'Round my Way

“Round my Way” by Goldblatt is about the art of writing. There were a couple of quotes that for me were the most interesting ones and that together basically summarize what the article was about. The first one is the following: “I use writer to refer to an individual composing a text, but I reserve the term author for the writer as seen in the social framework of power relationships and cultural institutions…The question, as I see it, is not what genre or mode a writer chooses, but what institution the writing maintains or elaborates or challenges, and how the writer fulfills his or her role as an author within cultural institutions.” For Goldblatt a famous journalist or writer can be just a writer while a young person writing with the purpose of achieving expertise in writing can be considered an author. The profession does not make someone a writer, it is one’s purpose, motivation and persistence in learning that makes one a real author. “To write well is to accept a challenge to participate in the institution sponsoring the writing, even if that institution resists the writer’s contribution. As long as student writers of any background can learn to see writing as an active art, they have a chance of growing individually and altering institutions collectively.” In other words, one is not born being a writer. It is a tool one we can all master. Anyone who gives the initiative to write better and practices the art of writing will some day be able to call their selves an author. Another point that the author makes is how diaries are very effective. Although diaries will not make someone a famous author, it “puts a name and thus a social meaning on our private experience.” Last but not least, Goldblatt pointed out the enormous power that written language has.