Regarding Chapter 1: Imagining a Digital Writing Workshop

Not to start off negative, but I wasn’t too happy with the way this book began. Hicks opens with, “Like you, I am a teacher of writing (1).” I don’t like how he assumed that English teachers were going to be the ones reading this book. Anyone has access to purchase this book. Some people are merely curious about different subjects other than their own. If the person reading this is not an English teacher, they might be turned off by this first sentence, causing the author to push the reader away from reading due to not having the ability to connect. But, I enjoyed how Hicks continued to bring forth history in writing that still impacts the world. He writes, “teach the writer, not the writing (1),” reminding the readers that it isn’t so important as to what we write and on what surface to which we write, but how the teacher influences the student to want to write. I liked how he listed the principles he is going to teach in later chapters, including: “student choice, active revision, author’s craft as a basis for construction, publication beyond classroom walls, and broad visions of assessment that include both process and product (1-2).” By doing this, the reader sees what the book contains and decides at this point if they want to continue reading. On page 3 I enjoyed a picture that Hicks of students in middle school that were digitally creating movies. But, there weren’t any other pictures throughout the chapter. I felt that this picture showed how enthusiastic the kids were, giving evidence, and wanted to see more of this throughout the chapter. Sometimes, a picture can show a lot more than you think! On page 5, Hicks comments how “digital literacies” are labeled as “newer literacies.” Though the process of writing via technology might seem new to some people, it really isn’t. Even if this is a term that others are using, I don’t think that it is too accurate. The Internet has boomed for over ten years and digitally writing has been embedded into advertising, businesses, schools, and personal life for as far as I can remember. Though I am only twenty-one years old, more than half of my life has revolved around computers, therefore finding technology something that has been around for a good amount of time. I understand that technology might just be the most recent form of literacy, but when I think of the word new, I think of something that has been created within a few years, which isn’t this case. An aspect that I really think is a good addition is how Hicks addressed negative views on writing workshops where the act of finishing something is more important than the process that develops a work (7). Writing shouldn’t be about the end result, yet about the actions along the way, the journey. That is where the joy in writing is discovered. On page 7, Hick writes, “ We all know that formulas—be they five paragraphs…etc.” I thought that was an awkward way to say a sentence. Though that may be grammatically correct, he lost me briefly because I had to reread the sentence three more times to try to follow what he is trying to say. Sometimes authors have to be careful of trying to sound intellectual because you might just lose a reader or two when it doesn’t match up to the rest of your writing.

-Kaitlyn