While students have had a tendency to view the writing process as singular (that is writing the paper once and revising a word or two here and there), it is a process that should take place in a series of rewrites and revisions. While most students I have encountered never feel the need to rewrite a paper, it is part of the process of conveying the intended message in writing. So often students fall victim into believing that rewriting denotes that they did not achieve their goal in their first write, but in order to develop as quality writers they must advance their understanding of writing appeals in order to appreciate rewriting as a part of the process leading to the final product.
It is however, difficult to get students acclimated with the idea of rewriting, regardless of the benefits it presents. Once completing their initial draft of an assignment, they find comfort in knowing that they have achieved the objective of the assignment and worry little about producing anything beyond that. As Sommers explains, students are blind “to what constitutes good writing altogether…Students need to seek the dissonance of discovery, utilizing their writing, as the experienced writers do, the very difference between writing and speech – the possibility of revision” (Sommers 387).
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Individuality
Understanding that American society is rapidly increasing in diversity, it becomes essential to incorporate diverse approaches into the classroom by encouraging students to maintain a sense of individuality. As Shen simply states in The Classroom and the Wider Culture: Identity as a Key to Learning English Composition, “Be yourself.” Shen’s discourse is of great value to minority groups, with commonly nontraditional grammatical and usage backgrounds which encompasses many of those in the California educational system. Two approaches that Shen describes in depth are illogical and alogical patterns in writing. Using this system, which requires comparison of native discourse or learned writing to traditional forms of English writing, lead to understanding the difference between “native ability to create and comprehend English utterances” and “the preferred pattern of writing in English” (Lindeman, 66; Shen, 463).
Berlin
I think Berlin goes a bit far to assert that new rhetoric is the most intelligent approach for teaching writing. He provides an analysis of other theoretical approaches, highlighting the inconsistencies pointing out that rhetoricians like Aristotle have perceptions that are no longer relevant. I think Berlin is too linear in his argument because different approaches are beneficial for different situations. In a one dimensional world, Yes, one approach may be the answer for all. But in our world with so many colorful layers, it is important to remain open-minded about the possibilities of diversity and difference. Although Berlin so clearly favors the new rhetorical approach, there are other equally valid “intellectual” approaches that can be applied just as effectively.
Sommers: Response & Revision
“…teachers' comments can take students' attention away from their own purposes in writing a particular text and focus that attention on the teachers' purpose in commenting.” (Sommers 150)
Having worked in education for the past seven years, I have never before considered my students’ perceptions of what I wrote on their papers. I have always pointed out the mistakes of which I thought they should already be aware (either introduced in my class or in a required prerequisite) and graded them based on that. Rubrics distributed at the beginning of the school year are expected to be utilized in giving the students information on how I will grade their work. However, honest my comments, Sommers article has raised some questions which force me to reevaluate how I respond to student writing. I want my students to remain motivated without the fear of being ridiculed for their writing.
Sommers’ article on revision explores the process as one which builds upon what is already there, reproduction of existing writing. My prewrites generally take place in the form of outlines. Once prior to writing a paper my outline maps out the manner in which I will present the information. After writing my paper, I reread it for fluency and correct any grammatical, structural, reference, etc. mistakes that I discover. I also rearrange, add, and delete in order to make the paper flow smoothly. Sometimes, I ask a peer to read my work and ask the meaning as well as recommended changes to the content presented.
However, after going through the process of writing the literacy autobiography I find that the revision process which Sommers breaks down in her article is a more effective manner of writing. During the literacy autobiography process, we completed a number of invention activities which aided in developing ideas, some of which were more useful than others in constructing my discourse. My revision process now includes a process of producing various drafts of the same piece of work leading to the final product, which had been enhanced with each rewrite into a much higher quality final product.
Having worked in education for the past seven years, I have never before considered my students’ perceptions of what I wrote on their papers. I have always pointed out the mistakes of which I thought they should already be aware (either introduced in my class or in a required prerequisite) and graded them based on that. Rubrics distributed at the beginning of the school year are expected to be utilized in giving the students information on how I will grade their work. However, honest my comments, Sommers article has raised some questions which force me to reevaluate how I respond to student writing. I want my students to remain motivated without the fear of being ridiculed for their writing.
Sommers’ article on revision explores the process as one which builds upon what is already there, reproduction of existing writing. My prewrites generally take place in the form of outlines. Once prior to writing a paper my outline maps out the manner in which I will present the information. After writing my paper, I reread it for fluency and correct any grammatical, structural, reference, etc. mistakes that I discover. I also rearrange, add, and delete in order to make the paper flow smoothly. Sometimes, I ask a peer to read my work and ask the meaning as well as recommended changes to the content presented.
However, after going through the process of writing the literacy autobiography I find that the revision process which Sommers breaks down in her article is a more effective manner of writing. During the literacy autobiography process, we completed a number of invention activities which aided in developing ideas, some of which were more useful than others in constructing my discourse. My revision process now includes a process of producing various drafts of the same piece of work leading to the final product, which had been enhanced with each rewrite into a much higher quality final product.
