What is writing?

What comes to mind when "writing" is mentioned? Writing is the process by which thoughts are recorded and communicated by an individual or group for transmission either to other people or groups, or across time and space. Writing carries with it an aura of authenticity, credibility, and authority. Writing has often been variously pointed to as one of the defining elements of: civilization, Empire, and culture. Invariably, it can even arise as one of the first responses to the question of what separates humans from other species on earth. 

Writing is important if only for these claims made on its behalf. Writing is nothing if not immodest. Writing has disproportionately been the tool of the empowered, the male, and the religious and military. Writing has often served as a tool of hegemony; it serves to consolidate conformity and displace dissent across groups united by language  – language that is often itself defined and policed through the act of writing. 

Writing is said to improve the memory of civilizations, transmit the memory of families and groups, and convey the memory of individuals – real and imagined – to others. At once, we know that the memories of individuals belonging to oral societies are strikingly more reliable and capacious than are our modern, writing-supported recollections. Writing is proclaimed as a tool of the historian and a method of teaching and inspiring empathy, of Herodotus and Anne Frank. At once, we know of its history as a tool of colonizing missionaries and of residential schooling.

As with many tools, it seems that writing is capable of profound dualities. An awareness and sensitivity to these dualities should form a central component of any effort to teach writing.