Do you normally write by hand or type? Did you find this task difficult or easy? Explain.
I normally “write” by type and take notes by hand. As a teacher, I am often taking quick notes and writing observations by hand. The vast majority of my writing outside of classroom note taking is by type. That said, I really enjoyed this task. As I wrote, I used to keep a journal as a teenager and found this exercise to be quite nostalgic and cathartic. I love the pen/paper experience and enjoy seeing how the writing utensil interacts with the ink, the physical touch and “knowing” that you have a copy of something. I do a lot of art in my day to day teaching and I feel and see the connections between the techniques of penmanship and drawing. Teaching art, I have seen my own artistic ability improve and my ability to see/use space on the paper has improved with my writing. I used blank paper (found some scrap on a table at a coffee shop) and was pleased to see my lines and margins stay, relatively, in tact.
What did you do when you made a mistake or wanted to change your writing? How did you edit your work? Did your choice of media play a part in how you edited your work?
I love this question. I chose to free-write about my experience with journaling and something about free-writing with pen and paper for an “official” assignment is quite freeing and, for lack of a better word, daring. I love that I could make a mistake on an “important” document and found that, with pen, the lack of editing options made it quite fun. When I made a mistake, I had to creatively fix them. For example, I dot an “e” to make it an “i”, some words are closer together than others because I wrote the second letter in the word first and had to squish the first letter in behind the second. In regard to the creation and editing process of the ideas written down, I enjoy the mental process behind writing. I am a fairly quick typer and can pretty well type with my flow of thought. However, when writing with pen, I found I could edit my thoughts and almost daydream as I was writing down a sentence. If I had to pause my daydream to think about spelling, I found my flow of thought could shift depending on how deep in thought I was. When I type, I sometimes feel stressed because I think I should be able to get my ideas down quickly, and when I’m not keeping up with my flow of thought I feel a dissonance between my muscle memory and my thought process – which is very stressful. When I am writing by hand, I know that there is no way I’ll be able to keep up with my thoughts and so there is a much more casual and relaxed approach. It’s actually fun!
What do you feel is the most significant difference between writing by hand and using mechanized forms of writing? Which do you prefer and why?
I truly think that the affordances between the two mediums have completely different purposes. I can say with some confidence that I am good at both. I can type quick quickly and I can write for a reasonable length of time without cramping. Most spelling words were drilled into my brain in elementary and middle school. So I think my experience with b0th mediums is somewhat free of confounding variables. Meaning I can compare my experience with the two side by side without any major technical or physiological issues pulling me in one direction over the other.
That said, in a professional sense as a teacher, the most significant difference between the two is the interface. Both are quick at different things. As mentioned in my writing example, if I am running an observational assessment (which happens often in music) carrying around a computer and typing in the “mark” in a column on Excel is slower than a quick checkmark on a printed class list. Also, the computer requires two hands. If I’m playing piano or having students sing, I can have one hand to write and another to play. On the other hand, I would write summative observations or report cards in a word document. Writing that by hand would be tedious and difficult. Copy/Paste is your best friend in report card season.
From an artistic perspective, the somatic requirements of pen and paper rely on an “artistic” approach to the composition. Legibility is paramount which is informed by letter creation and spelling. When I write lyrics for my songs I always use pen and paper. There is something about the slower flow and heightened intentionality that makes the process more meaningful. If I was a writer, I might have a different opinion about the pen.