Recchio
Thomas Recchio writes of the multilevel analysis which can be applied to critically reading text and discourse. It is interesting to know that students possess meta-narratives and are completely unaware of it. This seems like something that is appropriate for the type of writing proposed by Bartholomae in “Inventing the University” but I find it difficult to understand how this can be applied to students who are struggling with very basic levels of reading comprehension and composition who often end up in beginning English courses. While I think that the paper definitely contains they can be woven together in order to accurately convey the intent in the paper to the reader. I like Recchio’s final comments because they give the author the necessary feedback which can either be used to correct this paper or applied to another paper.
Grammar
As I approach the issues facing students studying English on the college level as well as reflecting on my own experiences as an English student, there are two main components I want would like to stress to my students: understanding grammar and its application and individual expression as academically appropriate. Some strategies will promote confidence while others will ensure that my students have a strong English foundation upon exiting my class. My classroom will encompass conventional English and Language Arts through alternative discourse while also ensuring student’s knowledge of traditional form. As Erika Lindemann describes in Rhetoric for Writing Teachers “Many people link usage to standard English, implying that there’s an absolute right and wrong way to use the [English] language” (67). My English pedagogy comes from this notion but with the goal of providing students an understanding of grammar. My goal is for students to walk away from my class having obtained the skills toward becoming successful writers using their own approach and creativity in the process. Students will also explore English grammar and usage to develop an understanding of English and Language Arts variations. “Their investigation… also will increase their tolerance for varieties of English” (Lindeman, 69). The stress is always on academic discourse as students understand the conventions of language and writing, yet there is also an emphasis on individuality as students assert themselves through their writing. My course will enable students to develop what Fan Shen refers to as an “English Identity.”
Understanding that as American society is rapidly increasing in diversity, it becomes essential to incorporate diverse approaches into the classroom by encouraging students to maintain a sense of individuality. As Shen simply states in The Classroom and the Wider Culture: Identity as a Key to Learning English Composition, “Be yourself.” Shen’s discourse is of great value to minority groups, with commonly nontraditional grammatical and usage backgrounds which encompasses many of those in the California educational system. One approach that Shen describes in depth are illogical and alogical patterns in writing. Using this system, which requires comparison of native discourse or learned writing to traditional forms of English writing, lead to understanding the difference between “native ability to create and comprehend English utterances” and “the preferred pattern of writing in English” (Lindeman, 66; Shen, 463).
Grammar in my classroom will be generative-transformative. Branching away from the traditional approaches to grammar as a mathematical formula, the generative-transformative model teaches the process of “creating sentences” (Lindeman, 82). In aligning grammar instruction with the writing process as a whole, it is important to foster students’ abilities to create as is presented in the generative-transformative model of teaching grammar.
Incorporating grammar and writing will take place through peer-centered, individual, and whole group activities. Incorporating oral speech into my classes is one manner which I plan to provide an understanding of grammar. I plan to use oral activities for students to analyze grammar idiolects within the classroom, demonstrating an understanding of the numerous forms in which grammar may exist in society. Hartwell explains the importance of applying multipurpose literacy rather than “single static literacy” (Hartwell 124).
It is Hartwell’s explanation of grammar studies that I will strive to achieve in my own class. “Writers need to develop skills at two levels. One… involves communication in meaningful content. The other… involves active manipulation of language with conscious attention to surface form” (Hartwell, 125). Upon exiting my class, students will have confidence in their writing while maintaining their individual thinking and grammatical conception. They will internalize their skills toward producing oral and written communication that incorporates rhetorical competencies and metalinguistics that can be used academically and socially (Hartwell 125).
Understanding that as American society is rapidly increasing in diversity, it becomes essential to incorporate diverse approaches into the classroom by encouraging students to maintain a sense of individuality. As Shen simply states in The Classroom and the Wider Culture: Identity as a Key to Learning English Composition, “Be yourself.” Shen’s discourse is of great value to minority groups, with commonly nontraditional grammatical and usage backgrounds which encompasses many of those in the California educational system. One approach that Shen describes in depth are illogical and alogical patterns in writing. Using this system, which requires comparison of native discourse or learned writing to traditional forms of English writing, lead to understanding the difference between “native ability to create and comprehend English utterances” and “the preferred pattern of writing in English” (Lindeman, 66; Shen, 463).
Grammar in my classroom will be generative-transformative. Branching away from the traditional approaches to grammar as a mathematical formula, the generative-transformative model teaches the process of “creating sentences” (Lindeman, 82). In aligning grammar instruction with the writing process as a whole, it is important to foster students’ abilities to create as is presented in the generative-transformative model of teaching grammar.
