Britton's Mind-Freak

This article, this class, has turned my life into a series of case studies. I was in the car driving to Sandpoint over the weekend with my 13 year old step-daughter and her best friend. They were sharing stories back and forth and, this day, rather than tune them out, I decided to eaves drop using Britton’s article as a framework. How much of what we say is expressive? And under what sort of circumstances are we prompted to move from the expressive to the transactional or poetic?

H started off by describing a dream she had. I suppose this was expressive talk, though I’m not sure even her best friend, B, was in on the story. Such is the nature of dreams that they are very abstract and emotional—they are tricky to express and I suppose they require a speaker to use the transactional and poetic even to make “real” stories out of them. They are very hard to convey and H did a bad job of it. The delivery of the dream information trailed off and, without prompting from B, neither became transactional nor poetic. B began a new conversation as if H had never mentioned her dream.

B’s “story” was about how annoying her mother had been all morning. Annoying, unfair, and demanding. She used great details—still maintaining a mostly expressive dialogue, though occasionally, for her own satisfaction (or perhaps vindication), B allowed her language to travel into the poetic—using parallelism, alliteration, and emphasis on the most terrible parts of her mother’s behavior.

H listened, I think, and when B had finished her story, H said, “Oh, lame,” or something along those lines, and entered an entirely new diatribe about how her I-Pad had locked her out for 7 hours because H had impossibly set the password.

This sort of non-communication between the girls lasted the duration of the trip. I don’t know if all teenagers are like this, or if my girls were especially unaware of each other’s efforts, but it was mind-blowing to listen to. What would Britton say to this? If we no longer prompt, question, or challenge each other to move from expressive to transactional or poetic, what writing do we expect from our young people? If they don’t speak in this manner, is it any wonder they are not creative when it comes to employing either modality in their writing?

I tested (oh you BET I tested!) H later on and throughout the day—prompting her to clarify, expand, expound, and give details. And she did. She tired of talking to me, but I’m not sure that outcome can be avoided under any circumstances these days. The important news is that she had no problem giving me transactional and poetically driven speech. I considered that to be a step in the right direction...

As far as teaching: You know, this weekend was one of the first times I felt like my life as a teacher and my life outside of teaching were melding together. I had a professor tell me, “Whatever you do, make sure your avocation and your vocation are the same thing. Make sure what you do for work is not too far strained from what you do for love.”

What I observed and cared about in the car ride is what I want to observe and care about in the classroom. It made me feel empowered, important, a part of things, a learner of life, a teacher, as I thought and drove, thought and drove. That is a good feeling. That makes me think I’m more meant for this job than I had been feeling previously. Have I mentioned yet that SI 2011 couldn’t have come at a more important time in my life?