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Thursday, October 6, 2011
Dissonance Blog
In March of 2003, while studying systems engineering at the
Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering, I read Mark Doty’s poem “A Green
Crab’s Shell” in Bill Moyer’s book Fooling
With Words In his interview
prefacing the poem, Doty attributes one of its lines to Rainer Maria Rilke’s
“The Archaic Torso of Apollo.” I read that poem next. Its final line, “You must
change your life,” seemed so overdramatic, so very unnecessary in light of the
thirteen lines that came before. Yet, I kept reading Rilke’s poetry, and Doty’s
poetry, and other poetry that their work led me to. By June, I had withdrawn
from Olin College and was searching for an undergraduate creative writing
program to start at the following year.
I graduated with a B.A. in English with an emphasis on poetry writing in May 2007. By that point in my academic career, I had written lab reports, plays, business proposals, poems, literary analysis, short stories, reader responses, sociological analyses and any number of other kinds of writing. Ironically, given my degree, I knew that the only genres I felt uncomfortable writing in were the creative: prose and poetry. Cue several years of floundering, and here I am now, working towards a Ph.D. in English and soaking up rhetoric and composition scholarship.
Although the creative side of writing drew me away from engineering, I’m starting to realize that it was really just the power of the language to influence me at all that got me hooked. When I teach composition, one of my main goals is to share this sense of language’s extraordinary capabilities with students. No, wait, that sounds far too much like an inspirational movie about a teacher. What I really aim for is to have conversations with students that help them recognize what a complicated business writing really is. That starts with breaking down monolithic ideas about language and writing, especially the idea that there can ever be such a thing as “good writing” in a context-less vacuum. Context, the way in which all the things around the writing that aren’t written influence the things that are written, is a touchstone in my comp classes. At least, I try to make it one. My hunch is that this makes life a little more difficult, as context seems to be a concept with which many students struggle.
This struggle makes me wish I knew how I had come to my own understanding of context and its relationship to texts. I do know that as an undergraduate, I spent a lot of time writing things I thought were “good” that, when I read them now, feel stilted and even inappropriate. Reading old papers from English lit classes is a particularly humbling experience. So often, those old papers reveal exactly the kind of trying on process Bartholomae describes in “Inventing the University.” I tried on being a literary critic, a scientist, an engineer, a sociologist. No one ever told me to try these roles on. It just seemed like the thing to do, to please the teacher and make the grade. But without an understanding of the context that gives rise to certain voices and conventions, my trying on of those voices and conventions couldn’t rise above the level of playacting.
When my students now ask me what I want them to write, I hear them asking me the question I never asked: How do you want me to write? The how encompasses the voice and conventions appropriate to any given writing situation. “What,” they are asking, “is this finished piece supposed to look like? How impressive should my vocabulary be? How technical? Can I use headings? Where should my thesis go? Do I even need a thesis?” These questions, largely, are questions about genre, which to my mind is a shorthand way of talking about voice, conventions, interpretive schemes, topoi, and audience, among other rhetorical elements. Every which way I look at it, genre seems to be a nexus to which all rhetorical conversations can be traced.
I know I’m on thin ice when I say that. Reading broadly in rhetorical studies has convinced me that just about everything connects to everything else: ethos to audience, audience to occasion, occasion to context, context to audience, and so on, ad infinitum. Discussions of genre necessarily lend themselves to discussions of these other elements, however, even if only to describe the genre. I’m polishing up a paper for CCCC that muses on a bit about how to adapt Bakhtin’s concept of speech genres to writing pedagogy, with particular attention paid to how people become familiar and comfortable with genres in the first place. Plain old exposure is a big part of the process (I argue), which carries the implication that we need to make more considered choices (here at UNLV in particular) about the kinds of reading we assign 101 students.
That paper and study got me started on this interest in genre, which has been spreading well beyond pedagogy. I now think about genre every time I read an Onion article or watch the Daily Show, and consider questions like what basic amount of knowledge is necessary to “get” a parody. Genre pops up any time I discuss new technologies with old engineering friends. It’s the way in which I explain why I can do Facebook, but can’t do Twitter. It has become the lens through which I’m considering all texts these days, particularly those I produced and ask to be produced in my comp classroom.
Given all of this lead-up, I’m sure it’s clear that I plan to focus my research and final paper on genre theory. The questions I keep coming up with though don’t lend themselves to answering through secondary research or on a short timeline. I want to get started investigating this potential engineering WAC topic, but the sorts of questions I want answered now are things like “What have other people done?” and “What sort of research questions would I ask about that program?” These are not suitable research questions for conference papers (although they might be for a public airing on a blog). When I failed to come up with a research question that suited that interest, I considered turning back to genre and more general comp pedagogy. There, my thoughts kept turning back to the CCCC paper that I’ve already written, so that’s largely a non-starter.
At this point, I’m still feeling very unsure about research questions. The direction (genre theory) is a sure thing, but where to aim beyond that? My concern is spending time researching and writing something that doesn’t serve my larger, long-term goals. I’m reaching a point in the graduate school process at which I no longer want to wallow about in all the interesting things literature and writing have to offer. I’m ready to get down to business. The business is genre and some kind of related dissertation, but what that realization means for this paper, I have yet to figure out.
I graduated with a B.A. in English with an emphasis on poetry writing in May 2007. By that point in my academic career, I had written lab reports, plays, business proposals, poems, literary analysis, short stories, reader responses, sociological analyses and any number of other kinds of writing. Ironically, given my degree, I knew that the only genres I felt uncomfortable writing in were the creative: prose and poetry. Cue several years of floundering, and here I am now, working towards a Ph.D. in English and soaking up rhetoric and composition scholarship.
