Elbow and the Internet

As is to be expected, I enjoyed the Elbow article more than the other two. They were not horrible, I just am an Elbow fan. I've said before that much of the Crosstalk book authors leave me feeling stupid when I read them, but Elbow is always more clear, even if I do not agree with everything he writes. I do not know if a writer can ever turn off the audience of self. I wholeheartedly believe that writers can tune everyone else out and just write for themselves, but even in a diary or journal, you are writing for the audience of the future self.

The Lunsford article on textual ownership was, once again, best understood after class discussion. It reminded me of an old friend and classmate who believed that information should never be copyrighted or classified...that it should be available for all. This is a very grey area in my opinion, because it is hard to own an idea, but that's what most information is...creative and/or informative shaping of ideas. I understand though, that this is a world where what you own is often the deciding factor of who you are, regardless of whether it is financial or intellectual capital (Dr.Burling's influence is starting to show), but I also think that information should not be hoarded. That is my head speaking, though, as my heart would want to receive full credit and ownership for any stories, poems, ideas, projects that I produced.

The narrative-based article on safe spaces for women to write should have appealed to my fairly strong feminist side, but in reality, it did not. I can understand where the woman felt like her personal space had been violated when the 'master male' student let himself into her web server, but even metaphorically, I feel that rape is a too-strong comparison. And speaking from a teaching point of view, the narrative styled formatting made it hard to pull pithy passages. There were ideas to be summarized, but not necessarily 'quotable quotes'. I agree with their concerns about creating a safe space to write, but I don't know if that need is really only for the women in our classes....it applies to every student.