Rhythmic Writing

This week, we read about (and I will be presenting on) using parallelism to create rhythm in writing. I like this topic because I believe that in writing, we often fail to really think about the rhythm of our sentences and paragraphs. Or maybe that is just me. Either way, in considering my own habits as a writer, I tend to read over my work to make sure that it flows well, but I rarely focus on rhythms or parallelism. Perhaps rhythms are automatic for some writers. However, I think that if we practiced going back into what we've written and vary sentence structure, we will find amazing and subtle new ways to freshen our writing style. For example, I typically use comma heavy, long sentences. It is usually beneficial for me to break some of my sentences apart when I am revising work. 

For younger writers, I think that teaching parallel structures for agreement could be a very important lesson. As Noden states, "choppy rhythms distort perceptions and interrupt the consistent flow of ideas" (63). Again, rhythm is an aspect of writing that is not often dwelt on, but a list lacking parallelism can be very distracting to a reader. 

In order to encourage students to think about and become aware of parallelism in their own writing, I think that it would be very important to incorporate auditory elements to these lessons. Students should be able to listen for parallelism and discuss how its presence enhances the writing and what effect it has on them. 

My favorite part of this chapter is that, like all of the Noden reading, it discusses writing as an art form. As a person who is very interested in both music and writing, I really felt an appreciation for the examples provided in the text. For me, this chapter provided a great example of how important grammar is to the writing process and further reminded me that, as a teacher, the best way that I can help students to improve is by teaching grammar in context.