SQR#6 Israel Flores, Edgar Ocana

Israel Flores, Edgar Ocana

ENG 1320/1301. 161

Instructor: Trang Phan

Date: 10/7/10

                            CLOSING MY EYES AS I SPEAK

Citation: Peter Elbow. ” Closing My Eyes as I Speak: An Argument for Ignoring Audience”. College English, Vol. 49, No. 1 (Jan., 1987), pp. 50-69

Summary:

When I close my eyes to speak is a text that the author uses to refer shut out the audience.  This technique is used to transform you to a comfortable place.  When you write you don’t have an audience so you don’t worry about what you are writing about. When a writer has to speak in front of an audience you can get nervous and that is when you close your eyes to shut out the audience.  Audience awareness is hard for two reasons: if you find your audience to be intimidating such as student do to teacher that will put a lot of pressure on your writing, and second is when you write to someone you know.  When you write to someone you know you can become shy and timid so that can affect the way you write.  Some people believe that writer base prose is effective writing because you write what your thoughts and feeling without considering the audience. As opposed to reader base prose when target an audience and adjust their thoughts.  Whatever strategies you use in writing find a comfort zone where you find yourself blocking your audience and it won’t affect your writing abilities.

Question:

Elbow argues that an audience is a field of force. What do you understand about this? Have you ever experienced inviting/enabling audiences or inhibiting ones for your writing? Can you explain how it feels?

Response:

I agree on what Elbows said about an audience being a field force. Because many people have experienced it, but you have not noticed yet. It has happened to me many times in my life. Inhibiting audience is when let’s say you are trying to say a joke in front of people you don’t know. But you get this wired feeling and you start forgetting what to say. The audience becomes your fear, and without even noticing this can stop your brain from processing the information you already know, that’s when you say my head or my mind went blind, everything you know can be blocked from your mind so the knowledge you knew is temporarily out of service. Because you are thinking that maybe there are not going to laugh. The inviting audience is when you feel conferrable in front of the people maybe because you already know them or you’re not worried on what you are going to say. Maybe in front of your family because you already how you are.