Lauren Johnson

English 1A
Professor Adler
Week 4 Writing
January 3, 2016
How Baca Relates to Piphers Change Writing

Pipher talks about the importance of point of view in writing. She

describes the brutal truths about our society and a variety of world issues
that are circulating the globe. Pipher believe that there is hope for the future
of mankind and the answer falls to the millions of writers around the world.
Piper argues that writers can serve as a "rescue team for our tired,
overcrowded planet by telling stories that connect readers to all the people
on earth." She offers some good examples of how to accomplish this,
particularly in a thoughtful and clever essay that presents the U.S. as a
patient in a therapeutic case study ("Diagnosis: Post-traumatic stress
disorder, multiple addictions").
Mary Pipher definition of change writing is Writing to connectLike
good therapy it creates the conditions that allow people to be transformed.
The belief that one must come with an open mind in order to be effective by
writing is important. When we write it is not to be met as an argument but as
an opportunity to see things in a different point of view. The writer when
writing isnt always aware of the audience they might attract. Pipher directs
your attention to The Diary of Anna Frank explaining that Anna Frank wrote in
her diary as a form of therapy for herself as a way to escape from the
oppression of World War II but was not aware of the effect that years later it
would be used to change peoples perspective of war and basic human
rights. This example of change writing shows the power of an unaware
author whose words effected the world. Change writing also takes shape in
knowing ourselves. When we write we are putting a piece of ourselves in the

text. This is our voice. Mary Piphers demonstrates this with a writing
exercise she gives her students. The exercise is to write a poem entitled
Know Thyself which you creatively list your background and personal traits
about yourself. This exercise is used to show how our writing describes us as
a person.
Baca uses his troubled childhood and criminal background to create
powerful and passionate poems about his life incarcerated. All of his poems
are based on pivotal events in his life that shaped his core values and
motivated him to use language to create controversial poetry. Pipher
emphasizes the importance of our writing coming from our own selfknowledge and self- actualization. Bacas life experiences are creatively
intertwined in his poems. Baca claims his writing is Ranging from short to
long lines, logic grounded in the hearty senses to surreal landscapes of the
imagination, terse metaphors to unfolding multilayered verse, outraged to
serene, playful, compassionate, and exploratory. His writing can be viewed
as an example of Piphers change writing by how he connects to his
readers on a personal and political level.