Although the creative side of writing drew me away from engineering, I’m starting to realize that it was really just the power of the language to influence me at all that got me hooked. When I teach composition, one of my main goals is to share this sense of language’s extraordinary capabilities with students. No, wait, that sounds far too much like an inspirational movie about a teacher. What I really aim for is to have conversations with students that help them recognize what a complicated business writing really is. That starts with breaking down monolithic ideas about language and writing, especially the idea that there can ever be such a thing as “good writing” in a context-less vacuum. Context, the way in which all the things around the writing that aren’t written influence the things that are written, is a touchstone in my comp classes. At least, I try to make it one. My hunch is that this makes life a little more difficult, as context seems to be a concept with which many students struggle.
This struggle makes me wish I knew how I had come to my own understanding of context and its relationship to texts. I do know that as an undergraduate, I spent a lot of time writing things I thought were “good” that, when I read them now, feel stilted and even inappropriate. Reading old papers from English lit classes is a particularly humbling experience. So often, those old papers reveal exactly the kind of trying on process Bartholomae describes in “Inventing the University.” I tried on being a literary critic, a scientist, an engineer, a sociologist. No one ever told me to try these roles on. It just seemed like the thing to do, to please the teacher and make the grade. But without an understanding of the context that gives rise to certain voices and conventions, my trying on of those voices and conventions couldn’t rise above the level of playacting.
When my students now ask me what I want them to write, I hear them asking me the question I never asked: How do you want me to write? The how encompasses the voice and conventions appropriate to any given writing situation. “What,” they are asking, “is this finished piece supposed to look like? How impressive should my vocabulary be? How technical? Can I use headings? Where should my thesis go? Do I even need a thesis?” These questions, largely, are questions about genre, which to my mind is a shorthand way of talking about voice, conventions, interpretive schemes, topoi, and audience, among other rhetorical elements. Every which way I look at it, genre seems to be a nexus to which all rhetorical conversations can be traced.
I know I’m on thin ice when I say that. Reading broadly in rhetorical studies has convinced me that just about everything connects to everything else: ethos to audience, audience to occasion, occasion to context, context to audience, and so on, ad infinitum. Discussions of genre necessarily lend themselves to discussions of these other elements, however, even if only to describe the genre. I’m polishing up a paper for CCCC that muses on a bit about how to adapt Bakhtin’s concept of speech genres to writing pedagogy, with particular attention paid to how people become familiar and comfortable with genres in the first place. Plain old exposure is a big part of the process (I argue), which carries the implication that we need to make more considered choices (here at UNLV in particular) about the kinds of reading we assign 101 students.
That paper and study got me started on this interest in genre, which has been spreading well beyond pedagogy. I now think about genre every time I read an Onion article or watch the Daily Show, and consider questions like what basic amount of knowledge is necessary to “get” a parody. Genre pops up any time I discuss new technologies with old engineering friends. It’s the way in which I explain why I can do Facebook, but can’t do Twitter. It has become the lens through which I’m considering all texts these days, particularly those I produced and ask to be produced in my comp classroom.
Given all of this lead-up, I’m sure it’s clear that I plan to focus my research and final paper on genre theory. The questions I keep coming up with though don’t lend themselves to answering through secondary research or on a short timeline. I want to get started investigating this potential engineering WAC topic, but the sorts of questions I want answered now are things like “What have other people done?” and “What sort of research questions would I ask about that program?” These are not suitable research questions for conference papers (although they might be for a public airing on a blog). When I failed to come up with a research question that suited that interest, I considered turning back to genre and more general comp pedagogy. There, my thoughts kept turning back to the CCCC paper that I’ve already written, so that’s largely a non-starter.
At this point, I’m still feeling very unsure about research questions. The direction (genre theory) is a sure thing, but where to aim beyond that? My concern is spending time researching and writing something that doesn’t serve my larger, long-term goals. I’m reaching a point in the graduate school process at which I no longer want to wallow about in all the interesting things literature and writing have to offer. I’m ready to get down to business. The business is genre and some kind of related dissertation, but what that realization means for this paper, I have yet to figure out.
Process Theory
Elbow, Peter. "A Method for Teaching Writing." College English 30:2 (1968): 115-25.
Murray, Donald M. "Teaching Writing as a Process Not a Product." Villanueva 3-6. 1972.
Emig, Janet. "Writing as a Mode of Learning." Villanueva 7-16. 1977
Perl, Sandra. "Composing Processes of Unskilled College Writers." Villanueva 17-42. 1979.
Sommers, Nancy. "Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers." Villanueva 43-54. (1980)
Lowe, Charles, and Terra Williams. "Moving to the Public: Weblogs in the Writing Classroom" Into the Blogosphere: Rhetoric, Community, and Culture of Weblogs. Ed. Laura J. Gurak, Smiljana Antonijevic, Laurie Johnson, Clancy Ratliff, and Jessica Reyman. June 2004. Web.
Although Elbow’s article comes first in the chronology, I’ll be working my way back to him once I get to the most recent article, Lowe’s and William’s on weblogs. I have two reasons for this approach: 1) Lowe and William specifically refer to Elbow, unsurprisingly, since their defense of blogs reframes many of his own ideas; and 2) Murray’s 1972 article sets the stage for any discussion of process.
Having read many more recent composition theorists who take the concept of process for granted, reading Murray feels surreal. I imagine reading Copernicus’ or Galileo’s defenses of heliocentrism would be analogous experiences. Not all of Murray’s claims do I take for granted though, especially because I read Perl and Sommers so immediately after reading Murray. Murray claims three stages for the writing process: prewriting, writing, and rewriting. Despite his caveat that “the amount of time a writer spends in each stage depends on his personality, his work habits, his maturity as a craftsman, and the challenge of what he is trying to say,” Murray goes on to provide restrictive descriptions of these three stages and their claims on a writer’s time (4). Prewriting accounts for 85% of a writer’s time. By the time this stage is complete, the writer, according to Murray, has a clear sense of audience, form, and subject. Then, in a rush of glory, the first draft appears. This overwhelming and “frightening” experience takes 1% of the total time. Finally, rewriting accounts for the remaining 14%, and constitutes the period during which the writer may reconsider decisions made in the prewriting stage (Murray 4). What a neat description, as tidy as showroom in a furniture store. Unfortunately, at least in my experience, writing is more family-living-room-on-a-busy-weekday than pristine showroom.
