There’s a lot of dictation in the rapid talking, speed typing, black-and-white-film His Girl Friday.
Cary Grant’s on fire brain does not stop, weaving yarns, spinning tales, and delivering headlines via his star reporter and recent ex-wife Rosalind Russel. What’s fascinating is that a team – Grant and Russell -- crate their headlines together. He throws his ideas at her, while she bangs them into her Smith Corona.
While I wish I could be either Grant or Russell I will say that several years ago, I discovered dictation as an invaluable tool for the disconnected writer. Such a student is one who tells you their great ideas but struggles to get them down on paper. They stop, they stare into space, there is silence. There is a disconnection between orally delivering their story and writing it down.
There are dozens of articles online about the use of dictation as a writing tool both for older and younger students, as well. Perhaps my discovery wasn’t an accident at all, now that I think about it. I had used Patsy Cooper’s wonderful When Stories Come to School when I taught storytelling with the little ones in preschool. Possessing only their oral skills, their stories often come out so naturally that the printing and paper piece of the endeavor never comes into play. Except that sometimes the stories come at such a rapid pace – not unlike those of Grant and Russell – that you have to ask the student to “slow down.”
One of the most satisfying dictation sessions I’ve ever had took place last week with a new college applicant. We brainstormed her ideas, and I wrote down what she was saying, because it was coming out so naturally. Before I knew it our session was over. It felt less like a writing session and more like a conversation.
And that is what we’re aiming for.