Thanks For a Great Semester! I Will Miss Everyone! :)

Response to Technology and the Teaching of Writing

Clearly since the publishing of this article technology has progressed. Charles Moran talks of computers in school as “home computers- large, clunky piece[s] of machinery, obtrusively the staple of our computer equipped writing classrooms” (204). But they are not so obtrusive anymore. While our writing classrooms- now termed “labs-” are still hampered by large, immobile computers, the majority of students are not, for their personal computers are relatively small and can be (and are ) carried everywhere. In fact, it seems the smaller our computers get, the more intimate and “personal” they feel. Take our cell phones, for instance, we/students carry them as an extension of us. We install individualized ringtones, pick the color, style, carrying case, jewels, glitter, screen wallpaper, etc. for these tiny computerized devices.The trend hasn’t stopped there. You know those “clunky pieces of machinery” that Moran talks of? Well they are now just as individualized as our ringtones.

I remember a time when there was only a small selection of laptop/desktop computers, and even as the selection grew we/I had to purchase the computer as is. Sure, we could select our “personal” desktop from a list of images, but almost nothing else was open for adjustment. Now, like cell phones, we can choose different colors/prints to cover the outside of our PCs and can literally make our own desktops with the help of the internet. Yes, the computer is now truly “personal,” for in many ways it is its owner. But this presents a new problem when we talk about technology in the writing classroom.

Moran theorized that as computers got smaller and more powerful, teachers would teach, and students would learn, assisted by technology that worked “unobtrusively” in the classroom (204). Well, not quite. The presence of the laptop-the “small computer” is obtrusive. Frequently, instead of being used as tool to engage with class work, it is used as a distraction from it. I have watched my classmates spend entire semesters, in every single lecture, playing video games that simulate some kind of otherworldly war; I have seen students pull out blackberrys and palm pilots after they were asked by a professor to put their computer away and focus on the lesson; I have watched peers read emails, chat online, and yes, even shop for and purchase lingerie for their girlfriends in history. The computer is there; it’s small, but in no way is it facilitating learning- at least not the kind of learning I think Moran had in mind.

What, then, is the role of the computer in classroom? How does a teacher structure a class to ensure that students are engaging with technology in ways that support the given lesson? I don’t know if they can. Because the size of the computer (and its name -“personal”) makes us/the student the sole owner of it and of its contents, we are often reluctant to let others tell us what we should do and how we should work with our computer, because, after all, it’s not theirs! True, there are times when computers in the classroom are important, not taking away from the ways they enhance the lesson through adding audio/visual material, demonstrating tasks, performing calculations, etc., but should the pros be weighed against the cons? I believe so. There needs to be, for the sake of my ADD and my sanity, some kind of regulation regarding the use of computers in class, that is, computers should only be present if they are part of the course or lesson and are required by the instructor. If they are primarily used as a distraction, than perhaps it’s better if teachers teach in school and students learn at home how to use the technology in a setting where the pc can be as unobtrusive or as obtrusive as desired.

Response to The Pedagogy of Writing Across the Curriculum

I now know I have experienced the pedagogy of WAC, in that “WAC focuses not on writing skills per se, but on teaching both the content of the discipline and the particular discourse features used in writing about that content.” Before this course, I have never noted- beyond likes and dislikes- the pedagogies favored by my professors. I have gone through school with blinders on, completlting the assignments, learning the material, but possibly missing the goal/deeper purpose of the instructors’ tasks or classroom structures. This article, specifically, has allowed me to see the presence of WAC in my undergraduate coursework and how it has helped me.

Reading the latest arguments in the field and responding to them either through journals, blogs, or study questions is very much in keeping with WAC and is the foundation of many of my English classes. The reading tasks, which are continuous from the start to finish of the semester, serve to initiate me into the field of discourse by immersing me in the language of the discipline. In formulating a response, I must take on that language (in some cases/at best) or at the very least, must actively engage with it. I am learning how to speak/write in the field through the practice and presence of a particular discourse. For example, one of my courses requires that I complete “Fieldwork” for each unit. Here, I must employ similar research methods, ask similar questions, and summarize my findings in a similar manner as the academe’s work I have read. Clearly such an exercise is meant to help me “try on” the discourse of the field in an engaging way; for in these assignments I become the expert and the teacher becomes the guide. The work I produce is evaluated on what it communicates; given the structure of the assignment, I am forced to adopt the features of the discourse to communicate effectively.

I note some difficulty when am forced to write in new discourse communities that do not apply the principles of WAC outlined above- do not immerse me in the language of the discourse through reading or writing exercises and, instead, assume that through a lecture based pedagogy I can formulate a paper in the discourse required. I can, but certainly not without doing research/fact-finding and paying careful attention to verbs. If, on the other hand, a reading or written introduction to the discourse accompanied the lecture, as WAC suggests, it would be possible to produce papers in the correct “tongue” with more ease and clarity.

Considering the issue of producing non-graded work, which WAC advocates and I have also experienced, I find this helpful but not essential to student success. In life and certainly in the classroom, everything one produces is evaluated. We never exist in a space void of judgment, nor will such a space occur in the professional world. While I understand the freedom such a system affords, and enjoy that freedom myself (in some instances), when I write for school I am never divorced from the reality that my work will be judged, graded, or evaluated in some fashion. But such an acknowledgement is not bad; it doesn’t hinder my performance, if anything, it makes me aware of an audience and more likely to use the desired discourse.

Response to Feminist Pedagogy and Service Learning Pedagogy in the Teaching of Composition

As Jarratt notes “it wasn’t until the 1980’s that feminists began to make contributions to composition pedagogy with broad impact,” and in stating that such arose as an “alternative institutional site –one responsive to student needs and working against the grain of an elitist literary culture that had dominated English departments” and focused on egalitarian politics, I am certain that my writing and education has been influenced by feminist pedagogy. I now have something new to add to my cultural quilt.

While completing Kassandra’s quilt, I noted my gender is a primary influence on my writing, seen in my use of dialogue, favoring of female heroines and “feminist pronouncements,” but what I failed to see-what this essay helps illuminate- is that those feminist pronouncements have likely been nurtured by the larger culture of education, of composition pedagogy in which I have been raised. Their presence is subtle, so subtle I did not notice it until now.

In my writing, I often raise issues of racial and social inequities and question in whose interest do my texts-do those texts I am responding to- serve? Such approaches are common in feminist pedagogy. Jarrat states: “Questions guiding this pedagogy ask of composition: …In whose interests do they operate? Who gets to learn it?” In this way, before I even begin to put words to the page, having been conditioned by a number of courses which employ this pedagogy- some overt, some covert (reflectively)- my culture dictates my stance- my quilt forms the thoughts, the lenses that contextualize my words.

I must then ask: How much of writing is a reflection of gender? Can one tell my sex through my text, even if the topic is “generic”? What does this mean? What are the ramifications (inside and outside of academia) when one can be identified by their gender through writing? Considering the mergence of essentialism into composition and the scholars who argue in favor of “rhetorical approaches to identify categories such as woman” when analyzing texts, I think these are very real questions to ponder. What is “woman’s writing,” and how will it be received or judged accordingly?

Society’s stereotypes/ ideals of womanhood certainly impact composition, and in so being, they impact the composition classroom, for not only is “gendered writing” subject to them, but female professors are as well: Many teachers of feminist composition and other models, Jarrat points out, struggle to define themselves as more than stereotypes. In discussion based classrooms where personal anecdotes are used to engage students, teachers become type cast as “motherly figures,” providing nurturing and collaborating with students with their best interests at heart.

But as many question : Why does such instruction imply “mothering” and furthermore, is this image of teacher as mother used to strip away power and intellect in order to construct a more socially acceptable and less-threatening role for the female instructor? Possibly. Pop culture certainly loves to paint the effective female teacher as the affectionate one. Just look at movies like “Dangerous Minds” and “Freedom Writers,” where the heroines are more emotionally involved than "instructionally" involved with their students, implying females are effective in matters of the heart, not of “the academy.” On the flip side, if instructors of this pedagogy aren’t mothers, they are “feminazis” who seek male dominance or submission.

