Makala Moore

Mrs. Thomas
UWRT 1102-017
16 September 2015
Daily writing

A deeper look into Writing as a Mode of Learning

In Janet Emigs passage Writing as a Mode of Learning, she touches
on different methods of learning however, mainly focuses on the
correspondences between reading and learning. According to Emig, reading,
listening and talking are all closely tied together while serving different
purposes. On page 7 she explains that while writing is creating a document
that is ultimately recorded, reading is the recreating of the document rather
than devising it. Emig also goes on to say that talking, like writing, is the art
of originating a piece verbally without recording it. Of the differences stated
between talking and writing on page 8 of the article, numbers 1,4 and 7
resonated with me the most. In the first statement Emig points out that
writing must be taught to us while talking comes naturally as a young child.
This stood out to me because this overall idea could completely change
how one writes. For example, someone who is taught to write by an elderly
person will most likely exhibit a different writing style than someone who
learned to write from a twenty-one year old student. In the fourth difference
Emig states that most writing is slower than most talking (page 8). This

idea caught my attention because I believe that people overlook how much
work truly goes into writing whether it is a simple text message or a series
of novels. Talking on the other hand, unfortunately, comes a lot of times
without thinking, sometimes resulting in consequences, as we cannot take
back things we say once they have been spoken. The last difference that I
was able to connect with was the fact that the audience is present when
speaking while they are not when writing. In my opinion, this gives writing a
leg up on speaking in that the writer is able to think about what they are
going to say and revise their work before being published to the intended
audience. The three ways of actuality as stated by Jerome Bruner, directly
correspond to the topic of learning and writing in that it is simply different
learning styles. While some learn from doing and seeing, others might learn
by restating. Overall, I agree with the ideas of this piece and the
comparisons as well as contrasts provided. A quote from the work that
really caught my attention however, was that of Emig that states most
students are not sophisticated enough to create, to originate formulations,
using the highly abstruse symbol system of equations and formulae (page
6). I felt as though this could have easily been left out of the paper
completely rather than, for lack of a better term, attacking an entire group
of the audience reading the article. As a student myself, I was almost
offended in that she so boldly presented this idea within the third paragraph
on the first page of the article. I had a very easy time relating the ideas of
this article to my own writing and learning techniques. While I am not

particularly fond of writing myself, I found that I was able to really see the
importance of writing as I read the differences between writing and simply
talking.