"Ordinary" Role Models

 When I was in a Teaching Writing class with Professor Guy Allen a couple of years ago, I was introduced to two very interesting and influential ideas. The first is, the best way to teach writing is to actually do writing, however badly that writing happens to be. This, by the way, didn't appeal to some the hard core teachers who decided to attend this class. I remember one or two walking out of Professor Allen's class when he explained that his class would not be about "how to teach writing" as much as it is about "how to write".

The second idea that got me was how he used his previous students' writing as a role model for the current class writing. This idea was extremely interesting for me, because it toned down many students' tendencies to want to imitate their favorite writers, who happened to be very accomplished due to many years' dedicated devotion to their craft. Why would Professor Allen choose previous student writing to inspire his class to write? The answer is simple: it's because the model is achievable enough, yet good enough, that the writing practitioner can and wants to imitate it. This balance between "making it challenging" but "not too overwhelming" is not entirely new. It forms the basis of social thinking such as Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development theory of learning. However, I found it unique and helpful when it was applied to Professor Allen's model of how to teach up and coming writers.

The idea of realistic social modelling interests me. I have a theory, and that is, when left to their own devices, most people gravitate toward people who are a little bit more accomplished than themselves in certain areas, but not so accomplished that they are considered too "lofty"to be imitated. This balance is hard, of course, but it seems natural for people to want to imitate those whom they know they can imitate to a certain extent. Is it possible that sometimes we admire people not just for their skill in something but also for a sense of goodness or virtue (decency?) that they exude? I am exploring some of these questions recently.