My point in all this (if I have one) is that culture certainly influences writing, academia, pedagogy, etc. In this case, one cannot help but see the impact of gender (and society’s conception of it) on education and personal development. Taking a step back and in reading this essay, I realize that my cultural quilt is even bigger, even more expansive than I ever imagined. There are so my nuances, so many subversive ways in which our culture becomes the defining factor in who we are and what we write and why it is almost immeasurable. Feminist Pedagogy and how it is taken up or rejected in our schools and in our writing is one small example of how larger social movements impact the individual in ways the individual may never be aware of- never covering themselves in the reverse side of the quilt.

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Service Learning Pedagogy has much in common with its "brother/sister" pedagogies of feminism and cultural studies, in that , its goal is to produce better citizens who "take responsibility for communal welfare." At the heart of each model is this desire for equality, democracy, awareness. The discipline seems almost as driven to effect "social transformation" as it to seeking transformation in/through writing. Obviously, classical thought and literature is still quite influential, still the model of education today. Julier makes this comparison possible in many ways, the following quote is one example: "[We] see in service learning the appropriate pedagogical complement to educating for civic virtue and democratic citizenship." While I am totally in love with this field for advocating such principles, I can't help but think of the Washington/ DuBois debate: Which is more effective, intellectual pondering or action? Does composition, when taught in the aforementioned models, lead to action? I would say according Julier, Jarrat, and George, absolutely. In some ways, English provides a forum for those, who like me, lack the ruthlessness to play at politics but want to be a player on the stage nonetheless.

"The effort to reach into the composition class with a curriculum aimed at democracy ans social justice is an attempt to make schools function...as radically democratic institutions, with the goal not only of making individual students more successful, but also of making better citizens, citizens in the strongest sense of those who take responsibility for communal welfare. These efforts belong in the composition class because of the rhetorical as well as the practical nature of citizenship and social transformation" (Community Service and Critical Teaching 317). RIGHT ON! But I'm sure others would disagree with me :)

Response to Critical Pedagogy: Dreaming Democracy and Cultural Studies and Composition

"If all of this is not political in purpose and result, if it is all a matter of "defective methods," of "inadequate technique," it is remarkable with what sustained coincidence we have assigned the worst techniques, the least efficient methods, to the poorest people in our nation. It isn't coincidence. It isn't technique. It isn't the wrong method. It is...precisely the right method. It is a method that assures perpetuation of disparities in power and of inequities in every form of day-to-day existence" (Kozol 93 qtd. in Critical Pedagogy: Dreaming of Democracy).

"In a sense, the cultural studies approach to writing in the classroom addressed the question of what constitutes the content of a composition course with the idea that content is right under our noses, in the culture of everyday life, while shifting the emphasis from the personal experience of the individual to the lived experience of participants in the larger culture" (Cultural Studies and Composition 82).

Response to "Rhetorical Pedagogy" and "Collaborative Pedagogy"

Rhetorical Pedagogy

“Committed to a model of the composing imagination that includes rhetorical invention as a potentially radial associative process, I have, along with others, seized upon the rise of science as a correspondent to the disappearance of rhetorical pedagogy, arguing for the failure of objectivity, Cartesian rationality, and the detachment to account for our complicated perception of a world in flux where matters are never settled….The beginning of a decisive shift to a more objective rhetoric and to connections of rhetoric and composition that eliminated invention…thus enfranchising a pedagogy focused on clarity and correctness judged apart from intention, audience, and purpose. The idea that language is transparent and capable of expressing truth and the instance that its use should be governed by rules of logic…bringing all things as near the Mathematical plainness as they can (Covino, 44).”

{While this response may be a little off topic it is what came to mind when reading the above passage.} I am currently taking “Language in Society” and our topic of study, as of now, is Folklore. I would argue, and I sure I am not alone, that a good Folktale is dependent on delivery. It spans generations, traveling from mouth to ear to mouth, surviving on the imaginations of those who receive it and carried by the intentions of those who repeat it. It is its audience- made up of their voices and hearts.

One can’t deny the rhetoric of Folkore, yet judged in the classical sense, one might venture to say it had none- or a weak rhetorical structure at that. For folklore is not governed by rules of logic, doesn’t express a “mathematical” truth. It’s clarity and correctness can only be judged only in association with intention and audience, inverting the entire structure outlined in the above quote and proving Covino’s point- that a wealth of compositions are lost when truth, math, science, logic, and transparency become the optimal values for composing.

This method of storytelling was nearly forgotten by the public until the 1970’s when scholars rediscovered its value. Interesting enough, this occurred around the same period as the academes quoted in this text (and others) began to expand the definition of rhetoric. Folklore is just one example (of many) of “the composing imagination” that almost disappeared because its rhetorical imagination was overlooked by “objective rhetoric.”

Our shift to “objective” rhetoric not only nearly caused the death of Folklore and, moreover, the death of the rhetorical imagination, it is nearly causing the death of composition in the classroom. That is, in (some of) academia’s attention to clarity and correctness and plainness and truth, students are left composing in stale rhetorical forms, not offered a chance to realize rhetoric in a larger more inclusive sense that responds to an audience in forms other than linear- in the circular, non-“sensical,” uncertain, an ever-evolving patterns of life. With a broader conception of rhetoric, students may view their audience, not just as thinking and rational beings to fill with information, but as feeling and playful beings who find the value in manufactured realties, which have lived long enough to know that “truth” is elusive, and who can find pleasure in stories told outside of prescribed structures. Thus, they can find new and effective ways of communicating, persuading, and composing. (We lose ourselves when we confine rhetoric to rules and, arguably, limit its power.)



Collaborative Pedagogy

It seems only natural that an individualist society such as ours would be suspect of collaborative writing. Perhaps we shy away from another writer’s touch as we do a stranger’s handshake. But by turning the other cheek to collaboration our writing may be robbed of the possibilities of revisions/ extensions the way a foreigner is robbed of human touch when entering a society that wants to do everything alone (but shop).

I can only speak to my personal frustration of having been turned away when I attempted to collaborate at our school’s writing center. Like Howard addresses, the writing center has responded to the inference of plagiarism in collaboration by embracing a “pedagogy of noninterventionalism that precludes both appropriation of student texts and any challenge to teachers’ authority occasioned by questioning their judgment of a writer’s work;” leaving me sitting at a table in the library opposite a person whose face may as well be my paper and whose speech is limited to the words on its page. Nothing is more frustrating than reaching out to collaborate with myself.

Response to
“The Sticky Embrace of Beauty”

“The Sticky Embrace of Beauty” provided me with ways to analyze visuals- introduced me to theories of visual communication. I intend to play with some of those theories/concepts in the Cultural Quilt; specifically, those involving the inherent messages in vertical shapes, curves and central figures. In this way, my quilt could play with movement/energy, permanence/power, security/comfort, as I select each cultural element (and its location on the quilt) based on feelings I wish to evoke in the reader, or reveal of my own.

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In the English classroom, as in advertisements, picture and text are very rarely independent of each other and, thus, frequently work together to maximize their rhetorical power reciprocally. I enjoy Wysoki’s piece partly because her arguments are applicable to written composition as well as visual composition. Although this is arguably a more subtle point, the essay does not privilege one form of communication over another, but values the effectiveness of both. I will list one instance where I find her critique of visuals so linked to principles of good writing ( as outlined by essayists in our course readings, including those of my textbook analysis) that I feel compelled to comment.