Incorporating grammar and writing will take place through peer-centered, individual, and whole group activities. Incorporating oral speech into my classes is one manner which I plan to provide an understanding of grammar. I plan to use oral activities for students to analyze grammar idiolects within the classroom, demonstrating an understanding of the numerous forms in which grammar may exist in society. Hartwell explains the importance of applying multipurpose literacy rather than “single static literacy” (Hartwell 124).
It is Hartwell’s explanation of grammar studies that I will strive to achieve in my own class. “Writers need to develop skills at two levels. One… involves communication in meaningful content. The other… involves active manipulation of language with conscious attention to surface form” (Hartwell, 125). Upon exiting my class, students will have confidence in their writing while maintaining their individual thinking and grammatical conception. They will internalize their skills toward producing oral and written communication that incorporates rhetorical competencies and metalinguistics that can be used academically and socially (Hartwell 125).
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
To the Spring Class of 575…
Hopefully some of you are still tuning into the blog post, or some have already turned in their final projects and left this course behind. Either way, I wanted to bid this class a fair adieu. As we head off into our summer vacations, I am astonished at the people I have come in contact with over the semester. This class helped me to see where I could define myself in the terms of academic discourse. To sum it all up I am an expressivists, new rhetorician, contact zone, voice searching, and mechanics unraveling fool. I side with the expressivists who believe in voice as a writer’s primary concern. I see Bizzell’s connection to the contact zone as a place for self discovery, and acceptance in the classroom. I follow Lindemann’s model of grading papers, and judging on merit and not just mechanics. I hear Royster when she speaks to voice being present, and not a singular process. And I side with Reechico when he speaks to taking a Bahktian approach to reading and grading students papers. With all of the information that was presented to us during this class, I can see how rhetoric and discourse is coming to a point where, the more explore, the better chances are students will have. To have all of these essays at our disposal, I am confident that I can approach teaching in new ways, that dispel and accept some of theorist that we have read.
Being removed from education for some time, and I am glad we had an opportunity to have this opportunity to have an open dialoguge towads ours philoshpy of teaching. The blog was resourceful and often time encouraging way for me to read and understand the texts we were assigned. Thank you to all who contributed, and all who even stepped out and posted their own individual work. Good luck in all of your future endeavors.
Being removed from education for some time, and I am glad we had an opportunity to have this opportunity to have an open dialoguge towads ours philoshpy of teaching. The blog was resourceful and often time encouraging way for me to read and understand the texts we were assigned. Thank you to all who contributed, and all who even stepped out and posted their own individual work. Good luck in all of your future endeavors.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Villanueva and Royster
Rhetoric of Racism is an intriguing and enlightening read that challenges my concept of what multiculturalism in the classroom actually is. I like that Villanueva began with a historical approach with the Aztecs and the Spanish to demonstrate the consequences of forced assimilation. We tend to think of rhetoric and composition in the terms of ancient times (Aristotle, Plato, etc.) and modern times. Rarely do we stop to think about the impact of rhetoric on this country's early history. Anyway, back to the point. Villanueva states that there is no "reverse discrimination" to make things equal, and the statistics speak: 64% of Latinos never graduate high school. Granted, this was published in 1999, so the statistics might be older, however as a teacher on the front lines with this demographic, I can say this statistic has not changed much. I think and still believe that they don't value education, however Villanueva seems to think this is a colonialist point of view. I think my students would value education a lot more if they could see the doors it would open for them. So are they just content with their lives? Are we the racist ones for telling them that they should want something better? Sometimes I am not sure.
I also enjoyed the analogy that the U.S. is like the parent to Latin America, the 'child' and that somehow they should revere the U.S. for their guidance and showing them the 'way'. We really do sound pompous and its easy to see why so many other countries hate us. As for his analogy of the Mexican philosopher and the French philosopher holding more weight, I have to say the French and for a good cause: Generally speaking, more French than Mexicans are formally educated, and with the exception of Mexico City, we tend to think of Mexico as a whole to be a corrupt, drug infested country that doesn't believe in democracy or education for its people. France is associated with education, aristocracy, art, cuisine, democracy, and liberalism. Until that changes, the association will stick. I'm all for change, but until non-colonialist voices step up and educate themselves no one will take their trend-bucking seriously, and unfortunately that is the society we live in. The intelligent students in my class are ruthlessly made fun of. There's a stigma with being smart, with bringing books to class, and doing work. Its not 'cool'. I don't know how to change that attitude, and being an outsider to their culture, I don't feel it is my place to do it.
As far as Royster, I feel she makes many valid points about voice. We can not assume just because someone lives amongst another culture and observes, that they are justified to somehow report on it. She states, "I have come to recognize that when the subject matter is me and the voice is not mine, my sense of order and rightness is disrupted." It must be incredibly irritating to read something about being black from someone who is not black or even a part of that culture. Someone who is speaking for you, but doesn't have a right to. "We must be trained to respect points of view other than our own." Perception is everything, and being aware of your surroundings and where you stand as the subject position is important for conveying information. I also agree with Royster's call for respect, codes of behavior, and manners when it comes to the field of composition studies. Even if intentions are good, sometimes the way something is written, be it the voice or a connotation, it can come off as condescending.