It’s not just my experience, neither! Perl’s and Sommers’ studies of both unskilled and experienced writers reveal processes far more similar to my own and those I’ve observed in students. Murray’s description of process is ideal; I wish I worked that way. It would certainly be easier to plan my writing time. But Sommers’ description of experienced writers in particular rings far more true to my less-than-ideal self. To be fair, Sommers focuses solely on revision—rewriting in Murray’s schema—so I shouldn’t use her article to critique his account of prewriting. (Interestingly, although Sommers uses revision in the article title, the experienced writers she quotes use the term rewriting.) What I will take issue with, though, is the idea that the first draft in fact comes first, and the rewriting follows. This contention derives solely from my firsthand writing experiences, which closely echo those of an experienced writer quoted in Sommers: “I rewrite as I write. It is hard to tell what is a first draft because it is not determined by time. In one draft, I might cross out three pages, write two, cross out a fourth, rewrite it, and call it a draft. I am constantly writing and rewriting…” (49). What this writer, and Sommers in turn, hit on that Murray lacks is the concept of reflexivity. Neatly packaging and separating stages of writing blinds the theorist to points at which these stages bleed into each other.
Perl particularly turns her attention to reflexivity in her study and analysis of unskilled college writers. Her concluding paragraph even begins with the claim that “a final implication derives from the preponderance of recursive behaviors in the composing process studied here, and from the theoretical notion derived from these observations: retrospective structuring, or the going back to the sense of one’s meaning in order to go forward and discover more of what one has to say” (Perl 39). This “final implication” helps keep the notion of recursivity from being scuttled by its association with unskilled writers. Originally, recursivity makes an appearance in Perl as a behavior of students unable to move forward in writing without turning back to edit, thereby hanging themselves up on relatively minor concerns even as the major concerns go unaddressed. Peer review sessions in my own classroom have tuned me in to how unskilled writers often do edit long before it is of great use, so I’m inclined to believe the validity of Perl’s observations. (Not to mention that her methodology seems well-justified, consistent, and replicable.) But just because recursivity is misused in this instance does not mean we should throw it out with the bathwater. Instead, as Sommers did, it makes sense to find the uses of it that do work and work well for experienced writers.
On a last note on Villanueva, before I get on with BLOGS!, I originally had little to say about the Emig article. It was churning in my head, but little was coming from it. However, the process of writing this blog post prompted me to realize that, in fact, Emig’s idea of writing as learning could support my iffy-ness about Murray’s emphasis on the 85%-er prewriting stage. As I mentioned last week, this sort of realization is hardly unusual. I almost always only figure out what I think after writing for a while about what I think I think. If nothing else, this trait gives me the chops to tell students they need to get comfortable deleting huge chunks of writing—I do it all the time, because most of my initial writings turn out to just be a warm up, or brush-clearing, or whatever metaphor you please. Murray’s prewriting as merely “research and daydreaming, note-making and outlining” bears little resemblance to my process (4). These things happen, but the draft they lead to does not appear as a final thing that I can then merely rewrite. Emig’s concept of writing as a mode of learning comes much closer to describing the way in which getting stuff onto paper helps me create new connections, ideas, and conclusions. Granted, there's always the question of how much I can rely on my own experiences as criteria of validity for theories of composition, but that's a post for another day.
So now, let’s turn our attention instead to the funfunfun topic of the week, the blogosphere! Please excuse my irreverent and fun-focused tone. I’m awfully self-aware of both after having read Lowe’s and William’s article about how awesome blogging is for students and then having to turn around and write a blog post. The fun, perhaps, is a good place to start though. It struck me throughout the article how invested the authors are in tapping into some sense of fun that they associate with online writing activities like emailing and MMORPGs. I agree that students learn best when they are in some way connected, and enjoyment can create a sense of connection that coursework could otherwise lack. There’s a smacking of fun-for-fun’s sake here, however, which I’m not completely sold on. How important is it really for students to commiserate with each other when they have sprained ankles? Does enjoyment necessarily lead to learning? Please don’t misunderstand. I do hope you’re enjoying reading this blog post. But the enjoyment of it is probably a different kind of enjoyment than that of checking facebook or blasting away the Alliance on WoW. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I think it would behoove us to question what kind of fun we want our students to have and whether all kinds serve pedagogical goals.
Speaking of pedagogical goals, hey expressivism! What’s up with you these days? I see you making an appearance in arguments in favor of blogging: “Peter Elbow (1998), himself, arrived at freewriting as a means of escape from the anxieties created by a history of writing instruction. Private writing created a comfortable place where he could find himself as a writer; public writing through weblogging can do the same” (Lowe and Williams). Fancy seeing you round here. Honestly, I kind of thought that the public, collaborative, social nature of blogs would just give you a straight-up cold shoulder. But I suppose you and public writing share that real drive to "deemphasiz[e] teacher authority" (Lowe and Williams). Careful, though. Those blog-happy authors might pull the rug out from under you: "We still suspect that our field’s expressivist heritage may lead many writing teachers to put the private unnecessarily in front of the public, partially because writing teachers are themselves more comfortable with the private" (Lowe and Williams). I wouldn’t worry overmuch, though, if I were you. I think they’re still pretty interested in a lot of the same things you are: the true voice thing, you know, “writing as revealing the author’s self in his words” (Elbow 119), and creating writing situations in which “student writing [can] be designed to produce a specific piece of overt behavior in a reader” (Elbow 116). How funny. I think I just figured out that expressivism knows how to dress up as social constructionism. Neat trick!