Wysocki notes: “When form is treated as though it is abstract-unconnected to time and place-… then bodies and history are not called into sight or question. And what is most valued is form.”
Form, for written compositions, in many English classes, is taught as void of time and place; as a standard void of value judgments and creation; as a timeless and fixed abstraction. It is not to be questioned. Like Wysocki notes of visual composition and as I apply it to written ones, such a definition of form does not allow students to see how form operates- how their texts are shaped by “the standard” and what it could mean to their texts if they altered that space. In this way, the body of the text, the history of text is not seen outside of the static form and can easily become lifeless. Like visual composers, written composers should be introduced to the “histories” and possibilities of form, so that they may value form for what it adds or subtracts from their works, as opposed to valuing it as a fixed template for production. I say this, because time and again educators ask students to contextualize their work- they must show how “history” contributes to their present argument; they must connect their compositions to space and time. But time and again many students fail to present or see a link between the larger ideologies/constraints of society and those that accompany their work (in form and more). This is because they focus on form- the five paragraph essay, the thesis statement, the creative journal entry- to the detriment of content and context. That is, the standard format of the essay, the length, etc. become the focal points and the reason/purpose for the words on the page is lost- bodies and history remain unaddressed. Consequently, when form is valued as though it is abstract, questioning, seeing, re-contextualizing is absent in writings (and photos alike).

Response to
“Box-Logic”

When I first began reading “box-logic” the themes seemed complex, over my head, but as the article pressed on, I realized Sirc was representing an argument of many (including Ken Symes), with a new approach, certainly, yet he was still singing the same old song.

“As curators of academia, then, we can exploit the possibilities of our status, exposing students to a range of culturally valid forms as well as non-mainstream content; in so doing, we provide our audience with a host of possibilities for worlds and forms to inhabit. What I see in many curricular projects these days though, are a lot of weak, safe shows; shows with less than risky themes, all showing the same kind of middle brow art…perpetually glossing the canon of our permanent collection…It’s pedagogy as docency…We still have not learned from work done by our fields avant-garde about the failure to see our composition classes in the larger world…The assignments I offer, then, are attempts at strategies to allow the voice and concerns of [students] to become a meaningful verbalscape, to find credible genres for preserving…deeply felt truth” (127-128).

Sirc’s argument is one I have seen before; one certainly present in the happenings that, evidently, has been carried through the 70’s, 80’s, 90’s, and on to the present, so if academia has this burning desire for students to undertake risky themes in writing, to adopt a unique “voice,” to create their own forms as opposed to recreating those of the greats, then why has that desire gone unrealized in the classroom? Why this disconnect between (published) pedagogical theories and classroom application of those theories? It seems as though there are many strong arguments for the infusion of pop-culture, “dramatic situation,” visuals, and “purposeful aesthetics” into written composition/composition classrooms, so one would think, taken all together, that these theories would be applied to classrooms on a much larger scale than they are currently. When does theory become practice? When will academia evolve to incorporate those who speak for it?

Response to
“Toward New Media Texts”

Selfe’s argument for the inclusion of New Media Texts in composition classrooms raises some interesting questions, the first of which is: how do educators and students learn to privilege the visual composition? While I certainly understand the importance of acknowledging the rhetorical “work” that visuals do, and while I understand that schools must not ignore the prowess and usefulness of them (especially considering international communication in this global age), how does one take visuals “seriously” in a writing class? Wouldn’t many students and teachers be opposed to this (as Selfe alludes to in the introduction)? How does one get students to value and put as much effort into constructing a visual argument as they do in constructing a written one?

A mark of academia, until very recently, has been its “written literacy”- a literacy that is respected in society and differentiates academese (to use Bartholomae’s word) from the language of the masses (so to speak). The institution/academia is very much governed by the written word, so Selfe presents teachers and students with the difficult task of learning to privilege a kind of composition that is thought, in large part, to be non-academic (except in art, graphic design courses, and photography, which, again, are fairly new programs) and certainly far removed from writing courses.

I wonder, too, how such coursework relates to that of visual arts and graphic design classes. There are students whose undergraduate career focuses on speaking through art, on composing with images. What would differentiate Selfe’s class from those classes, or is there no need for differentiation? Is Selfe’s proposal marking a change in academia from “isolated majors” to a more “renaissance” education? That is, as we realize the interdependence and interconnectedness of various majors (and of various jobs), will many courses extend beyond the prescribed boundaries of focus and draw from the richness of other fields, and, in turn, will visual classrooms adopt the kind of “writer’s approach to visual composition outlined by Selfe? Will they [arts courses] incorporate a kind of “writer’s memo” analysis of visuals (presented on page 79) to further understand/teach the rhetorical power of images?

Response to "The Writers Memo: Collaboration, Response, and Development

I really took to Sommers' notion of teacher’s as collaborators. He had the following to say: “Recent work focusing on how teachers respond and on alternative ways of responding to student writing argues that the most effective role for the writing instructor in the process-based course is that of guide or fellow explorer or editor…teacher’s should begin collaborating with student writers instead of merely judging them. But doing so can be risky and troubling, especially for instructors who have grown used to the comfortable and powerful role of judge, or for young teachers' insecure about their own authority in the classroom…”

While one could misconstrue collaboration (In the sense that Sommers uses it) to mean that teacher’s should not use their authority to evaluate student writing- as a kind of advocacy for less rigorous grading- I find it is quite the opposite. Collaboration, in and of itself, does not revoke the teacher’s authority. They may still reside in a privileged position during collaboration, as they most likely have more knowledge of the strategies of writing, principles of rhetoric, etc. Furthermore, the collaboration that Sommers advocates for is teacher driven, in that, the framework in which student’s respond to their work, the writer’s memo, is shaped by the professor’s questions/suggestions for reflection. As students evaluate their own writing in this manner, it actually privileges the professor, for the purpose of the reflection is public, not only personal. That is, the students are writing for the professor, explaining rhetorical choices to help clarify their work. The professor is then one of the main audiences, and, therefore, in a position of authority.

I think authority in teaching (for some) has come to mean that instructors should not consult, only pass judgment on students. Sommers, in essence, is saying: hey, students have something to teach you too. For many that is troubling.

But he is not questioning the teacher’s superior knowledge on the issues that shape the curriculum and govern the classroom; he is questioning their superior knowledge of why and how and what students write (insofar as their personal goals and choices.) What Sommer’s writing memo/collaboration does is to clarify those goals and choices of students, so that the teacher may make informed decisions before judging or grading student work- before exacting their authority. He is not asking that they abandon it all together.

If students are to believe that writing is communicative, then what better way is there for teacher’s to demonstrate that, besides collaborating with their students- besides conversing with them orally and/or in writing about their written work. In this way, writing is not stagnant; it does not exist outside of society or prior works or situation. It is ongoing, expansive, and responsive. It illuminates the “work” that students’ texts do. If the teacher is removed from the conversation, the writing only serves the affordance of a grade; it does not serve to engage the teacher in conversation, or, necessarily, work towards the teacher’s understanding. In becoming a real audience member, the teacher offers one example of a reader (of a reader’s questions, responses, etc).

As in life, what better way is there for two people to begin a conversation, for two people to be open to ideas, than for both parties to share a flaw or shortcoming? With the memos/in collaboration, teacher’s admit to not being mind reader’s; students admit to needing help; both begin a conversation open and receptive, desiring to fill in gaps in knowledge. I think this can only improve student writing and awareness.

"Transactional Theory and Response to Student Writing" & "Showing Students How to Asses:Demonstrating Techniques for Response In the Writing Process"

Transactional Theory and Response to Student Writing

“…we must abandon the illusory goal of objectivity in our teaching of writing. It is both fraudulent and dangerous: fraudulent because knowledge cannot exist independent of someone doing the knowing, and thus cannot escape subjective elements; dangerous because it leads us to deny the fundamental fact of writing, which is the effort to make something of significance out of human experience. “

Abandoning the illusion of objectivity is both necessary and challenging. Every day I am bombarded by images; talk with people, read the newspaper, interact with classmates, and everyday some of my biases are reinforced, at the same time some of my prejudices are refuted or challenged. I often try on objectivity, hoping that it will fit, wandering, if, for a moment, I can live outside of my judgments. Ultimately, I fail. I am product of so many things- my family, my communities, my schooling…And even with this realization; I still wish to capture the “illusion.”

Admitting that we are not objective, requires that we recognize that our view of the world is not the only view, and more than that, that it is not the only right view. Objectivity requires that we admit to our own failings, in the sense that we must acknowledge we don’t know and can’t know everything we think we do. Believing knowledge is subjective is unsettling, because it supposes there are no privileged positions, just differing ones. It supposes we are all equals, and we are taught in so many ways that we are not. In this way, the “illusion of objectivity” coincides with the “illusion of inequality.”