I also enjoyed the analogy that the U.S. is like the parent to Latin America, the 'child' and that somehow they should revere the U.S. for their guidance and showing them the 'way'. We really do sound pompous and its easy to see why so many other countries hate us. As for his analogy of the Mexican philosopher and the French philosopher holding more weight, I have to say the French and for a good cause: Generally speaking, more French than Mexicans are formally educated, and with the exception of Mexico City, we tend to think of Mexico as a whole to be a corrupt, drug infested country that doesn't believe in democracy or education for its people. France is associated with education, aristocracy, art, cuisine, democracy, and liberalism. Until that changes, the association will stick. I'm all for change, but until non-colonialist voices step up and educate themselves no one will take their trend-bucking seriously, and unfortunately that is the society we live in. The intelligent students in my class are ruthlessly made fun of. There's a stigma with being smart, with bringing books to class, and doing work. Its not 'cool'. I don't know how to change that attitude, and being an outsider to their culture, I don't feel it is my place to do it.
As far as Royster, I feel she makes many valid points about voice. We can not assume just because someone lives amongst another culture and observes, that they are justified to somehow report on it. She states, "I have come to recognize that when the subject matter is me and the voice is not mine, my sense of order and rightness is disrupted." It must be incredibly irritating to read something about being black from someone who is not black or even a part of that culture. Someone who is speaking for you, but doesn't have a right to. "We must be trained to respect points of view other than our own." Perception is everything, and being aware of your surroundings and where you stand as the subject position is important for conveying information. I also agree with Royster's call for respect, codes of behavior, and manners when it comes to the field of composition studies. Even if intentions are good, sometimes the way something is written, be it the voice or a connotation, it can come off as condescending.
Monday, May 9, 2011
How Do We Create the Space of Everyone Being Heard
While reading Villanueva’s article I couldn’t help but pull out my highlighter and embark on a marking rampage. Pretty soon my article looked like a fluorescent pink art piece. I circled, wrote notes, underlined quotes for questions in class, and I had to ask myself, what about this article creates this drive to know more? Some of the articles in the class I can say haven’t really resonated with how I think I see myself as a teacher. Like Dr. Cauthen mentioned, some of the readings are a little dense. That however, hasn’t stopped me from finding pieces that I felt I could use, and intend to utilize the techniques in my future classrooms. But, one of the topics that Villanueva touched on is that what our field needs to embrace and welcome minority students, is the journals and articles. This idea of representation is hard to find in some of the articles that we are presented with. While reading the statistics (no matter how dated they may be) had me thinking is that what I have to look forward to? Never being heard in our field? I am sure the numbers have grown, and minority representation has grown within the CCCC and NCTE, but what does that mean for our students? Are their voices being heard in the classroom? Are we producing teachers that include Native American authors in their classroom? The canon has expanded over the years, but are we putting some of these things to use? How can we do this, with such a short time in a school semester and have an impact that our students can take with them in their future English Comp classes? Where does it begin? We hear success stories in our class about teachers who have had some success with including alternative discourse in their classroom, but we have to find ways to use these things across the board. I know the classics are pushed for students to learn and understand, but what is the definition of a classic? I have so many questions because I am beginning to see that this idea of “discourse” has left us with so many opened ended questions and answers. There is a hierarchy of what is acceptable in a classroom and what is not. Who responds to certain type of teaching and the zones in which they are dissecting information? It has been broken down to a science, but this idea of multiculturalism is frowned upon. As a minority student I do find myself from trying to see the racism in certain types of discourse or literature. I try to not make things a race issue. But unfortunately I see myself as Black; I wake up every day and see my reflection. I also see myself as a human, but as I am walking this Earth in America I am a black American, and I have things to say on the subject. My experience as Black in America has validity, so I should be able to conjure, and draw on these experiences in my writing. But I do get the feeling when we bring up race in some classrooms the looks from some of the non-minority students are not this again…..
I guess it might be too much to ask to have this free flowing utopia of discourse where everyone is politically correct, and no one is offended or questioned for their beliefs. But Villanueva says there is a place for everyone to be heard. I don’t think the subject of racism, multiculturalism can ever be overdone. We see that these issues are reinventing themselves, they are presented in less obvious ways. The challenge I think now comes with having enough articles that can be used in classroom to show students that this is an issue that concerns other in literature. And making our students feel stifled for making a mountain out of a molehill when it comes to race in the classroom or their writing.
I guess it might be too much to ask to have this free flowing utopia of discourse where everyone is politically correct, and no one is offended or questioned for their beliefs. But Villanueva says there is a place for everyone to be heard. I don’t think the subject of racism, multiculturalism can ever be overdone. We see that these issues are reinventing themselves, they are presented in less obvious ways. The challenge I think now comes with having enough articles that can be used in classroom to show students that this is an issue that concerns other in literature. And making our students feel stifled for making a mountain out of a molehill when it comes to race in the classroom or their writing.
