1. The vocabulary.
Harris writes his ideas, forwarding, countering, revising, coming to terms, taking an approach, in a way that makes sense. Most of the time in my experience, with English and History concepts, the hardest task is understanding what they are telling you to do, let alone actually trying to implement it. Harris bypasses this, leaving the reader more time to process and learn his actual method, not his long winded or complex explanation of it.
2. His modernity.
All the examples he used within the book were not only things, we could understand, but interesting things that we as young writers, might actually be interested in knowing about. This book as much as a guide, was also a little bit of a survey course in "Interesting Topics You Never Knew You Might Be Into." I was inspired by his clear love of knowledge and the variety of topics that he mentioned in examples.
3. His exercises.
I'll admit, I didn't try out the full exercises. But If I am ever a teacher I swear I will implement them. Yet, even though I didn't sit out and go through an exercise, the elements and ideas behind them became part of my revising process. Like, learning decent grammer as a child will always help you, or learning how to structure an essay in middle school stays with you, these exercises can imprint on your brain and pop up when you are at an impasse in your work. I for one know that sometimes a good exercise is the only existing cure for writers block, and Joe Harris offeres a sexy arsenal for our use.
I would, and have recommended this work for all people who fancy themselves writers or literary enthusiasts.
(creeper details for Harris's career here.)
7 comments:
I love that you wrote about Joe Harris and his great book. I was a fan of it as well. He presents the ideas in such a user friendly way that you can't help but do it the next time you write. I think that I learned things from reading the chapters without even knowing that I learned them. The part I think that hel[ped me the most was the stuff about countering and furthing other people's works. I'm a fan too Cait, you're not alone.
Yay! I felt like our conversation as we were editing each other's papers would have made him proud!
I'm not too sure about Harris's writing exercises... In fact, when I first encountered them I was scared to death that Dr. H would be putting us to work!v BTW, your post seemed like a great start to a paper (you even have a three point thesis). Maybe it's time to skip David Boreanaz and move straight to Harris! ;)
I am totally all about being Joe Harris' literary groupie.
I found the rewriting book extremely helpful! One example...I had written a response paper earlier in the semester that I chose to rewrite for one of the prompts Dr. H had listed for the week. I chose to rewrite the old paper because it had no fluidity of thought...I had literally let my writing run away with me! Applying his series of questions (What do you want to say? etc.) helps keep me focused on a solid train of thought. Thank you Mr. Harris!!
Now if I can only master punctuations and citations I would be all set!
I am also a fan of Harris. His text was approachable and engaging in a way that many other expository texts aren't. The point of yours, Cait, that I most agree with is the one about his vocabulary. I appreciated the fact that I didn't have to spend hours agonizing over whether or not I understood what I read - I got it the first time through. Harris' rewriting suggestions were immensely helpful in revising a paper from earlier in the semester, as per Dr. H's prompt, and has been a major help in focusing my final paper.
Though, I must say, I rather agree with Jonathan - I'm not so hot on the writing exercises.
I, too, think Rewriting is an excellent book. In a class that mostly focused on television/film, I still feel like the book fit in nicely and was easy (and yeah, fun) to incorporate. I think it provided a great foundation to talk about writing in a way that isn't intimidating or overly complicated.
For example, for the "Taking an Approach" chapter, I chose the prompt from the book about cover songs that Dr. H included in our response paper assignment. I found Harris' exercise to be a really interesting. I stepped out of my comfort zone and chose to bring in something different for the response paper that wasn't related to any of the shows/films, which I had grown more comfortable doing as the course went on.
Good writing isn't always about the finished product, but the different steps taken to make the writing happen. Variety and challenges in writing are the only way to find out what works--and I think sometimes you'll surprise yourself. I know I did!
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