With the recognition of bias, we can at least attempt to move beyond, to evaluate student writing based on their attempts to make “something of significance out of human experience.” But to make something significant, to read something of significance in student’s work, we must know that the student is significant. We must put our sense of privilege or rightness aside, for a moment, to find meaning in the language of someone else.

Response to
Showing Students How to Assess: Demonstrating Techniques for Response in the Writing Conference

“In some cases, students are overwhelmed or frustrated by certain problems in their writing. Because students don’t know how to deal with their problems, they may assume they lack the potential to write and revise…”

This observation really resonates with me. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by problems in my own writing, and I think, “there is no way I can do this.” But, if I were to approach my revisions with a similar systematic approach as laid out by Beach, and as I applied to my assignments in Shipka’s 324, I could begin to solve problems in my own writing. Where the problem arises, is how I learn to apply such a revising format to every task. Will it become second nature over time?

As for the role of teachers in student revision, the model that Beach proposes seems to be rather effective in getting students to read and interpret their writing from new and different vantage points. But with the size of today’s classrooms, how realistic is teacher student conference? On how many writing assignments could be it applied? However, his approach to grading and revision is one that is more applicable than others that have been proposed. Beach does not try to destroy the inherent power imbalances in the classroom, nor suppose that students work go ungraded. Instead, he argues that teachers take a new approach to grading and evaluating student texts that would improve writing skills and the student-teacher relationship, without “bringing heat” to the new hire.

How Schools Suppress Creativity in Students

How Schools Suppress Creativity in Students

Attention Getter: This is such crap! Are you seriously making us read this...*&5%*! Now that I have your attention, Lauren’s argument is too cool. Opening: Lauren makes the standard essay format so annoyingly transparent that I am begging for more creative writing instruction in schools. At the very least, I am requesting “diversity training.” The topic: Writing Formats. This course or course addendum will expand mine and other students' writing structures. Thesis: How Schools Suppress Creativity in Students makes a convincing argument where format speaks louder than words.

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I struggled reading Lauren’s work. The headings: opening, thesis, supports, were so distracting I nearly forgot the subject matter of the sentences just prior to and after them. The bold font, the loud restating of the obvious, made a straightforward and commonly used format almost impossible to navigate. Lauren’s work creates this unusual tension for the reader- this tug-o-war, if you will, between familiarity and unfamiliarity that makes me re-examine the value of teaching every student to write every essay in the same manner. Clearly, there is not one structure that maximizes the rhetorical value of every argument. Why then do students spend the bulk of their academic life learning and repeating the five paragraph essay? (However, I’m not entirely certain it stifles creativity. Look what Lauren did with it.) Most importantly, all of the opinions expressed in this response are true because somewhere there is expert who agrees with me.

Response to

“Discourse and Diversity: Experimental Writing within the Academy”

“…I have sought alternatives- a more personal voice, an expanded use of metaphor, a less rigid methodological framework, a writing process that allows me to combine hypothesizing with reporting data, to use patterns of writing that for multiple truths, what Dale Spencer has called a “multidimensional reality,” rather than a single thesis, and so on” (350).
We live in a multidimensional reality and our work should reflect it. But what does that change entail, and how much of that change is dependant upon American ideologies- of how we embrace or don’t embrace diversity? How much does reliance on a single thesis, mirror our reliance on a single truth? To write in a multidimensional reality, to have that work validated by larger society, means that society must embrace diversity. With technologies and peoples becoming so interdependent, it is seemingly unnatural for anything to remain a separate unchanged entity, so composition naturally would evolve to accommodate change in our social landscape. But just as people fight to “wall in” the country, so people fight to “wall in” composition. They fight to keep academics removed from integration of the rest of the world and of differing classes and races. What Bowels does/wants/achieves with the use of personal voice, metaphor, and uncertain truths, is present history, acknowledge change, and embrace the ever-changing/ ever-diversifying landscape of America, and consequently, “American ideology.” But is everyone ready?

“Patricia Bizzel…argues that students who are politically oppressed must master conventions of academic discourse in order to succeed, but she defines them significantly more broadly. Many students believe that academic standard language is the key to their survival, and I try not to debate this point, even though I question whether this key is sufficient for survival and success. We may agree on its necessity but not on its sufficiency I also believe that linguistic and rhetorical flexibility may help students…”(351).
Would we be doing a disservice not to prioritize traditional academic prose over other forms? If success is measured by a certain standard- and regardless of our desires, it is- than how practical is it to teach students to deviate from the standard? Could it compromise their advancement? And if those who are more likely to deviate from “Standard White English” are those who are generally marginalized groups in society, is it smart to use them as guinea pigs? Should we make sacrificial lambs out of those who are already? I would love to read and write more diverse texts, but can I? Do I know how? How would academia receive them? Am I distrusting of “diverse discourse” because I have internalized the systems of power in America?

“Geoffrey Chase…also proposes that students can resist the conventions of academic discourse, analyzing and challenging them, not for the sake of opposition, but in order to work for social change” (352).
What comes first, the chicken or the egg? And what of the voices that have powerfully affected social change by adhering to the standard, i.e. Thatcher, Kennedy, King, Clinton…

Of “feminist prose” and “diverse discourse”: If we name/categorize/define “diverse” and “feminist” discourse, than will feminist or diverse discourse remain original/innovative/ representative of the people it is to speak for? Once a discourse becomes defined than it becomes confined by conventions, so are we creating yet another discourse that will eventually have little room for diversity itself?

“One of the problems is, we for the most part are very provincial in North America, and we believe that English is the end of all languages. One of the things we need to, I think, start to do as we begin to experience our sisters, is to expose ourselves, open ourselves to learning other languages, so that we can in fact communicate, not only in translations” (359).
How is composition framed in “multilingual” countries? Do they teach “a master” convention or are the different languages and dialects of their country/students incorporated into composition? Is there any model of “diverse discourse” that American Education might use to create such a curriculum? How would we accomplish this? Would Americans be receptive to the idea? Are the academy’s fears of change rooted in a larger societal issue: the fear of a shift in power?

Response to
"Pomo Blues: Stories From First-Year Composition"

After reading Lee Anne Caroll's piece, I question how authentic personal narratives really are, and, furthermore, I question how authentic teachers want personal narratives to be. Clearly professors outlined in this text expect that students be familiar with the spoken and unspoken rules of this discourse. They expect that students produce an essay that both fits in and challenges conventions. When making such requests, the instructor dictates to the the student what their experience is, what it should be, or how they should relate it to others. For example, they must discuss their grandfather's illness using: a, b, c, d; they must describe Christmas using: e, f, g, h. How authentic is experience when the student is told how to experience? And if there are conventions for the personal essay, when we interpret our life do we understand it in terms of those conventions? Would writing about our life using different language or form actually allow us to experience life in a new way? The real question is, are we teaching students to write personal or cultural narratives, and if we are teaching and want them to write the latter, than shouldn't we call a spade a spade- shouldn't we just call it: the cultural narrative (written with "personal" touch)? If we did so, wouldn't students have an easier time applying postmodernist theory to their work?

Response to Bartholomae and Elbow

Response to Bartholomae and Elbow

Continuing our discussion on what constitutes academic writing, I find myself more confused than ever. I suppose that is a good thing, for I have heard enough contradicting viewpoints that I am now beginning to recognize the inconsistencies in my definition of academic writing and am thus re-working how I could define it. The problem is (if I choose to see it that way) I am now at loss for words. So instead of joining the larger debate of Bartholomae and Elbow, I will offer my opinions on parts of their arguments that sparked my “re-thinking.”

Bartholomae had this to say in the section, My Position, I Think: “In fact, I want to argue that if you are teaching courses in the university, courses where students write under your supervision, they can’t not do it and you can’t not stand for it (academic writing, that is) and therefore, it is better that it be done out in the open, where questions can be asked and responsibilities assumed, than to be done in hiding using another name.” In reading this, two things immediately came to mind (though they seem to be independent of one another), Shipka’s English 324 and David’s Batholomae’s definition of academic discourse communities.