Take a Ride Into the Contact Zone
After reading Bizzell's "Contact Zones," I thought about the curriculum for English majors. A lot of the curriculum involves British literature, Medieval literature, Renaissance literature, and American literature written from an Anglo-American perspective. Yes, there are some classes that discuss transnational issues, novels written by minorities, gays or lesbians, feminists, but such classes lag behind (in quantity) the more popular forms of literature mentioned above. This might not be the case at every school, but in general I think it's true. Though Bizzell doesn't make these claims directly, I feel as though they are underlying themes to her description of the the old system of English studies. There should be more emphasis on the multicultural reality of America in English studies. As it is, the contact zone, "where social spaces," and "cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power, such as colonialism, slavery, or their aftermaths is not inclusive enough" in the academy (166). Though change is occurring in English studies, I don't believe it's at a point yet (and I'm basing this on the criteria for an English degree at universities, at least at CSUDH and CSULB) where the idea of inclusiveness does justice to the multicultural aspect of America. Again, Bizzell isn't making these claims directly, at least not as blatantly as her belief that "English studies" should be organized "not in terms of literary or chronological periods, nor essentialized racial or gender categories, but rather in terms of historically defined contact zones, moments when different groups within the society contend for the power to interpret what is going on" (165). I believe a more comprehensive study of the multicultural aspect of America is necessary to accomplish her goal.
The Contact Zone
We live and teach in a multicultural area. In our classrooms, our students come from various ethnicities, cultures, family values and conventions. As Lu states, we should attempt to have a multicultural approach to student writing. Since our classrooms become a “contact zone,” we need to create a space where various cultures “clash, and grapple with each other.” In our discussion last week, many of us respect and allow differences in opinions and ideas; but how do we create a “contact zone” where we induce and trigger the classes (constructively, of course)? According to Lu, we must teach students to question and conflict with ideas found in writing. We must begin by guiding a classroom in discussions which “enable students to hear discursive voices…negotiate a position…consider their choice of opinion.” Easy enough, right? But how do we incorporate these into writing? Is content more important than convention? Or is this “contact zone” only for brainstorming and discussion? Maybe a first draft? My fear is often that students cannot code switch (I hope that is the right term), in which they fossilize their errors, whether it be in thinking or writing. Although I understand the need to negotiate and provide more choices for students, when is the line crossed when we may be hindering the future of our students because there is a right and wrong, isn’t there?
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Subject Positions
“Subject position is everything”, I like that notion because it brings so many things to the table (Royster 30). I think of race, class, and age when I think of subject position and of parallax. Depending on the angle, everything looks different and if one makes decisions based on one view of an object then that decision can be labeled as skewed. I think this resonates within my understanding of the world, I notice that being in charge has a lot to do with and are based on the amount of power, of property, and the place in society that we are in. Jacquelin Jones Royster in “When the First Voice You Hear is not Your Own” argues for a curriculum that places all views in a position of power and that students be allowed to ask questions and I agree with her. I’m a very inquisitive person and hate it when my questions are ignored or viewed in an oppressive form. I feel that by following the golden rule and allowing students to generate a voice for themselves, that a better world can be achieved. But utopia is never going to be the answer because that simply means that everything that grants us our differences is ignored and the voice that so many of us fight for will be marginalized in much of the same way that it already is. I think that taking someone’s identity, in all its forms, and keeping an open mind can help bridge some of the gaps that society has set in place for many of us with a disadvantaged position.
Binary Opposition
After reading Elizabeth A. Flynn's "Composing as a Woman," it evoked an awareness that men and women compose differently. Honestly, I have never given it much thought.
There are parts of the essay that I agree with in terms of the examples that Flynn illustrates,
(where the first group of friends who have the experience in riding in a hot air balloon). She deducts that "Women who are connected knowers are able to detach themselves from the relationships and institutions to which they have they have been subordinated and begin to trust their own intuitions" (428). I believe that this describes the method that I use in order to compose. Also, when I write, I feel that in some respect there is a detachment (in my ability to participate in the act of writing itself), but also structures in which all students must write. I have never attributed binary opposition as a way in which to explain difference and affinity in composition. Yes, I believe that women are wired very differently than men, so I suppose why their writing shoud not be also?
I appreciate this essay by Flynn, because it opens up the possibility for further discourse. Personally I believethat I exhibit personalities of both the male and female writers. I can feel connected, and allow my individual freedom to dictate my prose, but I can also become isolated and competitive, and I want my writing to be the best and anything less than perfection is failure. It brings up an interesting question. If patriarchy is presented in composition, and if so, how do men and women arrive on equal foooting?
