Response to Susan Antlitz’s “Taking Flight: Connecting Inner and Outer Realities during Invention.”
After reading and taking notes on Susan Antlitz’s essay in Writing Spaces, “Taking Flight: Connecting Inner and Outer Realities during Invention,” respond below.
Directions
What are some of your own invention strategies that you use to get ideas out of your head and onto paper for a writing project? Do your strategies share any commonalities with Susan Antlitz’s? Do you think any of the strategies she uses are ones that you would experiment with? Why or why not?
Grading
This is class discussion work for our online course. Please post your response as a comment. These are due by Sunday at 11:59 p.m. during the Week they are assigned, making this one is due 11/22/20. A complete response is worth up to 15 points.
I have learned over time in high school some of my ways to release ideas and write them on paper. I usually have three methods that I use. My first method is that I watch television and do my homework. Yeah I know it ain’t a good idea but it’s helped me get ideas out of my head. The second method I use is I eat my favorite chips which are spicy Cheetos and just write what I want about the writing projects. The third invention I use is what a lot of people do and my headphones on and listen to my music very loud for I can’t hear anyone else and just write my ideas down. I can’t be in a quiet room and not just no music to listen to because it makes me daze off and not write down my ideas or won’t be able to think of any ideas. I believe none of my strategies have anything in common with Susan Antlitz. I wouldn’t use her strategies because I’ve tried a few ways to release my ideas on paper and none of them help and wouldn’t make me think whenever I do writing projects, that’s why I believe Susan Antltz strategies wouldn’t help me release my ideas on paper.
In English class, writing essays or just writing, in general, isn’t something that I am good at. I always fail when it comes to writing. However, when writing, some of the strategies that I have are to make a plan before the due date, although it is hard because I tend to procrastinate a lot, which I am trying to stop doing it but it is hard. But when I am making a plan for my writing pieces, I tend to write like a couple of sentences on what I am going to write in the intro, the body paragraphs, and the conclusion, plus I write what is going to be my main focus for the writing to get an idea what am going to write. Additionally, my professor mentioned writing not from the introduction but the middle or writing anything down so ideas can start coming to your head. Finally, I tend to take breaks within writing my essays or any writing pieces because sometimes I get so anxious about the outcome of my writings and if I am going to get my writing piece done correctly.
I feel like some of the strategies that I share with Susan are that she tries to develop ideas from starting with a plan for her writing piece and that she doesn’t start from the beginning of an essay. I would use various of her strategies to experiment with to see if they are a strategy that can work out for me, such as using the distractions that I have to my advantage. Susan says that watching a TV or a movie to your advantage; from watching a movie or a TV show, you’re getting all these emotions you can pour it all during writing. Another strategy that Susan mentions is journaling, which I do. Still, I journal mostly about what is going on in my life daily, which I feel like I can implement this strategy because I am already doing one part of it; I need to be able to together ideas for an essay. Finally, I would like to try another strategy to be more open to creativity because I am not creative; it is something that I lack, and Susan mentions that a way to get creative is to play with words or reflect on ideas.
Writing doesn’t always come easy to me which is why I already have a couple of steps before starting my assignments. For starters one of the things I like to do is plan ahead, for long essays like the ones we do in class I start off by planning what my main focus is. Just like Susan, I also try my best to start my work earlier than expected. I feel like this is a good thing because it allows me to plan ideas and then look back at it, revise it and add things to it in order to make it come together. Another thing I do is create multiple introductions when starting assignments, I do this in order to expand my ideas and I always chose whichever I feel is best and I can elaborate the most on. Most of my strategies are similar to the strategies Susan refers to in her essay and I believe I can even better myself after reading her essay even more from now on.
Susan mentions a lot of strategies in her essay and there are some that caught my attention when reading. An example of that is when she mentioned free writing, free writing seems hard but I feel like once we get use to it, writing will slowly come natural to us. I was actually gifted a journal which is why I want to give it a try, I want to get myself used to freeing my mind and putting things together in a certain amount of time. This seems like a great opportunity to explore and I’m positive it will impact my writing skills which will help my education. Another thing I would take part in is using my distractions, sometimes I try my best to not let my distractions get to me but maybe it’s time I give it a shot and see where my free time takes me. Lastly another thing I would do if I had more free time is trying to use a power point before starting the writing process. Susan mentioned this strategy and I feel like it would be a great experience because it would allow me to think about where I want to take this writing piece but also explore the different types of options there are available. I would like to give this a try because it can help reassure me as to where my ideas stand and what I can do to better them and my essay as a whole.