In Dr. Shipka’s 324, students produce academic texts using “un-academic” mediums. Simply because the representation of the text is often not in standard linear format, some argue the work is not academic. Yet according to Bartholomae, it is impossible for student work, regardless of the medium, not to be academic, for it is produced for the professor in an academic setting. Furthermore, because these texts subvert traditional formats, the work they do is very much “out in the open.” The students are forced to assume responsibility for what they produce and the rhetorical choices they make. In this way, I think Bartholomae’s definition of academic work is broad enough to include innovation, and yet, like Shipka, is narrow enough to understand what qualifies as academic performance.

Bartholomae, in the aforementioned quote and throughout his article, claims that student writing is a part of academia, that the work they do is academic. This may seem like a nothing point to illuminate, but I think it is really something. Many in academia have been know to view students as outsiders, as people circulating the fringes of academia but who make little to no impact on it, especially its discourse, and Bartholomae has traditionally been one of them. In his article entitled, “Inventing the University,” Bartholomae argues that in order for students to become insiders in the academic discourse community they have to become experts; they have to mimic the greats in tone, syntax, structure, etc. He further claims that students struggle to communicate in an idiom in which they are unfamiliar and untrained and this specific and desired use of language is not easily understood or cultivated in student work. Yet in this article, “Writing with Teachers: A Conversation with Peter Elbow,” Bartholomae claims that students are a part of academia; in fact, according to his definition here student work has to be academic. This seems a far cry away from his earlier stance that student work, in general, is anything but.

The next quote I would like to respond to is one of Elbow’s: “My only hope, it seems to me, of making students experience themselves as writers while they are in the academy- and a slim hope at that- means hanging on to at least one course where writing is at the center. When other courses in the university make writing as important as reading, I’ll respond with a comparable adjustment and give reading equal spotlight in my first year course.” I’m not sure that I would frame my course in the same manner. For me, reading what is published in the field is crucial to understanding how to write in the field. As a beginner in any academic community, it is important for me to understand the discourse in order for me to even attempt communicating in that discourse. How can students write if they don’t read examples of writing? Although other classes may be based in reading, those readings may pertain more specifically to one course and may not extend more broadly to composition. If in fact academia is made up of separate discourse communities, as some argue, than wouldn’t students need to read a material in each course that reflects the kinds of writing they are expected to do in that course? I’m not saying coursework doesn’t overlap, or that conventions of writing for one can’t be applied for another, I just question to what extent students can be expected to produce writing without examples.

Response to

Composing as a Woman

by Elizabeth A. Flynn

Is writing recognizably gendered? Do you think the following text is male or female authored?

“Ever had a boss tell you to keep talking while she checked her Blackberry? How about a team leader who pronounces your name wrong? Such slights may not mean much individually, but added up they can lead-at least in terms of employee retention- to death by a thousand paper cuts.”

Response to

Decisions and Revisions: The Planning Strategies of a Publishing Writer

by Carol Berkenkotter

Finding the study that will tell us what we want know about the writing process seems like an impossible task. There are far too many variables for any one researcher to truly measure, define, observe, report, and transcribe a writer’s complete thought process. Not to say that attempts should not be made or studies not performed. My point is that how one writes and/or becomes a good writer may lie outside of process analysis. What about those who are simply gifted? While reading about Donald M. Murray’s writing process, I thought: here is a man with a “gift” for language and composition.

Now I am as practical as anyone else, and I certainly believe in the impact of education, reading, social class, gender, race, etc., on one’s writing. And yes, in theory, we can all become skilled writers given the opportunity- or so they say. But what if that’s not true? What if we need “the gift,” the writer’s ear? Can we all write like the masters if we master their writing processes? Something has to be said of nature.

Murray, though not as eloquent when removed from his usual environment, and though he was at a loss for words when given an unfamiliar topic to write on: explain death to ten-twelve year old girls- in his “natural state” he produces great work. And it is no wonder, for throughout his writing process, he asks the right questions. He is so conscious of rhetoric, and form, and audience, and of his own goals, that it is not the shell of his process that I find interesting but, rather the meat of the process. How do I (or others) learn to think in those terms, to ask those kinds of questions? And if I did, would my work improve? Are some us just meant to be more skilled at some things than others?

I think the biggest obstacle for process research is this: “There is considerable cognitive activity that writers cannot report because they are unable to compose and monitor their processes simultaneously” (128). And our class assignment only made this point more visible. I had such difficulty voicing and writing, or making rhetorical choices “out loud,” while I was putting them on paper. I found myself reading silently, typing silently, and thinking and doing faster than I could verbalize my plans. I had no intentions of “writing in my head” but it seemed, at times, that it was impossible to do otherwise. How do students and most certainly researchers overcome this obstacle? Can we?

When Berkenkotter offered an example of Murray’s text in the “preconceiving mode,” I thought: “I wonder what my papers would look like if I never deleted my re-conceptions. What if I added sentences or changed existing ones without deleting the originals?” In the end, though I might have an extremely messy piece of writing, I would also have a wealth of rhetorical choices.

Response to

“The Intelligent Eye and the Thinking Hand”

by Anne E. Berthoff

Ann Bertoff writes: “To think of perception as visual thinking helps make the case for observation in the composition classroom, not for the sake of manufacturing spurious “specifics” and vivid detail about nothing much, but because perception is the mind in action. Thinking begins with perception…”

My response to this is two fold. 1.) If we think of composition in terms of “Visual thinking” than we have to think of composition in terms of multimodality. That is, if we are to define the creation and interpretation of compositions by a visual framework or idiom, than shouldn’t our compositions be conscious of visual (and other) stimuli? Shouldn’t attention be made to the font, the size, the color, and the form of text? In other words, should standard formats for papers, novels, etc. be reexamined and/or altered to add to a specific work’s rhetorical value, especially if “perception is the mind in action?” I think the following quote of Anne’s further exemplifies how composition could be enriched by attentions to form and more: “Shaping is as important an emblem as visualizing of that forming which is the work of an active mind. The artist at work-especially the sculptor- is surely the very image of imagination [composition] as the creation of form…” 2.) I am not entirely sure what is meant by “spurious specifics” and vivid detail about nothing much.” If composing is about perceiving than who is to say what details are “spurious.” As Anne refers to our ideal consciousness’ as being that of a “dynamic relationship of the what and the how” and of “looking and looking again,” how do educators then define what must be looked at and what is vivid detail about nothing much? Visual thinking, like vision, is highly personal and contextual, so how do we then “shape vision” so that the perceiver perceives what is desired for success in academia or in composition?

Response to

“The Winds of Change: Thomas Kuhn and the Revolution in the Teaching Writing”

by Maxine Hairston

Maxine Harrison writes: “I believe that external conditions which have hastened the crisis in the teaching of writing are open admissions policies, the return to school of veterans and other groups of old students who are less docile and rule-bound than traditional freshmen, the national decline in conventional verbal skills, and the ever larger number of high school graduates going on to college as our society demands more and more credentials for economic citizenship. Any instructional system would collapse under such strain….” I can’t even begin to know what Ms. Harrison thinks about the state of the education today. Not only does academia have great diversity in student bodies, but it has great diversity in available technologies. I suppose that by Harrison’s definition of crisis, we are still headed for ruin. Just as in the past, academia today is facing a paradigm shift. As a student, I am certain change is lurking around the corner. I see education and composition being constantly redefined in teaching methods as well as in practice and application. But as I am still a student, I feel as though I am looking in from the outside- watching professors change and fight for change around me as I am caught between knowing whether I learned sufficiently from traditional methods or whether I wish I could begin my education again, after the current shift in paradigm settles and new curriculums are espoused. (I am leaning more towards the latter.)