There are parts of the essay that I agree with in terms of the examples that Flynn illustrates,
(where the first group of friends who have the experience in riding in a hot air balloon). She deducts that "Women who are connected knowers are able to detach themselves from the relationships and institutions to which they have they have been subordinated and begin to trust their own intuitions" (428). I believe that this describes the method that I use in order to compose. Also, when I write, I feel that in some respect there is a detachment (in my ability to participate in the act of writing itself), but also structures in which all students must write. I have never attributed binary opposition as a way in which to explain difference and affinity in composition. Yes, I believe that women are wired very differently than men, so I suppose why their writing shoud not be also?
I appreciate this essay by Flynn, because it opens up the possibility for further discourse. Personally I believethat I exhibit personalities of both the male and female writers. I can feel connected, and allow my individual freedom to dictate my prose, but I can also become isolated and competitive, and I want my writing to be the best and anything less than perfection is failure. It brings up an interesting question. If patriarchy is presented in composition, and if so, how do men and women arrive on equal foooting?
Villanueva – Rhetorics of Racism
I found this piece to be of interest, at lot of what Villanueva has to say makes me think about my experiences as a teacher. For example, his point that “[a]lthough segregation by race is no longer legal, there is an eco-nomic segregation, a white and middle-class flight from inner cities that relegates African American and Latino students to schools that lack a strong tax base and are thereby poorly funded” (Martinez 7), really stood out to me. When I started my career as a teacher, I elected to teach at a high school in South Central Los Angeles. I expected the school to be poorly funded, but that was not the case. Because of the NCLB, along with State and Federal subsidies, the school had exorbitant amounts of resources; however, there was not much buy-in from the community and as a result, the resources were not always used in the best way. This is not to say that there was no element of white flight, as the school is located in Watts, which if my history serves me correctly was a predominately Anglo-American farming community prior to WWII; however, when the school was born in the late 1970’s it was considered to be an excellent school with a predominately African American base, but then the PCP and Crack epidemic confronted the community. I chose to work at the school because I wanted to help, but quickly learned that help was not easily accepted. In order to survive and gain respect from the students at the school, seeing as I was an outsider, I had to seek guidance from members of the community. Fortunately, a man who went to the school, before deciding to become a teacher there, took me under his wings to show me the ropes. The students saw this and became willing to work with me because they saw that I respected the people of their community. There were other teachers at the school, who were young and idealistic like me, but were working under the umbrella of educational organizations, such as TFA, who in my opinion, are a bit elitist. I noticed that my colleagues made little connections with the community that they served and worked under the guidance of their organization, seeking little guidance from the locals, so to speak. What I found from my experiences working there is that in order for a teacher to make an impact, they have to respect and be respected by the community. Otherwise, as I saw with some of my colleagues, you will get walk on by the students and they will not accept you. Interesting that although you may well live only ten miles from one community, it is literally a different world and you have to learn the language.
Monday, May 2, 2011
Voice
To tell you the truth, I chose the Royster article because the title was catchy. I think that we’ve discussed this issue time and time again in the Rhetoric/Comp classes. I know that those of you who have taken Sherman’s class have had the debate about ‘voice’ vs. form, audience, purpose, etc., and I know that we haven’t spoken about this in our class. I know through my own writing that audience often overpowers my writing, then comes form, content, and voice. I am not sure if the last three are in that order or if they are mashed into one process…who knows? I also know when the first voice I hear is not my own, but I know that if the paper is good and will get me an A…I know that is what I want and I don’t care about my voice.
Now onto the article…
Royster’s article reminds me of Pratt’s article, “Arts of the Contact Zone,” where Pratt discusses that the “safe houses” are the classrooms where our students become a community, discuss, and are free to discuss their own ideas. Pratt states:
The idea of the contact zone is intended in part to contrast with ideas of community that underlie much of the thinking about language, communication, and culture that gets done in the academy… The fact that no one was safe made all of us involved in the course appreciate the importance of what we came to call “safe houses.” We used the term to refer to social and intellectual spaces where groups can constitute themselves as horizontal, homogeneous, sovereign communities with high degrees of trust, shared understandings, temporary protection from legacies of oppression. This is why, as we realized, multicultural curricula should not seek to replace ethnic or women’s studies, for example. Where there are legacies of subordination, groups need places for healing and mutual recognition, safe houses in which to construct shared understandings, knowledges, claims on the world that they can then bring into the contact zone.
Royster reminds the teacher that the challenge is “to teach, to engage in research, to write, and to speak with Others with the determination to operate not only with professional and personal integrity, but also with the specific knowledge that communities and their ancestors are watching” (33). As a student and teacher, I love this concept—bringing together the ideas and voices of the community within my classroom, sharing our stories to demonstrate the transformation and growth we have as a society. But, as my students are testing in my room right at this moment; this noble and respectful idea seems to dissipate as I worry about what the administration will say about my test scores, maybe I focused too much on themes, culture, connections, and not enough on test taking skills, grammar, spelling…superlatives and appositives. Can I interpret this movement as one that “coopts, dissipates, and displaces voices” (35)? Has this movement forgotten the voice of the individual because of a dominant form, audience, and content which presides over the educational system? Are we criminals, guilty of “spirit murder”? Robbing our children of their voices to fulfill the requirements and standards dictated by some higher power that provides our paychecks?
