Writing Technology – Revision of the Revision

Upon my first reading of the assignment for my English class, I thought it would be rather quick, easy, and simple. I was mistaken. Being instructed to invent my own technology provided me with challenges that I did not foresee. Choosing material, selecting the words, and the process of using my invention, helped me develop a new understanding and appreciation for the meaning and purpose behind writing.

At first, the assignment seemed to be straightforward, create something that can be used to write 20 words. However, it was not as straightforward as I thought. We were to invent a technology project without using modern conveniences such as paper, pencils, and pens. Our invention also required that we could not use any electronic devices. As I reviewed the requirements of the assignment, I began to think of what I could use that would allow me to convey 20 words.

First, I had to select what type of materials I would use. They materials needed to be something that I have not used for writing. In exploring the various unorthodox materials I have used to write, I discovered a long list of items. The list consisted of art supplies, food items, and electronic technologies, all of which had been purchased at a store.

Until this stage in the project, I had not realized how dependent I am upon other people in order to write. With the realization of my dependence, I decided to use things I could find in nature. Using materials found in nature can be traced back to over two thousand years ago (Baron 1999). While modern technologies use trees and pigment derived from plants, I believe these remain novel as I have never used these materials in their natural form to write as I typically purchase prefabricated material at the store.

Location plays an important part in the selection of materials, just as the ancient Greeks used rocks from their environment to etch their first markings (Baron 1999), I chose to use material from my natural environment as well. The orchards and forests in Grand Traverse County provided me with a wide selection of natural resources, Black cherries, birch bark, feathers, and rocks. I decided I would use the pigment from black cherries as type of ink, a feather to apply the cherry ink, and a piece of birch bark to use as a writing surface. Even the rock I plucked out of my cottage’s garden was easy enough to acquire.

Although the identification and acquirement of the materials did not produce any major obstacles, the actual application proved to be rather tricky. As I began to use a spoon to mash up my cherries in a plastic container, I realized that I subconsciously chose manmade resources even though I set out specifically to do the exact opposite.  As Ong (1986) points out, “The fact that we do not commonly feel the influence of writing on our thoughts shows that we have interiorized the technology of writing so deeply that without tremendous effort we cannot separate it from ourselves or even recognize its presence and influence.” I was pretty surprised by this discovery. To problem solve, I grabbed two rocks that lay nearby and used them to grind my cherries into a pulp.

Grinding cherries with a pair of three pound stones proved to be exhausting work. A single cherry, ground for 1 minute, produced enough stain is produced to write four letters. My thoughts about simply sliding my quill into the cherry and plucking out pigment suitable for writing began to resemble a fantasy rather than the easy task I had foreseen. At that moment, I began to realize how much I take writing for granted.

The manual labor that went into creating my technology was also beyond my basic assumptions. The birch needed to be prepared a few days in advance. The wood was water logged from the previous night’s rain, spotted with moss, and had a few sections that were in rotting. This did not match the pristine white surface I had envisioned.  I had hoped that I would have ample room for my writing as well as additional room which I could use for practice. However, once the bark dried out and the imperfections in the surface became even more apparent and I realized that only a small portion of the bark would be salvageable.

Given the ratio of work and the amount of writing material produced, I realized the effort that has been exerted over a span of two thousand years. No handheld size shaped book for me. The advancement of my technology into the portable and practical volumes, outlined by Manuel (1996), did not seem likely at all given that only a small portion was usable. I obtained an extra-large piece of bark in hopes that I would be able to practice my technique. However, the usable area turned out to be roughly one fifth of the entire piece.

Choosing the actual text provided its own complexities. I was struck by how strongly I wanted what I wrote to be meaningful. I write dozens of times throughout day and all of my writing has some kind of meaning or serves some type of purpose, but the selection of 20 words seemed to be of more difficult. From its very beginning, writing has been used to convey meaningful information, such as documenting land ownership and other business deals. (Baron 1999) The importance of maintaining property and prosperity influenced those ancient writings. Given that my family is the most influential element in my life, I chose to use them as my subjects.

The absence of meaning renders any text useless, as the overall purpose of a text is to convey on idea (Ong 1987). By using the objective names of my family and their birthdates, the reader can comprehend the information that can be applied to the real world without further explanation. Many societies use a common name to identify common ancestry. By using this shared cultural understanding the reader is able to gather additional information.  Upon reading the shared “Thomas” name, the reader can conclude that there is some type of family connection between the people represented in the writing. The use of birthdates provides further meaning to my writing as it identifies a time period in which to place my family.

Even though figures of speech can be interpreted in a variety of ways the context of its use provides useful information. The physical proximity of the names and birthdates I used in relation to the figurative phrase, “love grows deep”, provides context for the subjective phrase. The words I chose are linked beyond the words’ physical proximity. If wrote “love grows deep” on some other kind of material and placed it next to the writing on the birch bark I would not achieve the same effect. Apart the subjective and objective material does not have any context and as such provides little meaning, but when the two are used together they provide more meaning to the reader than just the words alone.

This project has not only taught me a lesson in humility, but it has also developed and strengthened my appreciation for the work that goes into writing. In the future, as I turn on my laptop I will take comfort in the fact that other people are in charge of making modern writing technology. If I had to create my own material to write my essays for college, I probably would have gone into landscaping or some other field that did not require as much physical labor.

References

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. 15-33.
Manguel, Alberto. “The Shape of the Book.” A History of Reading. New York: Viking, 1996.

125-148.
Ong, Walter. “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. 19-31.