The Pyrenees---Southern France

The Pyrenees---Southern France

Sunday, February 23, 2014

Old School...Or New School?

      Years ago when I first began teaching, there was a chalkboard in my classroom. Every time I filled the board up, I'd erase, then use a wet cloth, so I'd have a clean slate.

      It was time-consuming. Waiting for the streaks on the blackboard to get thinner and thinner until they finally disappeared.

      Then came the dry erase boards. Initially, I thought they were inferior to blackboards. In fact, when I changed school districts and saw that--in my new classroom--there was a dry-erase board mounted on top of a chalkboard, I wanted to fill out a job request to right the wrong.

       Thankfully, I thought before I opened my mouth (which is a rare occurrence).

       Now, of course, I have a Smartboard in my classroom. I can't imagine ever mourning the demise of my chalkboard. I can write with my finger, I can change colors just by moving a "pen" to a different spot, I can erase an entire page with a swirl of my finger, I can draw arrows  to something on a projected website...there is all sorts of "magic" I can perform. And yet, sometimes, doing things in an old-fashioned, cumbersome way has its benefits...

      For example, I'm working on a longish project--closer to 100,000 words than 50,000 * (but not by much). When I got ready to send it to my unfortunate friend beta reader, I eagerly asked her how she wanted it. Did she want me to send her a hard copy? (I asked with some anticipatory spit forming at the corners of my mouth.) I was looking forward to hitting print and then watching as the pages accumulated in the printer tray and most of the ink getting slurped up.

         She couldn't revise via a computer screen, could she? (I asked with a knowing smirk.) I was just asking so I appeared like I knew what the options were. Certainly, I knew there was only one choice.

       I admit, I was disappointed when she said, "Send it in a Word document." My finger, poised over the button to make it print, hesitated for a pathetic moment before it returned to my lap.

       But, when she sends it back with her suggestions highlighted and underlined and crossed out and whatever other magical ways she's going to mark her ideas, I will print it out and look at it as I revise. Because I will have to have a hard copy in front of me as I decide how the piece needs to morph and what it will ultimately look like on the white page. That's me doin' it old-school style.

     And occasionally, when I am somewhere on a friend's computer--with only a printer and without internet...when I only have a paper and glue/spiral journal (as opposed to an electronic "notebook")...I combine old school and new school. I have to retype from a hard copy and as I do so, I'm looking at it with new eyes...because I have to carefully look from one to the other to make sure I'm getting it down correctly. And while I'm typing, I'm revising. It's something I sometimes do on purpose--print something but deliberately not save it--so I will be forced to look at it again...with a pair of fresh eyes.

     How about you? What do you like to do that's considered "old school" instead of in the new-fangled fashion? It could be a recipe or a cooking technique...It could be writing hand-written letters instead of emails. (Yes, Lynn, my finger is pointed at you.)

     Share, please.


*Of course, once my first editing friend gets done crossing out the parts that are boring/that are self-indulgent/that don't move the story forward/that are confusing/that aren't funny, my novel will be 13 words long...

18 comments:

  1. I still like to write in longhand, in notebooks, though time constraints sometimes force me to type them out to start with, now. I think I write better with paper and pen. Even my handwriting changes slightly, depending on the feeling of the piece.

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    1. Shay--Changes in your handwriting...That doesn't surprise me, since your poems sound like they come from different people.

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  2. I am still trying to figure out WORD, and YOU have a smart board!
    They quit using chalk boards because the dust would mess up computers. But I have huge chalk board and the kids love it.

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    1. Linda--I'm sure the kids love the chalkboard--endless opportunities to doodle and create...

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  3. I had only a brush with Smart Boards before I left the classroom. I hated them. I could have and maybe would have been different with better circumstances....like a decent IT person.

    I really find editing for others a blessing on a Word Doc...so easy to insert the comments right where they belong...reader can see as is and with correction suggestion nearby. I guess I love a little of both old and new.

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    1. Claudia--I love both, too. I would NEVER want to go back to typewriters--manual or electric (I've done both)--with the correction tape (I went through scads of that stuff).

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  4. I was told to clean the columns on the office porch. Easy-peasy with a pressure washer and a water hose, but I didn't have a pressure washer and someone has swiped the water hose. Scrubbed 'em down with spray-on bleach cleaner and a rag, then rinsed with water poured from a bucket. The Boss is always happy to see a nasty job done well no matter what it takes.

    If you have to suck up to the boss, you can always count on Old School.

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    1. Slick--That is right. Bosses love to see their underlings sweat and if it has to be done in a back-breaking way...so much the better.

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  5. I think I go back and forth between old and ne but lately everything is rushing ahead faster than I can keep up. It took me a long time to figure out how Netflix to work on our TV (that is an old big clunker) through our Wii.

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    1. Birdie--The TVs that require the multiple remotes bamboozle me. Thankfully, if my granddaughter is around, she can walk me through it. (Sadly, she's been able to do it since she was 4.)

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  6. The best invention ever is the classroom projector that is wired up to my computer. Forget the SmartBoard. I had a Not-Very-Smart-Board parked in my room for two years. The working SmartBoard was always booked up. I had training in SmartBoard, but nothing on which to put my training to use. Yes. I am still bitter.

    The whiteboard is not much different from the blackboard, except the kids love to drag a finger through the writing when I have a sub.

    Old-school? I would be happy with a flip phone that lets me feel the numbers. I hate texting, I hate auto-correct. I hate those battery-sucking smart phones with a passion.

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    1. Val--Yeah, my students and I call it the "Dumb Board." And smart phones + bluetooth = serious sucking of batteries...

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  7. What's this? Your beta reader is not your critique group?! You are cruel. I still like to make hard copies of everything when I revise. For some reason I see more mistakes when I have paper in my hands. Go figure.

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    1. Tammy--No way am I gonna show it to the WWWPs if it sucks a big one. Also, since it's about YOU ladies, I figured...if someone who is NOT in the story is interested in the plot, perhaps it has some potential.

      We'll see...

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  8. There's that "Track Changes" thing. It's cool if you know how to use it - which I do not. You can insert comments, change punctuation and format and all manner of sophisticated maneuvers. But if you don't "hover" just right you may not see the brilliant repairs. And it seems that once there, the comments and revisions never go away! Not if you repair and fix everything. Not if you copy and paste to a totally different document. Not if, not ever. I have had to re-type entire manuscripts from scratch in order to implement revision. And I do not type. I hates it! I hates it!

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    1. Marcia--I think that is what Julie (my beta reader) is using. However, she has an emailed version, and hopefully (if it's worth working on) I can print up her copy with the changes/suggestions noted, and then work on revising on my saved version, using her printed version as a guide.

      At least I hope it works out like that.

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  9. I use Track Changes in Word, or Comments in a pdf.

    But when I'm writing, I just edit as I go. If I changed a lot, I'll save the file with a version number, because you never know, a clever little nugget might have ended up in the bit bucket by mistake.

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    1. Kim--I've even written "final" as part of the file's name, and then "reallyfinal" on a later version.

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