one voice good, two voices bad
i ran a blogsearch for 'collaborative art' hoping to find like-minded collaborative artists and educators. instead i found this.
consider the following, quoted from the above-linked site:
"The best writing is always writing created by one person because good writing is characterized by an individual vision and style." ~Shelley Uva
is the best writing that which is produced by only one person? though this is written in reference to a particular type of writing, the comments seem to be intended as much broader strokes. can multiple authors produce a single piece of writing with strong voice and style?
6 comments:
Embrace the Hate
i would like to take shelley for a little field trip and show her one hundred and one examples that prove she really has no idea what she is talking about. I'm actually glad she believes what she does. It will keep her out of the collaborative arena and let her stagnate in the corner, scribbling all by her lonesome. Good luck with life Shelley!
Evan, I do think that two people (or more) can produce a piece of writing with strong voice and style, although I do feel that the task is very difficult, because it is really hard for two people to be on the exact same "wave-length". so, I think in general writing that has the most focused and unique style comes from a signle individual, because there is simply one voice. However, I think the really problem here is Shelley's quote. Is good writing really only created by individual vision and style? And when did writing become a compettition to see who is the "best"? Writing is cool because it can serve several puposes for several types of people. Sometimes collaborative art and writing does not have singualr style or focus, but what does collaborative art do? Personally, I am always amazed at how people create visual art from poems or how people create poems from visual art. That kind of collaborative art exhibits a type of interpretation and multimodal connectivity that cannot be extracted from a single piece of writing. Maybe some peeople would think that that type of writing or art is the best, becasue it reveals artistic freedom of interpreatation that you cannot get from the type of writing Shelley is talking about. Thinking of writing, art, or communication as intrinsically superior is problematic (to me), because everything has its own superior quality in a particular instant or situation.
Good Talk,
Greg
Dan,
You are so angry! However, I thought your comment was particualrly amusing. I am still laughing in the library as everyone in my section stares at me like I'm crazy! I was thinking of you when I posted my comment. Isn't it weird that we posted exactly at the same time? Perhaps we are polar opposite, mental collaborators. It is kind of like the movie Unbreakable (I saw it last night...it was awesome.
Evan,
Something that I have always believed in is: if you don’t want to work with people in a collaborative environment, don’t put yourself there. Shelly Uva seems to be one of those people who should have stayed out of that environment. I agree heavily with Greg and Dan. Uva seems to be making a broad generalization about writing based on her bad business experiences and her overarching thought that she is better then everyone else at writing. I wonder how she would respond to being questioned about collaborative writing in the realm of middle and high school as well as community writing projects.
I can't think of a writing activity that I have done with my students who have worked collaboratively that has not been successful. I guess I'm being broad in using the term collaborative, but aren't peer discussions part of collaborative writing? I firmly believe that one skill we should be modeling to our students is working with others - whether we like them or not. Collaborative writing has been an important part of my class for many of my units. Students enjoy creating things in a social environment. For most humans, it is a part of our nature to be social - why does writing have to be separate?
Well, I just saw this so I am probably too late to comment but I do want to make two points. First, my quote was about writing grant proposals and no other type of writing. I have been a grant writer for 30 years, and my experience is that while many people collaborate on proposals, it is always better if one person does the actual writing, as opposed to writing by committee. Having made that point, let me say, Dan, that you are an incredibly hostile person. As I have just pointed out, I was not talking about all writing, but something very specific. But beyond that, surely it is possible to disagree with others without being so mean spirited.
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