What do I know? I know I can do better. I know that my room is a contact zone. I know that I need to shift and transform by crossing boundaries. This is my voice.
Now onto the article…
Royster’s article reminds me of Pratt’s article, “Arts of the Contact Zone,” where Pratt discusses that the “safe houses” are the classrooms where our students become a community, discuss, and are free to discuss their own ideas. Pratt states:
The idea of the contact zone is intended in part to contrast with ideas of community that underlie much of the thinking about language, communication, and culture that gets done in the academy… The fact that no one was safe made all of us involved in the course appreciate the importance of what we came to call “safe houses.” We used the term to refer to social and intellectual spaces where groups can constitute themselves as horizontal, homogeneous, sovereign communities with high degrees of trust, shared understandings, temporary protection from legacies of oppression. This is why, as we realized, multicultural curricula should not seek to replace ethnic or women’s studies, for example. Where there are legacies of subordination, groups need places for healing and mutual recognition, safe houses in which to construct shared understandings, knowledges, claims on the world that they can then bring into the contact zone.
Royster reminds the teacher that the challenge is “to teach, to engage in research, to write, and to speak with Others with the determination to operate not only with professional and personal integrity, but also with the specific knowledge that communities and their ancestors are watching” (33). As a student and teacher, I love this concept—bringing together the ideas and voices of the community within my classroom, sharing our stories to demonstrate the transformation and growth we have as a society. But, as my students are testing in my room right at this moment; this noble and respectful idea seems to dissipate as I worry about what the administration will say about my test scores, maybe I focused too much on themes, culture, connections, and not enough on test taking skills, grammar, spelling…superlatives and appositives. Can I interpret this movement as one that “coopts, dissipates, and displaces voices” (35)? Has this movement forgotten the voice of the individual because of a dominant form, audience, and content which presides over the educational system? Are we criminals, guilty of “spirit murder”? Robbing our children of their voices to fulfill the requirements and standards dictated by some higher power that provides our paychecks?
What do I know? I know I can do better. I know that my room is a contact zone. I know that I need to shift and transform by crossing boundaries. This is my voice.
How about writing instruction before the university?
Rose brings up some interesting points in his article, "The Language of Exclusion." What caught my attention wasn't some philosophical idea, it was a fact about education in America. Certain "skills should be mastered before one enters college and takes on higher-order endeavors. And the place for such instruction-before or after entering college-is the English class. Yes, the skill can be refined, but its fundamental development is over, completed via a series of elementary and secondary school courses and perhaps one or two college courses..." (347). I don't have any figures on student performance from in the public school systems, but I can't resist to place some of the blame on teachers. Now I don't mean to insult my classmates who teach. You guys are great students and I'm sure you take your jobs seriously. I'm talking about the teachers that pass students along without having instilled a greater awareness of literacy. What a "remedial class" is can be ambiguous, at Rose notes that different universities have their own criteria. But if students have to take a class at the university level on fundamental aspects of writing that just have to be learned, I think that's unfair to students who are ready to take classes for their major, and to the professors who spent the better part of their twenties in school working on a doctorate. I think teaching literacy to generations of students is a collective effort, not the sole responsibility of one particular segment of the educational system. For that matter, parents and need to take more responsibility over their child's/children's literacy. Not all parents are capable of assisting their kids in school subjects, but the least they can do is make sure they spend time doing homework.
Having said all this, I don't think all forms of literacy can be taught in middle school or high school, as a certain level of cognition has to be reached before students broach particular concepts imperative to intellectual growth. I do, to some degree, understand the need for "remedial classes" at universities, as writing is "central to the shaping and directing of certain modes of cognition, is integrally involved in learning, is a means of defining the self and defining reality, is a means of representing and contextualizing information" (348). I could only imagine how many people in America would be impeded from going to college because of a perceived lack of literacy.
Having said all this, I don't think all forms of literacy can be taught in middle school or high school, as a certain level of cognition has to be reached before students broach particular concepts imperative to intellectual growth. I do, to some degree, understand the need for "remedial classes" at universities, as writing is "central to the shaping and directing of certain modes of cognition, is integrally involved in learning, is a means of defining the self and defining reality, is a means of representing and contextualizing information" (348). I could only imagine how many people in America would be impeded from going to college because of a perceived lack of literacy.
