Scrap Writing in the Digital Age

So the NCTE is sponsoring this National Day on Writing on October 20, and I’ve come across a lot of references to it lately in my reading of blogs, Twitter, and the WPA listserv. The main goal of this initiative seems to be to recognize and celebrate the writing people are doing these days and to showcase how integral writing is to everyday life, even (or perhaps especially) in our digital age. The initiative’s prominent projects include H.Res.524, a resolution that would recognize and support October 20, 2009 as the National Day on Writing, and the National Gallery of Writing, a growing collection of over 600 online databases storing written work submitted by students, teachers, and other writers throughout the nation. There are so many individual galleries, with more being created every day, that it’s hard to get a real sense of this project by just skimming the list of galleries; but many are affiliated with schools (elementary through college) and school districts, literacy organizations, and communities. Some are asking for writing on particular themes and topics, such as writing on the Internet and writing program administration, or in particular genres, including poetry and fiction. Others are looking for writing from particular people — senior citizens, African Americans, people with disabilities, high school seniors. It’s a cool project, and I’d encourage people to check it out, especially if you’re interested in setting up your own gallery or submitting to one that’s already been established.

Anyway, my reason for hastily writing this kind of rambling and speculative entry is that I’m wondering where scrap writing fits into all of this. Since starting this project, I haven’t really bothered to examine how scraps constitute writing, partly because doing so requires defining what writing is — and I’d rather not get myself into that mess. Scrap writing is so common, so mundane and ordinary, so everyday and chronic, that most people don’t even realize they’re writing when they’re writing scraps. Of course there’s a difference between scribbling down a shopping list or a quick note to a roommate and writing a detailed, personal letter or analytic essay; but writing is writing, and I think scrap writing websites recognize and celebrate the legitimate (and often humorous, insightful, interesting, and artistic) writing that scrap writing is. I guess I’m wondering whether legitimizing scrap writing as writing is an objective of my project — and if so, legitimizing it to or for whom? Writing teachers? Parents of texting teenagers? Social critics who bemoan the illiteracy of today’s youth? Unconvincing articles proposing that handwriting has died? And what would legitimizing scrap writing do? I’m especially interested in what it would do for teaching composition; that’s one piece of this puzzle that I haven’t found yet.

I think that the organizers of the National Day on Writing would be all about scrap writing. They want “to draw attention to the remarkable variety of writing we engage in and help make writers from all walks of life aware of their craft,” and they invite submissions from “diverse participants — students, teachers, parents, grandparents, service and industrial workers, managers, business owners, legislators, retirees, and many more.” Collecting writing — maybe scraps of writing, perhaps forming some critical mass of writing — to recognize and celebrate writing in its many forms. Cool.

But the galleries seem really clean. Not messy and disorganized and scattered and random like a lot of writing is. Contributors submit pieces online, and submissions must be approved by gallery curators. So the galleries soliciting work from scholars or professionals, such as the Council of Writing Program Administrators gallery, look to me like calls for papers. Submissions to these galleries wouldn’t be spontaneous and scrappy, would they?

An introduction to the NCTE gallery proclaims:

We invite letters, memoirs, lists, poems, podcasts, essays, short stories, instructions, reports, editorials, video clips, biographical sketches, speeches, invitations, hopes and dreams — writing that matters most to you. We’re looking for a high school senior’s college essay, a grandmother’s letter to a beloved grandchild, a diary entry from a Desert Storm veteran, and a father’s poem to a daughter on her wedding day. We want a toddler’s first writing about her trip to the zoo and the firefighter’s letter to the editor about the upcoming bond vote. Whatever the form and whoever the writer, the pieces you submit here, with their many voices, many visions, many stories, come together in the mosaic that is America writing.

I like that. It’s so broad and open-ended. I want to see the sketches and speeches and lists and mixed media. And I especially want to see scraps. I don’t think viewers can see the galleries’ contents just yet, but the NCTE provides some samples, and none of them is a scrap — they’re all neatly typed, nicely formatted on white sheets of electronic paper free of crumples and stains and crappy handwriting. If the NCTE wants samples of real writing — everyday writing done on the fly — it needs to collect some scraps. Where’s the scrap gallery? Where’s the gallery soliciting found writing by anonymous people? I’ll admit that I haven’t read through the entire list of galleries yet (that would require more planning, and blogging should be somewhat spontaneous, at least some of the time, right?), so there might already be a gallery just like the one I’m envisioning. And if there isn’t, someone should set one up.

Part II to come later when I can see more writing in these galleries and look more thoroughly for evidence of scrap writing…