These prompts could be a great way to introduce sensory/figurative language and images to a classroom. I do believe that some of these prompts are a bit childish and silly. Yet, isn’t that the point of this book? I think this book could be used for elementary school kids up through college level students. The main point of this book for me is that our writing should not be limited by limitations. Our creativity should surpass that of an initial prompt. Something phenomenal can surface from a pointless prompt. Writing does not have to be personal! Sometimes real freedom can be found within restrictions.