Following is a short clip from an interview Terry Gross did with Bill Moyers on Fresh Air last week in which the journalist talks about why he feels letters are the best way to communicate. His eloquent comments echo some of the points made up to and around the Symposium, and explains why getting a long letter feels so different than getting a long email.
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(copyright NPR)
There were quite a few takeaways from the Moyers interview. In this internet age, his comments seem somewhat profound. I especially liked his focus on “the power of the written word” and his view that “a letter is the most intimate conversation” and that a “letter remains the most personal means of communication other than looking someone in the eye.”
It seems to me that, generally, people don’t take the time to put their thoughts on paper — and perhaps they simply don’t know how. Common communication today more often is simply forwarding e-mails or text messages that contain sound bites of miscellaneous information or thought fragments without taking the time to actually “say something.”
I like the notion of sharing some of what we know and some of what we feel when we communicate with one another and experiencing “the power of the written word.” Thanks, Luke, for sharing this interview.
Let me give a different slant to this that emerges from my experience with distance learning.
I have not, in distance learning, opted for accompanying my lecture slides with the spoken word (e.g., an MP3 file). Rather, I surround my slides with narrative and produce a PDF file which the student receives. Most of my lecture notes can be found at jmsdrgn.squarespace.com (look under lecture notes in the right hand navigation panel) if you would like to see some examples.
Well, in a distance learning environment this is a sensible thing to do.
But I have extended that habit into my classroom courses.
Why? Because it helps me clarify my thinking, root out errors in fact and reasoning, and produce, I think, lectures of better quality.
Writing is a powerful, powerful force for me. I don’t do it as well as I would like, but I keep working at it.
One other thing that may be of interest. I bound all my lecture notes together, self-published them in a book that I put on reserve in our college library for use by students. You can find my brief blog about this little matter at http://jmsdrgn.squarespace.com/droganbloggin/2007/1/18/book-publishing.html