Artifacts

As I collected artifacts of my writing over the past week, I realized numerous different roles I play in my writing. It is well known that we act differently around different audiences, and therefore we write differently depending on who will be receiving or seeing the writing.

I first notice the writing that I do simply for myself, such as the writing in my planner, to-do lists, and reminder notes. I am an organized person, and I always write down everything I need to get done. I make things very specific so that I don't get confused; however, if someone else were to read my planner, I do not think they would understand it in the same way that I do. I plan out everything in advance, and I have all of the events and assignments that I know of in my planner. It is very structured and uses codes, unlike many of my other roles in writing.

When looking at conversations in writing with my sister, I see comfort and happiness. When I am writing to her, it us normally by means of Facebook, text messaging, or e-mail. The writing portrays my excitement to talk to her and the fact that I look up to her for advice and support. The language is very casual and loving. My writerly role as a sister is very similar to my role as a friend.

As I write to friends through notes, Facebook, e-mail, or text messaging, I see myself using casual language; however, I noticed that my writing differs with friends from high school and friends from college. With friends from high school that I got to know for thirteen years, we can still talk about absolutely anything, even personal subjects. For instance, yesterday I sent a text message to my best friend from high school simply telling her something that was bothering me because I knew that she would understand. I always tell my close friends that are away at another college that I love them and miss them because you never know what might happen. My writing to my friends that I have met while being at college usually relates to something that happened between us recently, funny or serious. I often joke when I write to my friends at TCU and act goofy in my writing to them. I also write about personal things with new close friends at TCU because we are going through many of the same experiences.

I also have a role in my writing as a girlfriend. Through mostly text messages and Facebook, I write to my boyfriend in a loving language. This writing is mainly focused on seeing how something went, asking small random questions, and sometimes simply saying something sweet.

My role as a student is quite different from my other roles, and it involves informative writing. I write down everything that seems even slightly important because I want to have everything in writing in case I need it in the future. In classes that I don't know as much about, such as in History class, I write down the most because I reread my notes and try to figure things out that were confusing to me during class. In this class, I also use sentences and sometimes tell a story through the notes. For example, in my notes for History class, I wrote "John Smith was appointed to be the leader of the 13 person council in Jamestown. He managed to turn the colony around and help people survive. He was a 'soldier of fortune.'" My writing in my notes is also very specific and organized. I enjoy studying for a class when my notes are structured. 

This project was enjoyable because I learned that in everyday life we subconsciously act in various roles as we write. I have writerly roles as an individual, a sister, a friend, a student and probably many more. I think that being aware of these different roles will help my writing in the future.