The thing is, a claim like "our student bloggers regularly confront “real” rhetorical situations in a very social, supportive setting" parses as an overly idealistic and utterly unrealistic view of blogs. Isn’t there something a bit disingenuous about putting “real” in those handy quotation marks? What is the difference anyway between real and “real”? My sense is that blogs make the classroom dynamic simply less apparent. I buy that blogs can deauthorize the instructor, thereby empowering students to make rhetorical decisions at least removed from, even if not completely outside of, the evaluative classroom framework. They can even make the built-in classroom “community” feel more like an actual community, which gets it closer to being an actual audience. But as for students engaging in “real” rhetorical situations? Frankly, Elbow hits that nail a bit more squarely, with his suggestion of bringing outsiders into the classroom. That’s real, real in a way that the minute chance of a stranger reading your blog and entering a conversation with you is not.
But we’re not talking about writing communities or audiences this week. We’re talking about the writing process. So just to bring it back, here’s where Lowe and Williams themselves make the connection between blogs and process: "Some would point to other student web texts—zines and student websites—and suggest that they, too, can accomplish the same goals without the need to share drafts and other exploratory writing, that students can wait until a finished product is ready to share publicly. Yet, we feel that such texts diminish the process of drafting and do not create discourse about the drafting process in the same way that making the entire process public does. In only publishing the final draft—such as in the case of many zine projects and student websites that we have seen—isn’t this practice overly valuing the final product and, in doing so, also undercutting writing process pedagogy?"
Dear public, wouldn’t you like to engage in my process and leave me a comment about this unfinished work?
Other Unfinished Thoughts:
The web is crawling with trolls ready to personally attack any speaker. Granted, they tend to congregate in more public settings (Youtube, online papers), so perhaps students are safe. Who then is finding these texts?
"And even though this speculation about the positive aspects of public writing may disrupt established thoughts on what should be public and private, it is not out of line with collaborative process views." Well that's dismissive.
Different take on invention. Dan Cohen (of digital humanities fame) has a crowdsourced book.
"Below, we show that using weblogs in our classrooms has been more effective for at least some of our students because it has increased participation: our quieter students who typically don’t participate in face-to-face discussions are participating in weblog discussions." Drew's project: Tin Can Classroom.
Murray, Donald M. "Teaching Writing as a Process Not a Product." Villanueva 3-6. 1972.
Emig, Janet. "Writing as a Mode of Learning." Villanueva 7-16. 1977
Perl, Sandra. "Composing Processes of Unskilled College Writers." Villanueva 17-42. 1979.
Sommers, Nancy. "Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers." Villanueva 43-54. (1980)
Lowe, Charles, and Terra Williams. "Moving to the Public: Weblogs in the Writing Classroom" Into the Blogosphere: Rhetoric, Community, and Culture of Weblogs. Ed. Laura J. Gurak, Smiljana Antonijevic, Laurie Johnson, Clancy Ratliff, and Jessica Reyman. June 2004. Web.
Although Elbow’s article comes first in the chronology, I’ll be working my way back to him once I get to the most recent article, Lowe’s and William’s on weblogs. I have two reasons for this approach: 1) Lowe and William specifically refer to Elbow, unsurprisingly, since their defense of blogs reframes many of his own ideas; and 2) Murray’s 1972 article sets the stage for any discussion of process.
Having read many more recent composition theorists who take the concept of process for granted, reading Murray feels surreal. I imagine reading Copernicus’ or Galileo’s defenses of heliocentrism would be analogous experiences. Not all of Murray’s claims do I take for granted though, especially because I read Perl and Sommers so immediately after reading Murray. Murray claims three stages for the writing process: prewriting, writing, and rewriting. Despite his caveat that “the amount of time a writer spends in each stage depends on his personality, his work habits, his maturity as a craftsman, and the challenge of what he is trying to say,” Murray goes on to provide restrictive descriptions of these three stages and their claims on a writer’s time (4). Prewriting accounts for 85% of a writer’s time. By the time this stage is complete, the writer, according to Murray, has a clear sense of audience, form, and subject. Then, in a rush of glory, the first draft appears. This overwhelming and “frightening” experience takes 1% of the total time. Finally, rewriting accounts for the remaining 14%, and constitutes the period during which the writer may reconsider decisions made in the prewriting stage (Murray 4). What a neat description, as tidy as showroom in a furniture store. Unfortunately, at least in my experience, writing is more family-living-room-on-a-busy-weekday than pristine showroom.
It’s not just my experience, neither! Perl’s and Sommers’ studies of both unskilled and experienced writers reveal processes far more similar to my own and those I’ve observed in students. Murray’s description of process is ideal; I wish I worked that way. It would certainly be easier to plan my writing time. But Sommers’ description of experienced writers in particular rings far more true to my less-than-ideal self. To be fair, Sommers focuses solely on revision—rewriting in Murray’s schema—so I shouldn’t use her article to critique his account of prewriting. (Interestingly, although Sommers uses revision in the article title, the experienced writers she quotes use the term rewriting.) What I will take issue with, though, is the idea that the first draft in fact comes first, and the rewriting follows. This contention derives solely from my firsthand writing experiences, which closely echo those of an experienced writer quoted in Sommers: “I rewrite as I write. It is hard to tell what is a first draft because it is not determined by time. In one draft, I might cross out three pages, write two, cross out a fourth, rewrite it, and call it a draft. I am constantly writing and rewriting…” (49). What this writer, and Sommers in turn, hit on that Murray lacks is the concept of reflexivity. Neatly packaging and separating stages of writing blinds the theorist to points at which these stages bleed into each other.
