Sunday, September 23, 2007

Ong Reading Response

In Walter Ong's article, The Writer's Audience Is Always a Fiction, he discusses the dynamic relationship of "audience" to writing. In Ong's opinion, there is a huge difference between the audience of a speaker and the audience of a writer. Although the speaker's audience is easily accessible, the writer's audience can be far away in both time and space. This is why writers must have difficult and mysterious skills. The spoken word has its meaning established by its situation, but the written word cannot do this.

To be successful, Ong argues that writers must be able to fictionalize their audiences. This means two things: (1) the author constructs the audience cast in some sort of role- entertainment seekers, family, neighborhood friends, etc; (2) the audience correspondingly fictionalizes itself. It is important that audience members play the roles that the author has intended for them to have. When this occurs, great literary works, like Samuel Clemens' Life on the Mississippi and Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer come to exist. This is why Ong believes that fictionalizing audiences is a key component of literary tradition.

Overall, I enjoyed reading this article but I had trouble understanding the full context of what Ong was saying. This is why my summary is especially short today :). I feel the general idea of the text is that writing is more difficult than speaking because writers cannot anticipate (and thus respond accordingly) to their readers' inquiries. This article seems similar to the article we recently ready by Bruech. Bruech believes that writing cannot be taught, and Ong believes that an audience cannot be predicted. In this respect, both authors would agree that writing is a mysterious, complex process which cannot possibly be approached in the same manner by any two individuals. In Bruech's article, she reviews arguments made by post-process scholar Thomas Kent. Kent believes that writing is not a system or process and cannot be taught as such. While he believes that grammar and sentence structure can be coded, he feels that these systems should not be confused with the writing act, which is uncertain and indeterminate. Again, this theme of uncertainty is blatantly obvious in Ong's work.

From my own personal experience, I can't possibly justify this sentiment, I think that writing can be predictable and that it can be taught. I think coming to the conclusion that all writing is outrageously different is too hasty of a conclusion. I think that Ong and Bruech need to understand that it is impossible to find one method that will work for every single student. As members of academia, they should be the first to acknowledge that every individual learns from different methods at different rates.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Yeah. I think that what spurred ONG to write this article was the interesting notion that all writing has anteriority, what all writers were influenced by someone, who was influenced by someone, and back to "the dawn of the written narrative." Then, he mixed that notion with inquiry about "audience" ficitonalization; then he asked, "Why hasn't anyone written a history on the fictionalization of audiences?" Hence, the call to action in his article. It has a very mystical, non-scientific tone to it.

Well, all I really was intending to say was Ong's article is interesting at the beginning, slow-paced in the middle, and thought-provoking at the end. The middle really does not apply widely to our purpose as tutors, but I gained a lot from the 1) writer fictionalizing audience, 2) audience fictionalizing itself, 3) historical narrative is a fiction, 4) the masking even of oneself when addressing onesself, and 5)his last paragraph about stripping off all masks.

I am still wondering how I can use the theme of "masks" for a pedogogical purpose.

I agree with your statement in class (if this is the same Katie) that I would never like to teach, what I thought was secondary school, (but I would like to teach college)--not something I would like to do either. But knowing how to teach/tutor using some of these perspectives as tools has got to have its benefits somewhere (or appeal)...

Thanks for the post!

-Ian