Response to

“Writing and Knowing: Toward Redefining the Writing Process”

by James A. Reither

As Reither examines “what it takes” for students/individuals to gain access into academic discourse communities, I absolutely agree that “we need to extend our understanding of writing so that it will include not only experience- and memory-probing activities, but also inquiry strategies and techniques that will enable students to search beyond their own limited present experience and knowledge.” However, I do feel that students should be able to use their personal experiences to understand their writing and the writing of others. Forming a relationship with the text is often times crucial to understanding its argument. For example, I am using my personal experiences to formulate this very response. This blog absolutely helps me to understand the articles I read, mostly because it allows me to synthesize both my personal relationship with the text as well as my academic “knowledge” of the text and how it interacts with/relates to others in its field. With that said, academia is founded on its discourse communities and failure to learn the idiom(s) means one will remain an outsider. In this way, discourse should be addressed as long as teachers recognize that learning it is a lengthy process. Academic discourse grows over time and with experience, and therefore cannot be something that is taught only in the composition classroom but is something that is learned through ongoing education in multiple disciplines with a focus on one’s own.

Response to: “Understanding Composing” by Sondra Perl

Response to:

“Understanding Composing”

by Sondra Perl

Speaking of “felt sense,” can I get a better one? Perl writes: “When writers are given a topic, the topic itself evokes a felt sense in them. This topic calls forth images, words, ideas, and vague fuzzy feelings that are anchored in the writer’s body. What is elicited, then, is not solely the product of a mind but of a mind alive in a living, sensing body.”

I have, on occasion, experienced this sensation. When I do, my writing improves. However there are many times when I write ( or am forced to write) without that sensation. I am left staring at a blank page- writing then deleting, writing then deleting. Is there a way to train yourself not only to recognize and follow your felt sense (as Perl notes), but to jump start it? Unlike how I imagine the writing processes of experts, I don’t have a formula for success. I don’t have a muse. I don’t sip on a cup of tea, or go to that special place, or pick up that special pen. I just sit in front of my computer screen and think and hope and reread, and think and hope and reread. And what is a writer to do when their felt sense escapes them? What do I do when my sense feels faster than my fingers can type; when I’ve lost the words in my head before I can get them on to the page; when one idea collides with another and I am left clearing the rubble of what promised to be the most perfect brainstorm and, instead, ended up a massive flood? “Have patience” is Perl’s answer (in short.) What a difficult virtue to attain!

This next quote of Perl’s really spoke to me as well: “When writers pause, when they go back and repeat key words, what they seem to be doing is waiting, paying attention to what is still vague and unclear….Usually, when they make the decision to write, it is after they have a dawning awareness that something has clicked, that they have enough of a sense that if they begin with a few words heading in a certain direction, words will continue to come which will allow them to flesh out the sense they have.”

The right words always seem elusive, yet getting started, heading in any direction, requires that one capture them. When I write, I am always on the hunt for words- the words that will fall in line and make out of my thoughts a clear, profound statement. But I feel like I am always on the hunt, walking the line of satisfactory. Until I become more aware of my felt sense, perhaps more patient, more learned, I will continue to struggle to find the synthesis of body and mind that will make my writing exactly what I want it to be.

Response to: "Fun?" by Lex Runciman

Response to:

“Fun?”
by Lex Runciman

Okay, I’m going to admit it: I am always seduced by the “emotional knock punch!” What can I say…I’m a sap! And while I marvel at the well formatted essay, and admire the thoroughly researched argument, I am a sucker for emotional writing. However I hesitate to use the term “emotional writing,” for I am certain that the following questions will arise: 1. What is emotional writing?; 2. Doesn’t every text convey and evoke emotion?; 3. How are you defining the term?; 4. What is emotion for you?; 5. Is your blog emotional? Is the back of your toothpaste emotional?; 6. Can you find an example of emotionless writing? So, in the interest of trying to remain on topic, I’ll just talk about the readings and offer, as an aside, that I love the opening paragraph of Lex Runciman’s, “Fun?” (Am I still allowed to like Faigley’s and Perl’s work too?)

Moving on…Perhaps it is because I am still a student that I completely did not get Mary Rose O’Reilly’s metaphor that the classroom is like “The Heart of Darkness.” I mean, to liken students to savages seems a little harsh. I usually don’t beat on my chest and swing from rope until I’m in the comfort of my own cage (on weekends). And if I am a savage, who are the imperial interlopers who want to rob me of my culture, my language, and my dignity? Is there a course entitled: Surviving in the Congo: 101? If so, I will need to register. Do you think I can take my make-up where I’m going?

Again, moving on…I think it is possible to love writing, while knowing that it isn’t always fun. Like most things, it’s tedious, challenging, frustrating, aggravating, and rewarding, all at the same time. Writing is a process therefore it can never remain in one emotional state. To focus only on the fun of writing, is to leave out the myriad of other emotions that occur when one writes. (Has anyone ever measured how much happiness correlates with the construction of a linear essay, a novel, poetry?) Yet I very much understand why Runciman and others want students to enjoy writing. Enjoyment breeds repetition, desire, and even tolerance- if you love it, you might work for it. But should we make such a distinction between “fun” writing and academic writing? Why can’t they exist in a continuum? Solving the problems of writing may be no less fun than “creative writing;” it depends upon one’s approach. I’m not as sure as Runciman that dislike is the major cause of poor writing. If we forget the problem solving, what do we do when “fun” fails?

Response to “An Examination of the Writing Process of Seven-Year- Old Children” and “The Composing Process of Unskilled Writers”

Response to

“An Examination of the Writing Process of Seven-Year- Old Children”

In honor of Michael, I should begin my response by drawing a picture accompanied by sounds... Because I am older, I just begin to write…

But how do we know when to exclude drawing from the prewriting process? If visuals and audio aid in the production of composition, why are they abandoned with age? Of course you’re probably thinking, “We can’t draw pictures forever; it’s childish to begin a composition that way!” But why do we think so? Who says? Plenty of images inspire written works and vice versa. Art tells a story- “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Can’t adding a visual to one’s written argument actually help to clarify it?

Selecting an image to represent/insert into a composition requires knowledge of the rhetorical devices both the image and the text employ. One must know what message they want to convey, and must hypothesize how/if others will “get” that message from the chosen image. Pictures aren’t just child’s play; they require skillful selection. Therefore, if we continued to value drawing as a part of the prewriting process, could it be to our benefit?

When looking at sex differences in writing, how powerful is socialization? Graves notes that boys enjoy writing on themes from secondary and extended territory, while girls enjoy writing on themes from primary territory. Are these preferences nurtured?

As I am taking a course in sociolinguistics, I could not help but to be drawn to these differences. In conversation, men are said to be more report prone, that is, they seek to flex their intellectual muscles as a way of gaining status. Contrarily, girls seek to gain rapport through conversation and thus often downplay what might be considered as a show of superior intelligence. Boys want to dominate in conversation; girls want to connect. Arguably, this behavior is socialized. And while these gender differences are measurable in conversation, I had no idea that they were measurable in writing.

Boys might prefer writing themes from secondary and extended territories because they provide them with more opportunities to report. That is, they can show their knowledge of sports or current events, etc. They are in a position to inform- a position that generally references status. Girls may prefer writing themes from primary territories because those themes allow them to reflect (often about home or school). In this way, their writing takes the form of narratives- and narratives imply personal connection. Thus through primary writing assignments, girls focus on building rapport, as they do in conversation. Additionally, men are often teased if they become too reflective- if they feel too much. For girls, the opposite is true. Naturally, boys may avoid reflexive writing so as to avoid not being ridiculed, and girls favor it for the same reason. I know it’s a huge generalization, but it’s something to chew on. How much does society shape/dictate our writing processes? And what role does gender play in writing education? If, as educators, we are aware of the impact of socialization and/or gender, can we teach writing more effectively?