Perl particularly turns her attention to reflexivity in her study and analysis of unskilled college writers. Her concluding paragraph even begins with the claim that “a final implication derives from the preponderance of recursive behaviors in the composing process studied here, and from the theoretical notion derived from these observations: retrospective structuring, or the going back to the sense of one’s meaning in order to go forward and discover more of what one has to say” (Perl 39). This “final implication” helps keep the notion of recursivity from being scuttled by its association with unskilled writers. Originally, recursivity makes an appearance in Perl as a behavior of students unable to move forward in writing without turning back to edit, thereby hanging themselves up on relatively minor concerns even as the major concerns go unaddressed. Peer review sessions in my own classroom have tuned me in to how unskilled writers often do edit long before it is of great use, so I’m inclined to believe the validity of Perl’s observations. (Not to mention that her methodology seems well-justified, consistent, and replicable.) But just because recursivity is misused in this instance does not mean we should throw it out with the bathwater. Instead, as Sommers did, it makes sense to find the uses of it that do work and work well for experienced writers.
On a last note on Villanueva, before I get on with BLOGS!, I originally had little to say about the Emig article. It was churning in my head, but little was coming from it. However, the process of writing this blog post prompted me to realize that, in fact, Emig’s idea of writing as learning could support my iffy-ness about Murray’s emphasis on the 85%-er prewriting stage. As I mentioned last week, this sort of realization is hardly unusual. I almost always only figure out what I think after writing for a while about what I think I think. If nothing else, this trait gives me the chops to tell students they need to get comfortable deleting huge chunks of writing—I do it all the time, because most of my initial writings turn out to just be a warm up, or brush-clearing, or whatever metaphor you please. Murray’s prewriting as merely “research and daydreaming, note-making and outlining” bears little resemblance to my process (4). These things happen, but the draft they lead to does not appear as a final thing that I can then merely rewrite. Emig’s concept of writing as a mode of learning comes much closer to describing the way in which getting stuff onto paper helps me create new connections, ideas, and conclusions. Granted, there's always the question of how much I can rely on my own experiences as criteria of validity for theories of composition, but that's a post for another day.
So now, let’s turn our attention instead to the funfunfun topic of the week, the blogosphere! Please excuse my irreverent and fun-focused tone. I’m awfully self-aware of both after having read Lowe’s and William’s article about how awesome blogging is for students and then having to turn around and write a blog post. The fun, perhaps, is a good place to start though. It struck me throughout the article how invested the authors are in tapping into some sense of fun that they associate with online writing activities like emailing and MMORPGs. I agree that students learn best when they are in some way connected, and enjoyment can create a sense of connection that coursework could otherwise lack. There’s a smacking of fun-for-fun’s sake here, however, which I’m not completely sold on. How important is it really for students to commiserate with each other when they have sprained ankles? Does enjoyment necessarily lead to learning? Please don’t misunderstand. I do hope you’re enjoying reading this blog post. But the enjoyment of it is probably a different kind of enjoyment than that of checking facebook or blasting away the Alliance on WoW. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I think it would behoove us to question what kind of fun we want our students to have and whether all kinds serve pedagogical goals.
Speaking of pedagogical goals, hey expressivism! What’s up with you these days? I see you making an appearance in arguments in favor of blogging: “Peter Elbow (1998), himself, arrived at freewriting as a means of escape from the anxieties created by a history of writing instruction. Private writing created a comfortable place where he could find himself as a writer; public writing through weblogging can do the same” (Lowe and Williams). Fancy seeing you round here. Honestly, I kind of thought that the public, collaborative, social nature of blogs would just give you a straight-up cold shoulder. But I suppose you and public writing share that real drive to "deemphasiz[e] teacher authority" (Lowe and Williams). Careful, though. Those blog-happy authors might pull the rug out from under you: "We still suspect that our field’s expressivist heritage may lead many writing teachers to put the private unnecessarily in front of the public, partially because writing teachers are themselves more comfortable with the private" (Lowe and Williams). I wouldn’t worry overmuch, though, if I were you. I think they’re still pretty interested in a lot of the same things you are: the true voice thing, you know, “writing as revealing the author’s self in his words” (Elbow 119), and creating writing situations in which “student writing [can] be designed to produce a specific piece of overt behavior in a reader” (Elbow 116). How funny. I think I just figured out that expressivism knows how to dress up as social constructionism. Neat trick!
The thing is, a claim like "our student bloggers regularly confront “real” rhetorical situations in a very social, supportive setting" parses as an overly idealistic and utterly unrealistic view of blogs. Isn’t there something a bit disingenuous about putting “real” in those handy quotation marks? What is the difference anyway between real and “real”? My sense is that blogs make the classroom dynamic simply less apparent. I buy that blogs can deauthorize the instructor, thereby empowering students to make rhetorical decisions at least removed from, even if not completely outside of, the evaluative classroom framework. They can even make the built-in classroom “community” feel more like an actual community, which gets it closer to being an actual audience. But as for students engaging in “real” rhetorical situations? Frankly, Elbow hits that nail a bit more squarely, with his suggestion of bringing outsiders into the classroom. That’s real, real in a way that the minute chance of a stranger reading your blog and entering a conversation with you is not.
But we’re not talking about writing communities or audiences this week. We’re talking about the writing process. So just to bring it back, here’s where Lowe and Williams themselves make the connection between blogs and process: "Some would point to other student web texts—zines and student websites—and suggest that they, too, can accomplish the same goals without the need to share drafts and other exploratory writing, that students can wait until a finished product is ready to share publicly. Yet, we feel that such texts diminish the process of drafting and do not create discourse about the drafting process in the same way that making the entire process public does. In only publishing the final draft—such as in the case of many zine projects and student websites that we have seen—isn’t this practice overly valuing the final product and, in doing so, also undercutting writing process pedagogy?"
Dear public, wouldn’t you like to engage in my process and leave me a comment about this unfinished work?
Other Unfinished Thoughts:
The web is crawling with trolls ready to personally attack any speaker. Granted, they tend to congregate in more public settings (Youtube, online papers), so perhaps students are safe. Who then is finding these texts?
"And even though this speculation about the positive aspects of public writing may disrupt established thoughts on what should be public and private, it is not out of line with collaborative process views." Well that's dismissive.
