Response to "Performing Writing, Performing Literacy"

Nothing in this article surprised me, really, and I was a bit annoyed by it, to be honest. I didn't feel like it really offered any practical advice for my teaching and its content was pretty obvious: students write all sorts of stuff, whether inside or outside of school, and sometimes they perform what they write. That seems like the gist of it, really, though it was said much more eloquently than this, of course.

I guess I'm used to viewing writing as performance: whether its reading at cafe night or talking about writing stories or teaching composition. They are all performance. Life is a performance. Yesterday, at the coffee shop, I knocked over my tea and then I cussed. That was a performance, though one of which I wasn't particularly proud.

I'm being sarcastic today. I feel moody.

One thing I thought about while reading this article was the way in which some innovative people are making writing into performances unlike what has been done before, for example, Opium (a literary magazine) puts on these performances across the country called Literary Death Matches. They know that typical readings where you go and sit in uncomfortable chairs for a long time and listen to someone read in a monotone voice aren't very fun or interesting. The new format turns stories into performative art, pitting two writers against one another to read for short bursts of time. There's a winner. People get creative, competitive. They don't read their most boring, plotless story. Damian did one a while back, in Denver. Maybe he'll talk about it in his post and I can read it.

It was kind of fun reading that "I'm Daaaaaaat N*!!" poem in College Composition and Communication. That was the best part, I think, the incongruence of reading that in this context.