crayons again!

I was given another student's crayon assignment to interpret and reflect upon. The assignment I was given was written on horizontally on the page, in a landscape fashion.  Everything on the assignment is written in crayon. It is broken up into three paragraphs and each paragraph is written in a different color. Only the first paragraph is indented.  The first paragraph is purple, the second grey, and the third a very light green. These colors proceed in order of increasing in lightness and therefore decreasing in clarity.  Besides the actual color of the text, there is no other sense of decoration.  The writer attempted to keep straight margins, but certain words are sticking out as if struggling to fit in. There is a top margin and a left hand margin, but no margin on the bottom or right. It is as if the whole assignment is shifted down and to the right.  The word spacing is relatively consistent until the end where the writer must have ran out of room because the word spacing decreased and the words became crammed together. The lines of words are kept straight, but like the word spacing, the spaces between the lines decrease and become significantly more cramped.  There are no full words or phrases crossed out, but some individual letters within a word are written over as if to correct a spelling problem or to change word after already starting to write.  The last word of the entire assignment, “times”, is written over in purple like first paragraph. It doesn’t seem to tie in with the first paragraph, so it was probably just to make sure it was legible as the color got lighter and the words became more cramped. The punctuation and capitalization is proper throughout, despite the informal feel of writing with crayon.

There are many interesting features of the crayon assignment. While preparing the assignment with crayon, it felt significantly different than it would have completing the assignment with more familiar medians.  After completing the assignment as well as this analysis, it became clear to me the effect the writing implement has on the writing.  Each means of writing leads the writer to think and create in a whole new way.  This assignment lead us to consider how technologies take part in the way we communicate. The crayon made it seem more casual so I felt as if I had to write less and in a more juvenile fashion.  On the other hand, it was more liberating and I felt more creative writing with crayon. I found I had a similar feeling using other more artistic means of communicating, such as the four letter word visual argument.

Bolter said, in his text Writing Space, “With any technique of writing – on stone or clay, papyrus or paper, and on the computer screen – the writer may come to regard the mind as a writing space” (13). I agree with Bolter that the mind is considered a writing space.  Anywhere thoughts can be created and developed upon is a writing space, even if literal words are not used.  The writer has three writing spaces to deal with; the space in their own mind, the physical space on which they are creating, and the space in their audience’s mind. In my opinion, it is most difficult to get writing from the space in your own mind into the physical.  The mind is limitless, but when you physically create your writing you are bond by the limitations of the material.  This writer of the crayon assignment was bound by the size and shape of the paper the assignment required. No matter how much the writer had in her mind, there was only so much she could fit on the paper. She was also limited by the use of crayon because of how physically tolling it was to use.

The writer did a decent job facilitating the interaction between the physical writing space and that of the reader’s mind.  Though she did not use her material to connect and further express what she was writing, she did not allow it to restrain her either.  She responded fully to the given question and used proper punctuation, capitalization, and spelling throughout the whole assignment.  She kept her writing clear and concise. She interacted with the space of the viewer’s mind successfully with her words, not the visual of the crayon, by interacting well with the physical space and using it to the best of her ability. This expression was successful because of the obvious fact that I was able to understand and appreciate her response. Though she may not have used the material to its full capacity, she still accomplished her goal of communicating with the reader.