Different take on invention. Dan Cohen (of digital humanities fame) has a crowdsourced book.
"Below, we show that using weblogs in our classrooms has been more effective for at least some of our students because it has increased participation: our quieter students who typically don’t participate in face-to-face discussions are participating in weblog discussions." Drew's project: Tin Can Classroom.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Basic Writing
Shaughnessy, Mina P. “Diving In: An Introduction to Basic Writing.” CCC 27 (1976): 234-39. Villanueva 311-18.
Bartholomae, David. “Inventing the University.” Villanueva 623-54.
Goen-Salter, Sugie. “Critiquing the Need to Eliminate Remediation: Lessons from San Francisco State.” Journal of Basic Writing 27.2 (2008): 81-105.
Glau, Gregory R. “Stretch at 10: A Progress Report on Arizona State University's Stretch Program.” Journal of Basic Writing 26.2 (2007): 30-48.
Rose, Mike. “The Language of Exclusion: Writing Instruction at the University.” Villanueva 547-70.
Rose, Mike. “Narrowing the Mind and Page: Remedial Writers and Cognitive Reductionism.” Villanueva 345-86.
Zwagerman, Sean. “The Scarlet P: Plagiarism, Panopticism, and the Rhetoric of Academic Integrity.” CCC 59.4 (2008): 676-710.
I found the reading for this week very slow going, as every few paragraphs, I found myself staring off into space, considering my own pedagogical practices. The more theoretical reading selection, particularly Bartholomae's, Rose's, and Zwagerman's, especially prompted this interrupted attention. This introspection came with baggage: there's nothing like guilt about all the things I may be doing wrong, or not doing, or haven't considered to distract me from the many things I should be doing, like reading the assigned articles.
Finally, I found a quote to quash that guilt, but unfortunately didn't find it until the penultimate article I read: Glau's "Stretch at 10." He cites Shaughnessy's comforting observation about basic writers that "they are beginners and must, like all beginners, learn by making mistakes" (qtd in Glau 32). Though in my classroom, I am an instructor and not a student, the lesson holds true. I will learn by making mistakes. That thought brings with it a different flavor of guilt though, predicated on the idea that my mistakes can have major consequences for the students who expect to learn from me. My knee-jerk reaction to this guilt is to remember that I am not responsible for a student's education; students are responsible for their own educations. I am however responsible for creating a space in which that education can happen, for pointing in particular directions, for encouraging critical thought, for making them comfortable enough to make their own mistakes. In a student-centered classroom, I don't have to worry about always having the "right" thing to say. I do have to worry, though, about not making the kinds of assumptions that Rose, Bartholomae, Shaughnessy, Zwagerman, and Goen-Salter critique.
But then, in the midst of this worry, I worry that I am not being as critical as I ask my students to be. On the one hand, I aim to be a receptive reader, willing to entertain new, unfamiliar, or even unpalatable ideas. On the other hand, I can't just sponge up everything every composition scholar has to say. That just leads to, well, leaking, likely in a confusing and unattractive manner. How then to make sense of so much information? How to wade through it and come out with a clear sense of what rings true, what is useful, what overextends or undertheorizes or oversimplifies?
In considering this question of missing criteria, I found Rose's survey of cognitive theories highly elucidating. I have a passing familiarity with three of the four cognitive theories and approaches he critiques (the exception being field dependence-independence), although not entirely from their connections to comp theory. Thinking back over my various encounters with cognitive theories, I realized that I tended to accept them, often uncritically and wholly admiringly. Ong's work in orality-literacy in particular stood out as a theory that I found mind-bending and persuasive and explanatory and shockingly predictive. (In contrast, hemisphericity always seemed a little too neat for me but perhaps that arises from my distaste for labels that include the term "brained.") Despite my prior positive assessment of Ong and Piaget, Rose's detailed critique swayed me. To some extent, my sense of being but a barometer of whatever I'm currently reading was mollified by Rose's major argument that it is not necessarily these theories that are problematic, but rather their applications to comp theory. I love the idea of unifying fields through transdisciplinary research, but completely accept the need to exercise great caution when borrowing terminology or generalizing conclusions.
Given this perhaps overwrought background, I chose to use this response space to track attempts at being critical of what I was tempted to merely accept from others of this week's readings. I'll start with Bartholomae. The concept of "inventing the university" holds great appeal for me, as it jibes with my own experiences as student and writer. Certainly, arriving at grad school and delving far more deeply into academic discourse than ever before has been as much an education in topoi as in anything else. The role of commonplaces and the idea of students having to learn particular discourses also fits with my own conviction that genres are an indispensable way to talk about, teach, and learn writing. The very term "writing" is so broad as to be pedagogically useless without reference to particular disciplines or genres. My efforts at critically considering Bartholomae did lead me to one concern, though, based on the way in which he recommends embracing the act of inventing the university. This recommendation would have us recodify certain ways of thinking and talking that are traditional and insular. Such reification of modes of writing precludes critical pedagogies that aim to shake at the foundations of "how it's meant to be done." (I'm thinking especially of Anzaldua here.)
On to Zwagerman's discussion of plagiarism, in which he questions the current discourse about plagiarism that constantly reinstitutes a system that encourages plagiarism even as it laments the plagiarism's apparently rampant increase. His attention to the language used to discuss plagiarism is incisive and revealing. Since when are students infectious disease carriers? Similarly, his connection of policies meant to discourage academic dishonesty to policies commonly found in punitive institutional spaces gives life to a tiny embryo of discontent I've been carrying around for a while about sites like turnitin.com. In short, I agree that the ever-escalating measures to detect and combat plagiarism don't create the trusting learning environments we all yearn for. However, Zwagerman's own analysis of the antagonistic evaluation-obsessed system that makes dishonesty a good bet leaves me wondering how to make change from the ground up. Certainly, the suggestions to get students invested and to create process-focused assignments make clear, practical sense. What about the bigger picture though? What does a world without grades or grade obsession even look like? Certainly, this isn't meant to be a critique of Zwagerman's article; he does a phenomenal job of exposing the current system's flaws and finding little cracks between those flaws where things can be done differently, and hopefully better. I'm still left unsettled by the article, however, as it so deftly underscores the seemingly irreconcilable tension between the university as a place of learning and education and the university as the bestower of credentials for success in a capitalistic society.