Also of note: Graves observes that boys pay more attention to spatial relationships in writing, as well as to the formation of letters. It is theorized that boys, based on development in the womb, have better spatial awareness and are more visually stimulated…

Response to

“The Composing Process of Unskilled Writers”

I want to try respond this piece by writing like Tony, I am o fascinated by his writin process. I always have trouble puttin my thoughts into words and never truly successful. I supposed that si why I relate to his struggl as a writer. To a degree, I thnik writers struggle say what they mean. I certainly have raed words into my text that havent been or thought I had suficeintly linked idaes, when I failed miserablely. (Too bad teachers’ cant’ grade intentions.) It’s interesting how Tony has few problem connecting thuoghts and convyeing idaes when they are persanol in nature. When he relates to text the reader relate to text. Yet when a formal arguement needs be made, he freeze and fail to connect with a audience. All the while, Tony has develop quite an elaboreat writin process (even though it may be to his detrimint.) He has knowledg of grammar, syntex and spellin, but he is so confuesd by the rules; as am I; that he misapplys them often makin his compositon worst. What is so heartbreaking about his sitautoin is that he want to be a good writer. Its just that “the semantic model in his head predominate[s]…even with his concern for revision and correctness, even with the enormous amount of time he invest[s] in rereading and repetition” Tony concledus the composing process with unresolved …problems.” In a purfect world, such dedicaiton wuld be rewardead. I wonder if Tony’s writin has evolvid since the study? What if the shoe was on the other feet?

Response to:The Composing Process: Review of Literature”and “Competing Theories of Process: A Critique and Proposal”

Response to:
“The Composing Process: Review of Literature”
and “Competing Theories of Process: A Critique and Proposal”

If some of the most revered writers cannot define their writing process, how can we possibly begin to know what process to teach students? If the linear outline does not always produce the most organized text, how do we teach organization? Considering all the complexities of the writing process, how does one determine the optimal method?

These are all questions I was left to ponder after reading Janet Emig’s piece. In a world that is not linear, that is ever-changing, it seems unnatural to give students a clear and steadfast directive of the steps needed to produce “good” writing. Yet many of the textbooks of adolescent schooling do just that. What are we to do?

As Emig delved further into her research of the writing processes of students and professionals, I found myself becoming fairly certain that there is no ultimate prescription for success. There is no one way to achieve the goal of “worthy” writing. With that said, what is the role of the classroom teacher if not to give students a prescription for success?
When success is variance and determination, the best option we have as future or current educators is to familiarize our students with the “traditional” writing processes as well as the “untraditional ones.” That is, we should offer formulas that have worked for others and allow students to then manipulate, adopt, alter, or reject them as they see fit. But to do this, we have to be knowledgeable of the methods that our students employ.

While Janet has dedicated herself to the research of writing processes, her quest has not yet reached enough classrooms. True, certain college courses emphasize the production process- like Shipka’s- but before college there is generally little attention paid to something that is so important. If teachers were encouraged to examine the ways in which their students produced work, they may be able to offer more sound advice as to how to make changes, for when a process is made visible, so too are the author’s thoughts, inclinations, possible weaknesses, etc. Furthermore, attention paid to the methods of writing may reveal what issues need to be addressed in education as a whole. To quote Faigley: “Process theory and pedagogy have given student writing a value and authority absent in current-traditional approaches…”

Through Faigley’s article I discovered that I have an expressionist view of writing. Though I am not entirely surprised by that; I am an idealist. In this vein, I love Rohman’s quote: “teachers must recognize and use, as the psychoanalysts do in therapy, a person’s desire to actualize himself.” This notion of aiding students’ self- actualization gets to the heart of what want do as a teacher- help students find their voice.

Yet although my lofty dreams have found a home in the expressionist view, the social view of writing is grounded in realism and thus is quite persuasive. (I now want to play on both pedagogical teams.) I can see how language, meaning, structure, theme, are all influenced by macro institutions of society. While it’s nice to believe that one can develop and own their unique voice, is it really possible? As the social view points out, we are all products of our environment and so our writing and opinions are never really new- they are formed in reference to those that came before us. Vygosky’s study of language development more succinctly states my point. He finds that language development is a historic and cultural process, “in which a child acquires not only the words of language but the intentions carried by those words and the situation implied by them” (Faigley 158). Language is never our own. Therefore, writing, which is born of thoughts articulated into words, can never be entirely personal, individually authored, or have one voice.

How Happening are "the Happenings" ?!

Comments on the Readings for 2/13/07

It seems impossible for a student to take William Lutz’s class and not fall completely in love with writing. Every exercise shows writing’s ability to create, to illustrate, to enliven, to reflect, and to imagine. Life is language; Lutz gets that, and his students do as well. Granted, his exercises feel so sixties, so “free love,” but they are progressive. Even before the internet, Lutz understands that writing involves more than a pen and paper- more than a formally structured academic argument. Communication does exist outside of academia. Writing does exist outside of perfection and grammatical rule. Through his exercises, students question the role of writing in their lives, realize the many functions it can serve, and understand that communicating something (anything) is it’s ultimate goal.

I’d like to think that Lutz’s chooses such methods in freshmen English, because he understands that a student must first enjoy writing before they can produce good writing, or at least enjoy consuming writing. I will offer an example to try to explain what I mean.

As a ballet dancer, you start training at a very young age. But before you learn proper technique, French, posture, and before you sculpt your body, perform, or dance en pointe, you fall in love with dance! You enter a ballet studio in your favorite colored leotard and you play. The teacher draws pictures of ponds on the hardwood floor with colored chalk and you leap over them. You put tutus on your head, around your waist, or wherever you see fit. You become an object printed on an index through movements- some balletic, some not. But you dance! You fall love with movement, and then you learn the hard and fast rules of game. Why can’t writing be taught in a similar manner? Why can’t students first fall in love with language, or words, or possibilities and then learn the hard and fast rules to play the game? I think Lutz discovered that it may be possible to learn a great deal through what others may consider mindless play.

As for Deemer’s piece, I love this comment: “The division [in the classroom] is as clear as stimulus and response. Lecture and note taking. Assignment and essay. Bell and saliva. Watch the class yawn for its food” (121). Think of the effects of entering the same structured space for instruction year, after year, after year. The same small desks, the same rows, the same physically rigid environments must (eventually) stifle the teacher and the student. We must ask ourselves, is this an effective way to teach or learn? Deemer says, no. And in his quest to make English composition a happening and to make education a happening exchange, he offers some very profound arguments. This one is one of my favorites: “The goal is a class of students actively aware and participant, a class that does not swallow the teacher’s remarks but considers them. One thing that needs correcting, of course, is the student’s head. But the heart (that forgotten organ) should work with the head. Correct the head and the heart and the essays take care of themselves.” Again, we see a theme of involvement and desire and a need for an environment and instruction that values more. I will not pretend to think that restructuring a university, a classroom, or our values will be easy, or even probable. But for the first time I am questioning why education is structured the way it is. If so many other things in society have under gone drastic changes over time, why not education?

Deena Metzner’s pilgrimage to silence, if you will, is quite different than Lutz’s approach, which clearly involves sound. Silence seems almost elusive in today’s world, for there are so many things that make noise. Even writing in silence (when on a laptop) can be rather noisy, an obnoxious distraction (as I have experienced.) But even though I wish for quiet, I never find myself wanting complete silence. Possibly because it seems so impossible. In turn, I have never considered the effect that silence would have on my writing until now. (After reading this article, I would like to experience writing in this way.) I would love to read the work of those students who wrote in silence (and in nature), and compare it to work that they wrote on campus or in a classroom. Would their writing styles be different? More or less descriptive? Would they be more physically or spiritually centered? Would the diction change? Would the rhythms change? Can you measure the effect of the environment on writing?