Some of the strategies I use to release ideas and mind blocks are listening to music while taking notes, keeping a list of unfamiliar words, and rereading the prompt/tasks. I also try to find helpful sources that are related to the topics I have to write about to give me some clearer points. I always thought that everything I wrote had to be spelt and used correctly, so I’d look up the words, as well as synonyms to find a more suitable fit for my sentences. I then, put my random senses/ main points together and form my paragraphs. I found myself struggling with writer’s anxiety for years, but once I put my mind to getting it done, I do very well. As Antlitz mentioned, anxiety of just thinking about writing would be the cause of procrastination. Sometimes I would sit and stare at my blank screen, clueless, thinking where do I start and begin to panic. Being anxious builds frustration because I know that there’s something I can write but I’m allowing my fear of writing and not having the proper flow to take over my ability to just freely write. Sometimes I use the strategy of journaling, but it only helped for a moment. However, I will not give up journaling.
I decided to purchase a journal filled with prompts to write about and I think it will be a good start to freeing my thoughts. I will also try taking walks and writing notes while I walk, but still being aware of my surroundings. Only because I’ve been feeling very desolate for a while and believe it may be the cause for my empty thoughts. Putting Antlitz strategies to use may boost up my confidence a little to get up, be on the move, and feel more optimistic like I used to. I also enjoy receiving feedback when I do assignments or things in general because it gives me a better view from the perspective of the audience and what are their thoughts.
In the Anlitz text, she develops the strategy processes as well as her personal perspective on how to use them. Some of the strategies, which I had already established in my writing routine, have worked effectively for me, such as moving and getting the blood circulating, in addition to the use of distractions such as watching movies to be able to have micro breaks and time to process ideas. The ideas that are innovative for me are the use of technological tools such as Power Point or video links. Usually during the writing process, I use various tools to develop and support my ideas such as web links. As Anlitz explains in the text, journaling can help in the reflective writing process, make ideas flow easily and stress and anxiety do not take over. Procrastination in the delivery of work and assignments can cause emotion, anxiety, and stress in the writer, which in some way become a stimulus to write more. Role play is a good method of relating words and establishing connections, it becomes more interesting with more complicated words or little related to the initial word, it is a very creative idea to keep the mind active.
I have experimented with some of these strategies during the writing process, but like Anlitz making diagrams as he did in school is no longer as effective at this time, instead I have adapted other new writing methods such as moving or taking a break watching a movie or series. I would apply some of these methods, just to check that they can be effective in carrying out the writing process for homework and assignments. Clear ideas about what you want to write, argue and expose is a process that takes me time to write them, sometimes in front of the computer with a blank page. The strategies to start writing will guide the perspective of the writing, according to Anlitz, the ideas are constantly changed or reinforced, so I would apply reflective writing to improve my creative fluency with the game of establishing connections or writing a journal.
One of my own invention strategies are developing ideas or techniques in my mind on how I will do a assignment after I have read the instructions. The other strategy I have is googling information or specific words I don’t know much about so I can have a full understanding of a specific assignment. Another strategy I use is to move around much as possible so my brain can work more efficiently in another position or scenery. Sometimes, I look around my room and focus on one thing that catches my eyes and some ideas will just appear out of no where which is quite unique. The other strategy I have is eating because I cannot work on a empty or half empty stomach because your best ideas comes out when your body is comfortable and well taken care of in the food aspect of things. Some of my strategies are the same as Susan’s Antlitz’s strategies for example: Movement, change of scenery and describing plans before hand.
I would most likely experiment with the random words exercise with a friend because it sounds fun and it is brain teasing at the same time. It is sort of like a game I play growing up named categories. The other strategy I would love to experiment with is the email and messaging exercise with a friend or group of people. It is a great way to hear many advices, point of views and feedbacks about my paper when I share it into the group but at the same time I can share my feedbacks to their papers also. The last strategy I will experiment is the two wing exercise because it is the same as a outline of ideas that you want to break into other connecting ideas for a paper. It sounds fun because your drawing two wings which makes you question your drawing skills at the sometime but it doesn’t have to be perfect because the most important thing is to figure out what ideas are most important to write in your paper from that exercise.