from Scott Russell Sanders

[In my writing] “I let my feelings and opinions grow.”

“I summoned up memories. I drew shamelessly on my own life. I swore off jargon and muddle and murk. I wrote in the active voice, and as nearly as I could in my own voice, the one I used in speaking about matters close to my heart.”

“I began asking my students to write in the first-person singular.”

“I began inviting my students to draw on their own experience, whenever appropriate, as a way of tying their studies to their lives.”

“Most students seem to welcome the chance of writing more personally, more concretely, more passionately.”

“There is no shortcut to good writing, no list of ten easy steps…”

“I believe that writing is the most difficult art that most of us ever try to learn, which is why relatively few of us ever learn it very well.”

Chronicle of High Education, October 10, 1997…