self-portrait

The Collage

A collage in the original sense, as used by artists, is a picture produced not by painting or drawing but by pasting objects on the canvas–objects such as theater tickets, bits of cardboard or tin, colored paper, etc. A written collage consists of separate, disconnected bits of writing, rather than of one continuous piece, that have been “pasted together.” Usually there are spaces or asterisks at the ‘joints’ between the pieces of writing.

Your collage theme is a self-portrait, the final version of which would educate a reader about different facets of your life/personality. The writing task will follow this process:

1. Brainstorming 8 separate paragraphs of 7 to 10 sentences each. The paragraphs can be approached as miniature essays, each on a different point as long as they all have a similar theme. For example, you can describe yourself, important activities you do, important people in your life, etc. After a few lines or description/summary, begin introducing implications, evaluative comments or ideas stimulated by your original lines. The basic movement for a paragraph would aim for moving from facts to inferences, from data to the kinds of ideas that give importance to that data.
2. On Peer Editing day (Feb. 17th) you will bring a printout of all your paragraphs and ask fellow students for advice on which are the strongest to carry over into your coaching copy that will be submitted to your instructor.
3. On Coaching day (Feb. 24th) you should have your selected paragraphs arranged in the order you wish uploaded into Google Docs and linked to your Digication portfolio site.
4. Your revision is due in Google Docs/Digication on Mar. 3. The final grade will be calculated by a simple average between the coaching grade and the final reading grade.

Here is a short example

A Collage about Collages

I sit here with seven short pieces of writing scattered around me on the sofa and the floor. Some are in pen, some in pencil. A couple of the ‘pieces’ consist of two smaller pieces taped together. The shortest is only two sentences long; the longest is three paragraphs. The miracle is that I like it all. I want to show all these blips to readers. But how am I going to put them all together?

* * * * *

How could I like all this writing when I didn’t feel I was doing anything particularly good this week–just churning stuff out, writing fast, producing assorted blips and pieces? And I didn’t make any changes in what I wrote–hardly any. (I changed six words, two phrases, and I more or less rewrote one paragraph.)

The secret weapon was simply to choose bits I liked and cross out and throw away everything I didn’t like–and not feel bad that I wrote lots that I didn’t like. On the one hand I didn’t change a word. On the other hand my pile of writing feels completely different because of all that I left out.

* * * * *

The collage is cheating but it works. That’s why so many professionals write collages. I see them everywhere now that I’ve got my eye cocked for them. It stresses what is easy and finesses what is hard.

What makes good writing good? Details. Lively, human, clear language–words that sound like someone talking. Surprises. The sense that the writer cared and was involved. Not hitting the reader over the head. If I write fast and with confidence or in a good mood I get plenty of details and lively language–so long as I pick out the good pieces and throw the rest away. Thus I get good writing. (or at least writing that’s better than most of my labored writing.)

What makes good writing difficult? Sitting down and planning and then producing a complete piece of writing; trying to know where I’m going and trying to get it right as I go; getting the connections or transitions right; figuring out the right organization; working out my train of thought fully and avoiding contradictions. If I just pick out the good pieces and make a collage I get to skip all those difficulties–and still get good writing.

* * * * *

Surprise. I am surprised by what I find in the words I’ve already written. Here’s that experience again: finding something rolling off my pen and I hadn’t planned on writing or couldn’t have planned on writing. This is perhaps the most important writing experience for me. I’ll bet not many people write by choice unless they have tasted this pleasure of surprise and are hungry for more of it.

* * * * *

A TV documentary on cancer. It’s really a collage. It opens with shots of a funeral–people standing around the side of a grave: close-up of a widow and then down to the coffin being lowered. Cut to a sequence of cells under a high-powered microscope–time-lapse so that we see the cells multiplying and going crazy; a voice is telling us about how cancer cells behave. Then a sequence of a man in the doctor’s office–getting the verdict. Then Ronald Reagan making a joke about his cancer. Then a young medical student talking about wanting to go into cancer research–why she finds it exciting and all the progress that’s being made. We cut from her, bursting with enthusiasm and health, back to the victim, balding and emaciated from the therapy, but walking in the woods–obviously drinking in the scene as though he can’t get enough. Then a sequence of someone earnestly giving us statistics. How many cases of this and that, how much more than in the past, but also how there are more successful treatments and cures. Back now to Reagan going about his work. Then the victim trying to explain things to his child. Finally a sequence of advice about how to avoid cancer.  It’s all a hodgepodge–completely “disorganized”–no connectives. But it works.

Coaching Copy Rubric

What you did well:

What needs revision:

Coaching grade: