"This is my happening and it freaks me out!" - Z-man*

I don't know how to start out this blog. I guess I'll just start by saying that I thought some of the happenings were a bit kooky. I don't know how seriously I would take them if an instructor had me do these things in the classroom. It really sounded like a Drama class activity from high school. Also, for as free-thinking and "out of the box" as these supposedly are…they are all constructions by the teacher. All of these students were supposed to be manifesting the continual randomness of day-to-day life with these strange sayings and actions, right? How can it emulate randomness if they have received instructions on an index card? I had a hard time understanding exactly what the point was, I guess. If I was an instructor who wanted to have a happening, I would take my students on a nature walk. We would go for a walk and stumble upon a man with a wooden leg being chased by a nun with an ostrich on a leash. Did I hire them? The students don't have to know that. (Where am I going to get an ostrich? I should have thought this through…)
The silence activity was my favorite. It's really hard to know what sort of environment is writer-friendly for all students. For me, it changes with my mood. Sometimes I like to go to the pub with my notebook for writing and I can fully concentrate. Other times I need my surroundings to be as silent as a tomb. The silence reading was good because it seemed like no matter what type of writer the student was, they got something done. Kind of forceful productivity, it seemed like. But really, if a person stays silent for a long period of time, he or she is forced to at least hear his or her own thoughts. That alone can be productive for some students and can help whatever stage of the writing process they are in.
Masks. Good stuff. I was kind of embarrassed after reading this one. I know I've used masks in earlier things I've written. Lambert says something about the freshman writing in what he thinks is a mature style. That's very true, I think. Before I transferred to UMBC, I was a political science major and I wrote all of my papers in a very frank and clear style. When I first became an English major, I was convinced that I had to be Goethe in all of my papers. I think I've found a happy medium and I become increasingly more confident in my writing, but Lambert's right. I sometimes used to hear this dusty old voice in my head, narrating my words before I write them out. Maybe it was the Ghost of Papers Past. I don't know, but it was intimidating.
I sometimes wish my internal monologue would speak in an accent. I was thinking maybe an angry German man or a disappointed Yiddish woman. I really think I would get things done if I had that going on up there. Just a thought.

*Beyond the Valley of the Dolls