Writing as Thinking

I’m finding it difficult to really wrap my head around Janet Emig’s arguments, but not because I disagree with them.  I’ve experienced and believe in writing as a mode of learning, but perhaps became too bogged down with, as she puts it, the “over-elaborate, under specific...off-putting jargon” involved in describing writing as a learning strategy.  I suppose this particular blog will serve as a test to see if I can make sense of what I would like to say about this topic through the process of writing about it.

Emig starts by making some interesting points to distinguish writing from talking as two very different language processes.  I was struck by her claim that “ because there is a product involved, writing tends to be a more responsible and committed act than talking.”  I wonder if this contradicts Sommer’s statement that the “spoken word cannot be revised,” in her descriptions of writing versus speaking and the revision process.  While I agree with aspects of both arguments, I feel that writing as a committed act applies to the blogging we do here, in a way.  Perhaps this is because of the public nature of blogging, and the fact that once a blog is published, it’s sort of out there in the universe for anyone to read.  Although it can be deleted, changed, etc, posting on the internet is much different than writing on paper.  Emig also says, however, that the audience is absent in writing, and present in talking.  I actually feel that the audience is very present in our blog writing, in both a virtual and very real (in front of your face in a classroom) sort of way.  

This all must connect with the characteristics of writing as a learning process, which include aspects of writing that are integrative, connective, active, engaged, personal and representative of self-provided feedback and most means of language, according to Emig.  The blogging that we do in this course provides opportunity for self and peer provided feedback, through blog comments, discussion of what we write in class and also the production of the product itself, which might be “a record of evolution of thought.”  Blogging also (probably) possesses all of the other attributes described.  It’s definitely personal, integrative and connective.   

I wonder how the added, internet-related dimensions of blogging, as opposed to writing on paper, might impact how we view writing as thinking.  Is writing on a piece of paper which won’t ever be posted on the internet a different way of thinking, compared to blogging?  Maybe experienced bloggers who are more accustomed to posting their words online feel differently about this.  

I can see how we would also be able to learn in this course through more formal written essays, tests, and writing that isn’t blogged.  However, as a very new blogger, I am curious to experience more of the “important things” blogging does, and to see how it impacts my learning.