Response to "Writing New Media"- pgs 1-23 and "Students Who Teach Us"

Response to
"Writing New Media"
pgs 1-23

Anne Wysocki certainly raises some interesting questions as to how composition has come to be understood, evaluated, and manipulated in today's world. Touching briefly on the evolution of language, printing, and society, Wysocki argues that the presentation of text is directly correlated with the values of society, the individual, or (more likely) both, and determines the way in which text is received. The paper, the font, and the structure, potentially inform the reader of the importance of the text as well as delineate the manner in which it should be consumed. For instance, typed linear print seems to lend itself to faster consumption because of its structure, therefore reflecting society's valuing of quickness or efficiency. Contrarily, hand written or more "stylistic" font may lend itself to a slower read, as the presentation of the text, being "unfamiliar," can draw as much attention as the substance of the work. Even the location of the text impacts its reception. Is it found in library? Is it hardcover, paperback, or leather bound? Is it in coffee shop? Does it have illustrations? In what time period was it written? Is its genre transparent? As we live in an age where technology is ever-evolving and the written word is becoming infused with art, and composition exists (in richness) without words, an understanding of text and it's relation to new media is of utmost concern. For as students (or current/aspiring teachers), it is important that we try to predict and make sense of this technological shift- how it impacts our writing, our thinking, and interacts with the social landscape.

New technological advancements available to writers and/or composers can both hinder and help divisions of class, race, and gender, as Wysocki also points out. The anonymity offered by online writing, for example, can give women and minorities a platform with which to be heard that is absent from prejudgments about their gender or race. As in the story of the student who failed at school, but succeeded on the web, technology can also allow those who "fail" at formal writing, to successfully construct identities through "non-traditional" composition. But just as technology has the power to make composition equally accessible to everyone, it also has the power to alienate. That is, how does one incorporate technology into the curriculum of students in inner city schools, for instance, who may have limited access to computers? Will technology ultimately widen the divide between the classes or bring them closer together? What effect would this have on the evolution of writing and composition?
It is certain, however, that composition is evolving and technology is the impetus for this evolution. Like Wysocki suggests, we must evaluate why we write and how we write, and the modes in which we present our information and ourselves. "New media texts ...have been made by composers who are aware of the range of immaterialities of texts and who then highlight the materiality… they design texts that [don't] function independently of how [they are] made and in what contexts."

Response to
"Students Who Teach Us"
-Cynthia Selfe

Selfe makes the case for "accessible" literacy by making literacy accessible. Her three main arguments are ascribed large numbers, and each subsequent point is in bold type. As part of this course is to examine modes of presentation, I cannot help but to find this to be an effective way of illustrating an argument. The method chosen is easier to follow and reference than a traditional linear essay. Moreover, Selfe’s decision to include a narrative in her analysis of/argument for the inclusion of "new media," creates a relatable text- it gives a human face to a concept. Rhetorically, for me, her piece was effective. (Note: I wanted David to winJ)

With that said, Selfe elaborates on the issues of class and race that were introduced in Wysocki’s piece, and further addresses the need for a “rethinking” of English composition, so that varying compositional styles, especially those centralized in technology, are introduced into English curriculum. Like her counterparts, Selfe believes that it is irresponsible for teachers not to engage with technology- not to educate students in a language, if you will, that is globally recognized. The following quote states why this is so important: “As people exchange ideas and form interest groups and coalitions online…they are involved in contesting, negotiating, and re-writing the new social codes under which society may be rethought, and re-established” (qtd. in Writing New Media 53). Not addressing the power of technology in the classroom, could deny students the power of voice.

Response to "Part 1: Thinking out of the pro-verbal box"
- Sean D. Willams

Experiment: The Power of Language and Imagery

Examine each numbered photo located to the left. How does visual media change, enhance, or deconstruct the argument raised by the quote:

"When war is declared, truth is the first casualty."
~Arthur Ponsonby

Response to

“Writing and Learning at Cross

Purposes in the Academy”

-Cheryl Geisler

1: I would like to begin by responding to Knoblauch and Brannon’s claim: “writing enables new knowledge because it involves precisely that active effort to state relationships which is at the heart of learning. Composing always entails the search for connections; its nature is to compel the writer to undertake that search.”

It was brought to my attention that students learning to write are first taught to write personal narratives. Yet aside from diaries, or my space, how often does one write about themselves? If personal narratives are not functional in business, not the focus of academia, why is it important for students to master the skill? Yet in the context of Knoblach and Brannon’s theory, as well as WAC’s and GWSI’s, learning to write personal narratives may be an important stepping stone to becoming a rhetorician or a successful researcher, in that, personal narratives train students to engage with material, interpret it through their value system, and relate that material to others. I once had a professor who said, “If you can’t write about yourself, how can you write about anyone or anything else?”
In a way, all work contains personal narration. Writers always have a purpose- a message to send the reader that has been synthesized through their personal value system. Shipka’s “statements and goals” assignment exemplifies this idea that all writing, even when the focus is not on “self,” contains very real elements of self. Be it the font used, the order of listed items, or the thesis, all writers participate in a form personal narration. As composing “always entails the search for connection,” what better way to begin composing than to first begin by connecting with oneself? If an active effort to state relationships is, in fact, at the heart of learning as Brannon and Knoblauch suggest, then being able to explain how things relate to “self” is essential to composing.

2: Now to comment on what Geisler views as a hindrance to student’s writing: the failure of many students to write for an audience beyond that of the classroom.

Simply knowing that work will be graded influences the student’s/writer’s goals, for no matter who is in the audience, the professor is ultimately the only audience member that has power. As researchers noted this tendency of students to write “for the teacher,” I was reminded of a class activity that seemed to support these claims:

Students were asked to write something down about a reading assigned for homework. They were then instructed to tape their responses to the homework on the walls of the classroom, so that their classmates could walk around the room and read each reflection. Even though the audience was clearly stated to encompass the students’ peers, many students wrote their response in a way that proved they had read the material. Few opted to use the assignment as an opportunity to question or engage their peers in a discussion of the readings.

I believe that most students, including myself, opted to prove that they/I had read the material rather than to communicate with their/my peers, because it is so ingrained in students that the teacher is the ultimate authority. Class, though enhanced by student participation, is still run by the professor. But is this a bad thing? Shouldn’t hierarchies exist in the classroom? How can a teacher retain her/his deserved position of authority, yet guide students away from envisioning only them as the audience?

3: When does the shift occur from “me” to objective authority?

When Geisler addresses how and what students write in academic settings, she observes that most present their research in terms of other’s research. That is, they often summarize the work of others in a standard linear form, and the writing is most often supported by academic text and rarely supported by personal experience. What I am curious to know about Geisler’s observation is the predominate sex of the students in the various studies. As gender seems to powerfully effect the desired methods of story-telling, arguing, and problem-solving, gender could very well be one of the reasons why students write the way they write. More often than men, women synthesize facts with personal experience. In general, however, facts are thought to be formulated independent of personal experience, and therefore are viewed as more credible supports in composition and life. But how do students learn that personal experience is bad and facts are good? If we begin teaching composition with personal narratives, when does the shift occur from “me” to objective authority? And is there a way to achieve a balance between the two? When does it become okay to support an argument with personal experiences, and how are personal experiences defined?

4: Geisler writes on pg 108: “Students for the most part believe that revising means editing and seldom make changes to text that affect meaning. Teachers routinely respond to student’s texts by evaluating them against a metal template for what they expect to see. Overall, then, students appear to be remarkably unengaged in the process of reproducing knowledge.”

In response, I would like to ask these questions: Can teachers teach students how to edit for meaning? With what types of lessons? Would teaching rhetoric at earlier ages (or more continuously than is currently done) help students to understand what it means to edit for meaning?

5: So which is better, higher level processing achieved by analytical writing or higher test scores achieved by fact-finding?

According to Geisler, while students may gain a deeper understanding of the text through analytical writing, they retain much less factual information than they do when the reading is followed by study questions or an exam. The teacher is then left to decide which form of response is most beneficial to the student. Is it better to know facts than to engage with the text in an analytical way? I think this question is not answered easily, because it forces us to examine what we value. In this way, the problem of creating a good writer has come full circle. If stating relationships is at the heart of learning, as Konblauch and Brannon suggested in the opening of the piece, than analysis is the most successful way for students to reflect on work. But if the goal of academia is not so much to produce students who connect with work as it its to produce students who can quote work, then analytical writing is not the most important component of the learning process because it supports more synthesis and reflection than memorization of data. It simply comes down to the motivation for composition and the professor’s or university’s measure/definition of knowledge. I once had a professor who commented, “the university prepares students to become successful players on quiz shows,” do you find that to be true?