Briana Evertsen Period:3

I really enjoyed reading The Infinite Suggestiveness of Common Things by Patrick Madden. I loved his way of writing and the creative way he shows his thoughts. He kept mentioning that children were kind of his inspiration to write, they kept him going, gave him ideas and exciting things to share. He said, "kids are full of wisdom that you can write from" I like this because it's so true. Kids are exciting, loving, honest, funny and full of ideas. Why wouldn't they inspire great writing? We all look for exciting adventure books, or cute romantic novel, or an occasional book to make you laugh. I liked when he said, "so maybe the value of children, from a writerly standpoint, coincides with the value of the quotidian. Children may awaken us to the marvels slipping past us, almost unnoticed." Along with Children's influence on writing, he also made a point I liked about how writing is great when it is not typical. When he talked about how he taught a composition class he was said that he was waiting for them to write their dramatic legendary stories or experiences but as Madden said "my students were unable to write beyond clichés, received ideas, or meanings gathered largely, I presume, from movies and sit-coms. They were force-fitting their experiences to preexisting legends." I thought this was interesting because I think that is exactly what our culture is tending to do when writing. Students write what they hear and what's going on around them, in a cliche and vague way. Most students don't put what they are really thinking or write what they feel about a certain subject, they make it as vague as possible so they don't connect with their writing.