Today we continue our interview with Dr. LaRonce M. Hendricks. Dr. Hendricks is the self-published author of A Guide for Writing Teachers: How to Build Effective Writing Communities in College.
You can read the first part of the interview here.
Dr. Hendricks, what inspired you to write your book?
A Guide for Writing Teachers was inspired by an in-depth research study while I was pursuing a doctor of Education degree at Valdosta State University. Moustakas (1994) said before a researcher can investigate a phenomenon, the researcher would need an autobiographical connection. If not, the researcher’s experience would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.
As a matter of expediency, I began with my own autobiographical connection in an attempt to understand and recognize the phenomenon by exploring my journey with writing: as a first-year college student and as an English instructor at a technical college.
My journey with writing was an anticlimactic experience. I would equate it with taking a long journey on a rocky road with many precipitous hills and low valleys. I always had a deep desire and affinity for learning. For years, I had longed for an opportunity to enroll at a university, but fear kept me away–fear that felt like sharp knives piercing inside my belly. On one particular day in 1990, however, I found the courage to walk up the steps to the door of Georgia Southern University in Statesboro, Georgia.
For my first writing assignment, I had to write a three-page reflection paper on Ordinary People by Judith Guest (1976). I connected with Judith’s story immediately because of a similar tragedy that had occurred in my family; however, this novel brought insights and meaning to my college writing, more than one could ever imagine. As I wrote about Ordinary People, something magical happened! I wrote so much that I forgot about the grammar rules and all those “disgramming grammar sentences” (The Education Week, 2016).
(Response to be continued in next week’s post.)
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We’ll present the third part of our interview with Dr. LaRonce Marie Hendricks next week. Her book, A Guide for Writing Teachers: How to Build Effective Writing Communities in College, is available at Amazon and the AuthorHouse Bookstore.
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