My Writing Invention REVISION

Writing is a technology that many of us take for granted. We grow up learning words, phrases, and ways to communicate messages. However, we do not often consider writing as a technology.

When I think of technology, I think of doctors and scientists using instruments and machines to help aid the community. Although writing is a skill that most people are capable of doing, I never usually think about it as a technology.

So what is technology and how does writing fall into this category? Technology is an invention that helps gain and spread knowledge within a society. Dennis Baron, in his essay “From Pencils to Pixels: The Stages of Literacy Technologies,” states that:

When we write with cutting-edge tools, it is easy to forget that whether it consists of energized particles on a screen or ink embedded in paper or lines gouged into clay tablets, writing itself is always first and foremost a technology, a way of engineering materials in order to accomplish an end. (71)

Baron’s statement proves to be true. Many people view writing as a simple skill that they’ve had for as long as they can remember. Our culture is not based in oral tradition, so it is easy for us to take writing for granted. We can even go so far as to say that we forget about writing. Cell phones and computers take the place of writing as a more efficient way of sending messages. This proves how much we rely on technology and how it evolves in our society.

For the first part of our “Invent Your Own Writing Technology” Project, we were asked to convey a message by way of our own writing technology. When the time came to think about what I would invent, it was hard to step away from the norm of writing technologies. Surely there were tons of ways of expressing myself, but these ways included some sort of writing utensil. After much thought, I began to imagine myself in a desert. How would I convey a message to someone if I had to?

Walter J. Ong, in his essay, “Writing Is a Technology that Restructures Thought,” states that, “Nevertheless, by contrast with natural, oral speech, writing is completely artificial” (Ong, 23). When I read this statement I wondered how writing could be artifical. Writing has been around for so long that it only seems natural. However, Ong’s essay speaks the truth. Speaking is natural. Everyone grows up and learns to speak no matter where they are from. Writing is different. For cultures based in the oral tradition, writing is not a skill of survival or success.  We conclude that writing is not natural–it is a technology that aids a society. When we are born we do not strive to form letters; rather, we learn to form words through speaking. Speaking is natural, writing is not. Later in his essay, Ong states, “To say writing is artifical is not to condemn it but to praise it. Like other artifical creations and indeed more than any other, writing is utterly invaluable and indeed essential for the realization of fuller, interior, human potentials” (Ong, 23).  I believe that writing helps us reach our full potential. Poetry and fiction is created by human beings, for human beings, to convey messages of hope and love. We strive to share our emotions with other humans, and writing is a wonderful way for us to achieve that. Writing is more than just a technology, it is a gift through which we may express ourselves.

Now that I understood writing as a technology it was time to think about my own invention. I placed myself back in the position of a lonely traveler on a desolate land mass. How would I convey a message? I decided to walk around my backyard for inspiration.

Nature seemed like a great way to convey a message. But how? I knew there was a better way of relating a message than just carving something into a tree. I looked around my yard and realized that I could create a message using everything around me. I grabbed a trash bag and collected everything that was lying around. Within 10 minutes my bag was full of flowers, leaves, rocks, dead bugs, and trash. These items could definitely be useful in conveying a message!

My invention worked. My message was simple enough to create and easy to read. But how would it fare as a technology? It might not have been a good invention because it was not easily transportable. However, that did not seem to matter. If someone needed to convey a message using a new technology, nature would be sure to come in handy.

Using nature helped me learn more about writing as a technology. While I never considered writing as a technology, I am thankful for it now. If our culture was based solely on oral tradition, many things would be lost. In Plato’s “Phaedrus,” Socrates tells Phaedrus that writing is a bad thing because it takes away from people’s memories. Phaedrus contradicts Socrates by saying that it has only helped mankind. I believe that Phaedrus was right. Although Socrates made a valid point, I also think that writing enriches culture. It is easier for many people to express themselves through writing. Writing confirms and legalizes contracts and laws. Writing is so important in our world that it is hard to think of a world without writing. This makes it even harder for us when we try to think of places that do not have writing. Some countries do not have money to send their children to school. This lack of schooling and loss of technology sets these countries behind us. Writing is so influential as a technology that the absense of it has set others back when it comes to new advances. More could be achieved if writing was a technology for them. We often forget how fortunate we are in the technologies that we have.

We should not take writing for granted. However, we live in a world where new technologies arise every day. We rely on computers to find information, remember dates, and and solve problems for us. This reliance makes us forget that technology is there to aid us, not do the work for us. With this to consider, Socrates made a valid point when he said that writing was bad. This is not to say that technology is bad, but perhaps our reliance on it has grown too strong. We should consider the true definition of technology–something that helps gain and spread knowledge in a society.

Writing is an important technology that will take us a long way. Without written words, the printing press, or books, there would be much less to gain information from. There would be no poetry, books, or even art to learn from. Writing enriches our lives and guide us in a new direction. It helps us to reach our fuller, interior, human potentials.

Works Cited.

Baron, Dennis. “From Pencils to Pixels: The Stages of Literacy Technologies,”  from Passions, Pedagogies, and Twenty-first-Century Technologies. Ed. Gail E. Hawisher and Cynthia L. Selfe. Logan: Utah State University Press, 1999. 71.

Ong, Walter J. “Writing Is a Technology that Restructures Thought.” Literacy, a Critical Sourcebook. Eds. Ellen Cushman, Eugene R. Kintgen, Barry M. Kroll, and Mike Rose. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s 2001, 23.

“From Plato’s Phaedrus.” Web Page. <http://www.stevendkrause.com/academic/eng328/phaedrus.html> 16 Sept. 2010.