Liam Luken

English 301W

Professor Annie Kelvie

13 September, 2022

Writing Project 1 - On Liam Luken

Academically, when needing to write, I have not had to think much on what kind of

writer I am, what my influences as a writer are, etc. However, when posed with this paper, I was

forced to ask myself these questions, and essentially interview myself. This portion of the class

thus far has focused on how a person reads and writes, and how your childhood and what you

were taught at school affects how you write today. It focuses on research which shows how

certain aspects of life when growing may affect your writing later on down the line. While many

people in the class were partnered with someone else to interview and write about, I decided to

take the worst option, and instead interview myself (this choice was completely unintentional).

The questions I was given to work with were very broad, making that both a good thing and a

bad. On the good part, I was able to interpret the questions in my own way and answer them

broadly. On the other hand, I was not given much direction, which forced me to make some

answers which the question may not have been asking. I personally believe that I have somewhat

decent literary skills, and while I do enjoy reading and writing, I am not the biggest fan of the

process of drafting, revising, etc. However, that can also be dependent on whatever kind of

project it is. In the context of me, it is sort of like comparing the fun of writing an academic

essay to writing a song. With my Dad being a huge nerd about Dungeons and Dragons, other
similar games, history, geology, and many more very nerdy stuff, I have been around books and

literacy for as long as I can remember, and while I have usually enjoyed the material that I have

been surrounded with, I have never been a huge fan of the whole ‘reading’ thing. Throughout

these first few paragraphs, I will be using Brandt, Prior and Shipka, and Mike Rose as sources.

In her writings, Brandt summarizes literacy sponsorship in a way, that “...People do not

become literate on their own; rather, literacy is sponsored by people, institutions, and

circumstances that both make it possible for a person to become literate and shape the way the

person actually acquires literacy” (Brandt 244). In her interview with Dwayne Lowery, Brandt

also shows how literacy sponsors and the way literacy is taught can affect the way that someone

feels about writing. The interview showed how planning and location, depending on the person,

has the ability to help them or hold them back. The article looks at Environmental Selecting and

Structuring Practice (ESSP), and Prior and Shipka claim that “The things you do in your physical

space to make writing work for you” (Prior 1998). Mike Rose also talks about the differences in

algorithmic and heuristic writing, meaning if you are a person that follows a more heuristic

approach in writing then you are typically freer and have a bit more creativity with your writing,

more so using rules as guidelines, rather than strict points to follow. However, taking a more

algorithmic approach to writing means the exact opposite of the heuristic approach. It typically

means you follow rules to a t, and do not leave much room for creative liberties (Rose 162).

Mike Rose says, “Some selections pay more attention to elements or functions of composing…

others focus on the constraints and rules — audiences, situations, grammar rules — that writers

must navigate” (Rose 158).

Back when I was a wee lad, literacy was heavily encouraged by my family. They thought

I was good at it as a kid, and could only benefit from doing it more often. So what did I do? Not
read at all and instead played World of Warcraft and used my unmonitored internet access in my

free time… Yeah, not the best use of my time, but it is the truth. However, I was not completely

creatively void at that time, as from WoW and the internet, I was actually able to understand

concepts which I might not have gotten a hold of until I had gotten older. Some of these concepts

were good, some of them were not-so-good for 10-year-old me. But as I got older, matured a bit

more, and actually made friends (hard to believe, I know), I also started reading and writing a bit

more, which, in all honesty was for the best.

As I mentioned in the beginning of the last paragraph, literacy was heavily encouraged by

all people in my life and is still heavily encouraged. I remember back in third grade reading

books on meteorology and World War Two, later on down the line in fifth grade reading books

about the backstories of characters in World of Warcraft, and more recently in my Senior year of

high school being heavily interested in and reading about the Roman Empire. One of my main

influences through my literacy journey has been, as mentioned in the beginning of the paper, my

father. He introduced me to many of the things I am interested in today, such as history, gaming,

etc. The amount of books he has on the rules of DnD quite literally takes up two and a half whole

sections on our bookshelf. Another two sections are occupied by comic books, and the rest is

occupied by lore books on the Warhammer 40,000 universe, Star Wars, and many other odd

franchises.

However, he was not the only one which I got my knowledge of reading and writing

from, as with everyone else, I was also taught in school (shocker, right?). While my family

encouraged literacy, my teachers did what they do best – teach me about literacy! Some of which

I absolutely hated and still despise to this day. However, I must admit that what they taught me

was absolutely necessary for me today. Without them I would never have figured out simple
things like what sound ‘th’ makes and more complex things like how, “James while John had had

had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher” is a real sentence (look it

up). My teachers also showed my “correct” and “incorrect” ways to write growing up, which

were often contradicted a year or two down the line. Due to this contradiction, I find myself

often writing heuristically with minor algorithmic points. In my mind, if something I’m being

taught now is going to be told to me in about a year that no one actually uses it or that it is

actually a myth or incorrect, then I might as well continue with the basics, but add my own Liam

flair to it, as that seems to work in my favor a lot of the time (depending on the professor).

I find it easy to read and write certain material nowadays, provided that my ADD does

not get in the way. However, comparing Sophomore in college me to Sophomore in high school

me, I would say that I have improved quite a bit in that area. As I’ve gotten older my interest in

the things I read has only gotten higher as I’ve discovered more of what I like. And while I do

enjoy reading academically some of the time, and while I did enjoy writing this paper, as it

allowed me to flex my writing muscles a bit and also identify how I actually do things, instead of

just guessing, it was still done for a grade with a deadline, which will, unfortunately, always put

me off. I now also know that I’m able to pump out papers without outlines or drafts, I’ll leave

that up to you to decide if that’s actually a good thing or not. Personally, I like to think it’s a bit

of both. Though I do think it would only be better if I actually did the drafts and steps that were

assigned to me.
Brandt, Deborah. “Sponsors of Literacy.” Writing about Writing, vol. 4, 2020, pp. 244-266.

Prior, Paul, and Jodi Shipka. “Chronotopic Lamination.” Tracing the Contours of Literate

Activity, 2003, 180-186; 196-201.

Rose, Mike. “Rigid Rules, Inflexible Plans, and Stifling of Language.” Writing about Writing,

vol. 4, 2020, pp. 158-172.