As a whole, these readings draw attention to large-scale, systemic issues rooted in the discrepancies between different visions of the goals of the university and of composition instruction. While discord is often the currency of public life, these discrepancies have huge consequences for the thousands of students passing through composition courses, often without any awareness that these courses are anything but universally supported and consistent in content and form. That's all--I have no take-home message about this observation, other than, maybe where we are right now is not in fact the best place to be.
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Comp Studies Origins
Readings
Hill, Adam Sherman. "An Answer to the Cry for More English." 1896
Phelps, Louis Whetherbee. "The Domain of Composition." 1986
Nystrand, Martin, Stuart Greene, and Jefrey Wiemelt. "Where did Composition Studies Come from?: An Intellectual History." 1993
Brereton, John C. "Introduction." The Origins of Composition Studies in the American College. 1995
Yancey, Kathleen Blake. "Made Not Only in Words: Composition in a New Key." 2004
Juzwik, Mary M., Svjetlana Curcic, Kimberly Wolbers, et al. "Writing Into the 21st Century: An Overview of Research on Writing, 1999-2004." 2006
Response(s)
I arranged the above references in chronological order to get a better sense of how the conversation about composition has shifted over time. This organization seemed particularly appropriate for a batch of readings largely concerned with providing historical, social, and intellectual contexts for composition, or some aspect of it, at any given moment in time.
Hill's "An Answer to the Cry for More English" is both the most historical and the least historically inclined of the readings. While he does begin by looking to past deficits in writing and elocution instruction, Hill focuses far more on current efforts to address current deficits, specifically Harvard's use of a written entrance exam. required sophomore writing course, and other strategies for elevating the role of writing in higher education. Because Harvard is trying so hard, Hill argues, students' inability to write clearly and correctly must be the fault of their previous schooling. I expected to be off-put by Hill's prescriptivist tendencies, and so was surprised at how convincing I found his description of correct and stylistic writing as "that without which knowledge is but sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal" (46). The question for me then becomes, what knowledge can writing instructors use to show students how to make a symphony rather than cacophony?
In the introduction to The Origins of Composition Studies in the American College, John Brereton mentions, almost in passing, that students were frightened of Hill's curriculum and bored by alternatives such as theme writing. In a lengthy overview of the historical changes undergone by composition between 1870 and 1945, perhaps its not surprising that this point about student reactions gets but a few lines. However, the brevity of that description--and its contrast to Hill's glowing praise of his own program--did draw my attention to the fact that not only Origins, but also the majority of the other readings, fail completely to tell us anything about student involvement with or reactions to the various theories and views of composition.
For a few of the readings, the elision of student response makes sense. Phelps' concerns are highly theoretical and take the classroom as the starting point, rather than the ultimate goal. In mapping out the conceptual center and boundaries of composition, Phelps makes sense of how people studying everything from scientific journal articles to Kindergarten games to laptop case decorations can all claim to be working within the same field. Although I get this general drift of Phelps' argument, it is the reading I had the most trouble making sense of and connecting to previous knowledge and other readings. To some extent, I think the reading dates itself by its heavily theoretical bent and casual use of complex ideas, such as "written discourse as interaction" (184). In the end, I'm not sure what to walk away with from this reading, other than a sense that it's ok as a comp researcher to stray into other fields. Ultimately, how does or should this discussion of composition inform my understanding of how people write and how we talk about how people write? Ironically, though, I do get the sense that this reading could be the most fruitful ground for considering potential dissertation topics, which makes me want to discuss it the most out of the Comp Studies Origins readings.
Then again, the Nystrand, et al. reading is peppered with stars noting points that relate to my interest in genre theory and the use of genre to teach writing. This semi-revisionist history of composition actually felt very not-new. To a large extent, I felt like many of the connections they draw between composition and broader intellectual movements were already intimated or explicitly discussed by Berlin in Rhetoric and Reality. Then again, perhaps their view of intellectual history simply maps so naturally onto the familiar history of 20th century rhet-comp's division into epistemological camps that I just thought I had read it before. At any rate, the article provides one of the most succinct and clear explanations of dialogism that I've ever read. I thought I understood the concept, but now I understand it better. I think. In particular, also, the contrasting of formalism and structuralism, along with the tracing of unspoken similarities between various versions of them, was quite helpful for understanding how we have moved so far from current-traditional writing instruction (at least in theoretical discussions).
Although Juzwik, et al's study came chronologically after Yancey's CCCC address, I'll save Yancey for last. I'm very glad to have read this study because it mirrors to some extent a project I'm working on in rhetoric of science with Denise. For that project, we've been scouring journals to find articles on rhetoric of science and have been coding them (somewhat haphazardly) as we go. Next comes the paring down stage and refinement of categories, a more formalized coding process, and then the writing of a literature review. While I've read tons of lit reviews in my time as a grad student, none previously has taken the form of the research report. While I'm not sure we'll be writing a traditional research article with all the methodology bells and whistles, I do appreciate reading a lit review that also surveys a broad and amorphous field and doesn't have the word literature in the title. I'm also feeling inspired by their methodology coding categories and might borrow some of them that map well onto the rhetoric of science research.
