Hammering our House - or Thoughts, for That Matter, into Unity

Why is it so often that I stare at a blank computer screen when I sit down to write something for this class? More often that not, what we write at first is a jumbled mess of words that need a lot of attention. Yeats states that we must “hammer our thoughts into unity,” creating – to me, at least – the image of building a house. All the nails better be in the right places for the house to function efficiently and properly as a house. Similarly, if the “nails” within our writing are not hammered in properly, the writing can be lost. But carpenters never stare at an empty lot scratching their heads about what to do first; they have a guideline to follow and instructions to assist them. However, in this class we have shied away from guidelines and instructions in order to involve both sides of our brain more in the learning process. Rico believes that this interaction between the right and left brains is the secret to natural writing, a potential solution to this writer’s block many of us face. Rico states that “what is most important for our purposes is that emotionally linked interpretive and expressive functions appear to reside in the right brain, the hemisphere we are learning to gain access to for natural writing” (Rico, Bump 196).

Another important part of the writing process is creativity. Like the writer’s words, the carpenter’s house must also display creativity (though this is more on the architect’s shoulders) in order for the house to appeal to its audience. So while the nails must be hammered in correctly, there must be some structure to the house – its hallways, rooms, and staircases – that not only are efficient but offer something new, something creative. “A creator begins with global possibilities, which reveal new details; the details in turn modify, strengthen, and clarify the initial global design. The right brain envisions the whole structure or context… which, itself, is …still evolving through the left brain’s developing detail and sequencing skills” (Rico, Bump 198). So even the design layout and creative genius of our house / writing depends on the seemingly simple interaction between the two hemispheres of the brain. But the most important aspect of building a house or composing a paper is unity. A house would not be very pleasing to its audience were it made of different colored bricks on the outside with disjointed wallpaper and a quilt-like carpeting scheme on the inside. But in the end, nothing will get accomplished without combining the sides of the brain through various visual and audible forms of rhetoric and involvement. The direction our class takes in learning - the combined usage of both hemispheres of the brain in addition to the quest for unity and efficiency – will allow ourselves to become more creative and more intuitive than ever before. Let the hammering begin!