Artifacts of Writerly Roles

Blog #3: Writerly Roles
Reflect on the following: What writerly roles do you play? How your writing style, purpose, content, etc. differs from character to character. What recipients or audiences are assumed in those characters.

Last week we were assigned “Artifacts of Writerly Roles”. In this assignment, we were instructed to gather various writings; including e-mails, messages, letters, assignments, cards, or other lists in which we focused on what we wrote and the style in which we wrote them. I was surprised to discover the different writing habits based upon the situation on which I wrote it. Writing and reading is affected by rhetoric. Understanding rhetoric, or knowing and addressing the three factors: the writer’s perspective, the topic, and the individual reading is essential. In exploring my writings, I discovered several roles and different styles based on the rhetoric triangle. The following are roles that I play in writing based upon the context in which I write them.
I am a daughter: I discovered that my writing roles differ even between my two parents. I know that I am able to have very casual conversations with my mother, over text messages, short emails, and even messages over facebook. This enables my mother to easily keep in touch with me. One morning, she asked, “How was Billy Bob’s?” and I replied, “It was fun. I’ll call you later today and tell you about it.” While I can easily communicate with my mom over text messages and various technologies, communication with my father is much more formal and more traditional. He simply is not interested in learning how to set up a facebook account or spend the time tediously tapping at the dial pad to text. He is much more comfortable with the emails and hand written letters. Because of the different writing medium, my writing is more clear in how I display and communicate my emotions. In my emails with my father, we both use nicknames in the heading and the closing of the letter. In one particular email I wrote to him earlier last semester, I said the following: “I just want you to know that I think the world of you. I love hearing from you, and hearing your advise too. I take your “Words of Wisdom” pretty seriously, and I try to incorporate it into my life as much as possible. I hope I never disappoint you, and I truly appreciate that my life and future is so important to you.” Upon reading it from a different perspective for this class, I learned that I was very thorough and communicated clearly and formally how I felt. Although one of my roles as a writer is writing as a daughter, it greatly varies upon the medium in which my parents prefer to communicate with me.
I also play the role of a sister. However, the audience, purpose, and content changes based upon different sister roles I play. As a role of my brother’s sister, I communicate through hand-written mail. I loved the personal and intimate communication we had when I would read his handwriting and he would read mine. It was almost as if I were in a movie and I could hear his voice as I read past the words he scribbled out. We would talk about the various things that we loved or that were happening in life. It was easy to communicate on paper with my brother because, although we are close, I do not talk to him like I talk to my sisters. My role of being a sister to my sisters varies from my role of being a sister to my brother. When I communicate with my sisters, my writing is usually short emails or text messages. In a text message I sent to my little sister, I enthusiastically asked, “How was your snowday, you lucky girl?” It is easy to have short messages between my sisters because I know that they understand me because I talk to them more often over the phone and face to face. And, playing the role of a sorority sister has different content too. Usually the topic being discussed as a sorority sister is checking up on each other or text messaging to see if we want to ‘hang out’. One sorority sister once asked, “Hey did you get back ok?” from driving back separately from an event. I could easily reply, “Yes, thanks for checking up on me!” The role of a sister differs in content, style, and topic based on if my sisterly role is to my brother, sisters, or Chi Omega sisters.
Although I clearly feel comfortable expressing my emotions to my parents, I have another medium and writing style as a role of a Christian and writing to myself. At times I write in a journal my thoughts and emotions, expressing them for only me to see again. I discovered that this writing is much more relaxed and it is more just thoughts flowing from my head onto my journal page in fount of me. I write down various prayers and thoughts. This writing to myself is uncensored and is pure emotion and thoughts.
The “Artifacts of Writerly Roles” assignment taught me that I have the techniques to write rhetorically to different subjects about various issues. This activity taught me to know the subject and to know what and how to write based upon the situation.