So. That brings us to Yancey. With whom I take issue. And then feel guilty for taking issue. And then get mad about feeling guilty. If I don't follow her into the realms of multimedia and circulation, I am old-school and unable to let go of unfashionable and intenable views of what it means to be a writer. If I don't follow, I risk becoming outmoded. If I don't follow, I'm out of touch and will never truly connect with my students. Yancey seems to have a built-in defense against anything I might say. Yet, it's not that simple. Why should I rush into the new and shiny plaything of multimedia? If I do, I have to forget what I know and start from scratch. If I do, how do my students learn about printed text and making those work? What's wrong with taking things slowly? Also, on a final note, isn't it a bit presumptuous to say that all of our students are so savvy with multimedia that we can just tell them "go"?
Hill, Adam Sherman. "An Answer to the Cry for More English." 1896
Phelps, Louis Whetherbee. "The Domain of Composition." 1986
Nystrand, Martin, Stuart Greene, and Jefrey Wiemelt. "Where did Composition Studies Come from?: An Intellectual History." 1993
Brereton, John C. "Introduction." The Origins of Composition Studies in the American College. 1995
Yancey, Kathleen Blake. "Made Not Only in Words: Composition in a New Key." 2004
Juzwik, Mary M., Svjetlana Curcic, Kimberly Wolbers, et al. "Writing Into the 21st Century: An Overview of Research on Writing, 1999-2004." 2006
Response(s)
I arranged the above references in chronological order to get a better sense of how the conversation about composition has shifted over time. This organization seemed particularly appropriate for a batch of readings largely concerned with providing historical, social, and intellectual contexts for composition, or some aspect of it, at any given moment in time.
Hill's "An Answer to the Cry for More English" is both the most historical and the least historically inclined of the readings. While he does begin by looking to past deficits in writing and elocution instruction, Hill focuses far more on current efforts to address current deficits, specifically Harvard's use of a written entrance exam. required sophomore writing course, and other strategies for elevating the role of writing in higher education. Because Harvard is trying so hard, Hill argues, students' inability to write clearly and correctly must be the fault of their previous schooling. I expected to be off-put by Hill's prescriptivist tendencies, and so was surprised at how convincing I found his description of correct and stylistic writing as "that without which knowledge is but sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal" (46). The question for me then becomes, what knowledge can writing instructors use to show students how to make a symphony rather than cacophony?
In the introduction to The Origins of Composition Studies in the American College, John Brereton mentions, almost in passing, that students were frightened of Hill's curriculum and bored by alternatives such as theme writing. In a lengthy overview of the historical changes undergone by composition between 1870 and 1945, perhaps its not surprising that this point about student reactions gets but a few lines. However, the brevity of that description--and its contrast to Hill's glowing praise of his own program--did draw my attention to the fact that not only Origins, but also the majority of the other readings, fail completely to tell us anything about student involvement with or reactions to the various theories and views of composition.
For a few of the readings, the elision of student response makes sense. Phelps' concerns are highly theoretical and take the classroom as the starting point, rather than the ultimate goal. In mapping out the conceptual center and boundaries of composition, Phelps makes sense of how people studying everything from scientific journal articles to Kindergarten games to laptop case decorations can all claim to be working within the same field. Although I get this general drift of Phelps' argument, it is the reading I had the most trouble making sense of and connecting to previous knowledge and other readings. To some extent, I think the reading dates itself by its heavily theoretical bent and casual use of complex ideas, such as "written discourse as interaction" (184). In the end, I'm not sure what to walk away with from this reading, other than a sense that it's ok as a comp researcher to stray into other fields. Ultimately, how does or should this discussion of composition inform my understanding of how people write and how we talk about how people write? Ironically, though, I do get the sense that this reading could be the most fruitful ground for considering potential dissertation topics, which makes me want to discuss it the most out of the Comp Studies Origins readings.
Then again, the Nystrand, et al. reading is peppered with stars noting points that relate to my interest in genre theory and the use of genre to teach writing. This semi-revisionist history of composition actually felt very not-new. To a large extent, I felt like many of the connections they draw between composition and broader intellectual movements were already intimated or explicitly discussed by Berlin in Rhetoric and Reality. Then again, perhaps their view of intellectual history simply maps so naturally onto the familiar history of 20th century rhet-comp's division into epistemological camps that I just thought I had read it before. At any rate, the article provides one of the most succinct and clear explanations of dialogism that I've ever read. I thought I understood the concept, but now I understand it better. I think. In particular, also, the contrasting of formalism and structuralism, along with the tracing of unspoken similarities between various versions of them, was quite helpful for understanding how we have moved so far from current-traditional writing instruction (at least in theoretical discussions).
Although Juzwik, et al's study came chronologically after Yancey's CCCC address, I'll save Yancey for last. I'm very glad to have read this study because it mirrors to some extent a project I'm working on in rhetoric of science with Denise. For that project, we've been scouring journals to find articles on rhetoric of science and have been coding them (somewhat haphazardly) as we go. Next comes the paring down stage and refinement of categories, a more formalized coding process, and then the writing of a literature review. While I've read tons of lit reviews in my time as a grad student, none previously has taken the form of the research report. While I'm not sure we'll be writing a traditional research article with all the methodology bells and whistles, I do appreciate reading a lit review that also surveys a broad and amorphous field and doesn't have the word literature in the title. I'm also feeling inspired by their methodology coding categories and might borrow some of them that map well onto the rhetoric of science research.
So. That brings us to Yancey. With whom I take issue. And then feel guilty for taking issue. And then get mad about feeling guilty. If I don't follow her into the realms of multimedia and circulation, I am old-school and unable to let go of unfashionable and intenable views of what it means to be a writer. If I don't follow, I risk becoming outmoded. If I don't follow, I'm out of touch and will never truly connect with my students. Yancey seems to have a built-in defense against anything I might say. Yet, it's not that simple. Why should I rush into the new and shiny plaything of multimedia? If I do, I have to forget what I know and start from scratch. If I do, how do my students learn about printed text and making those work? What's wrong with taking things slowly? Also, on a final note, isn't it a bit presumptuous to say that all of our students are so savvy with multimedia that we can just tell them "go"?
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