Sunday, May 1, 2011
If we're in ideology, then I am biased and shaped by it
The Kirsch-Ritchie article, “Beyond the Personal: Theorizing a Politics of Location in Composition Research,” reminds me, like Ben, of female writers like Gloria Anzaldua and Sndra Cisneros. These two female writers give a voice to a specific location and provide a “ new emphasis on the personal [and] on validating experience as a source of knowledge ( 7). In Anzaldua’s work, Borderlands, we see that she is “examining [her] experiences as reflections of ideology and culture, by reinterpreting [her] own experiences through the eyes of others, and by recognizing [her] own split [self, her] multiple and often unknowable identities” (8). In her text, Anzaldua explores the problems of identity along with the problems of a rhetoric that has generated due to her location. Cisneros’ work, like that of Anzaldua, deals with what Kirsch and Ritchie call the “politics of location” in the title of the text, House on Mango Street. Like Anzaldua’s Borderlands, this text is establishing a location that is central to the contents of the inside pages, and it is dealing with feminine as well as race issues. And I find these “politics of location” to be a fascinating read, and quite difficult to overcome when it comes to research. I mean we lie in ideology and it is all around us, and having to take on the role of self-moderator when conducting research seems to be asking too much, especially when most researchers are too busy in trying to prove a point and willing to ignore anything that challenges that point. As for the “ethics of care” that the article is promoting, I think that this would be a great idea, but I do not see it being applied to research for the same purposes that I stated above. Researchers are focused on the main goal, and research is mainly a means to an end, where the point is to come to a conclusion that has already been established. As for those studies where one is looking for the outcome, ideology comes into play and gets in the way of an unbiased conclusion.
"Student" Writers
For today's blog, I read from the text of Min-Zhan Lu, Chapter "Professing Multicultaralism: The Politics of Style in the Contact Zone" verse 6: "Why is it that in spite of our developing ability to acknowledge the political need and right of 'real' writers to experiment with 'style,' we continue to cling to the belief that such a need and right does not belong to 'student writers'?" (491).
I've been guilty of doing this--valuing "real" writing over "student" writing. More often than not, I consider my own writing to be at the "student" level, and that "real" is ambiguous and essentially unattainable. I know Min-Zhan Lu addresses the issue as it pertains to multiculturalism in teaching writing, but I don't think this downplaying of student writing only pertains to those in various contact zones.
I think this calls for a reevaluation of what is meant by "real" writing. In the first place, I have come to realize that it is a large disservice to equate the term "professional" with "real." I have known much non-professional writing that I would consider real, and a great deal of professional writing I wouldn't. I'm not going to give a concrete definition here, as it is currently quite subjective. However, I will feel somewhat satisfied if people (i.e., you, my fellow teachers) consider a little more carefully about the terms they use.
I've been guilty of doing this--valuing "real" writing over "student" writing. More often than not, I consider my own writing to be at the "student" level, and that "real" is ambiguous and essentially unattainable. I know Min-Zhan Lu addresses the issue as it pertains to multiculturalism in teaching writing, but I don't think this downplaying of student writing only pertains to those in various contact zones.
I think this calls for a reevaluation of what is meant by "real" writing. In the first place, I have come to realize that it is a large disservice to equate the term "professional" with "real." I have known much non-professional writing that I would consider real, and a great deal of professional writing I wouldn't. I'm not going to give a concrete definition here, as it is currently quite subjective. However, I will feel somewhat satisfied if people (i.e., you, my fellow teachers) consider a little more carefully about the terms they use.
"Argumentum Ad Ignorantiam"
In Joy Ritchie's and Kathleen Boardman's "Feminism in Composition: Inclusion, Metonymy, and Disruption," the authors, "in writing this brief critical historical survey" (585), alliteratively consider how feminists have "begun rewriting the rhetorical tradition by reclaiming, refiguring, and regendering 'Rhetorica'" (586).
In doing so, they proclaim that, "the near-absence of feminism from our publications does not constitute absence from the field" (587), implying that the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence, thus recognizing the logical fallacy that exists when one posits something to be either necessarily true or necessarily false simply because it hasn't yet been proven either one or the other. Contextually speaking, the authors are simply saying that, despite the paucity of evidence in the rhetorical fossil record, woman have been and continue to be re-writing rhetorica.
The only reason why there aren't more women on record as rhetoricians is simply due to the fact that, until relatively recently, they have been effectively barred from doing so.
Let's remember to include everyone in this discourse community because if we don't, we're liable to miss out on the many knowledge opportunities that may be provided by those writers we may, for whatever reason whatsoever, consider unworthy of admission into "Academia."
In doing so, they proclaim that, "the near-absence of feminism from our publications does not constitute absence from the field" (587), implying that the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence, thus recognizing the logical fallacy that exists when one posits something to be either necessarily true or necessarily false simply because it hasn't yet been proven either one or the other. Contextually speaking, the authors are simply saying that, despite the paucity of evidence in the rhetorical fossil record, woman have been and continue to be re-writing rhetorica.
The only reason why there aren't more women on record as rhetoricians is simply due to the fact that, until relatively recently, they have been effectively barred from doing so.
Let's remember to include everyone in this discourse community because if we don't, we're liable to miss out on the many knowledge opportunities that may be provided by those writers we may, for whatever reason whatsoever, consider unworthy of admission into "Academia."
The Politics of Location
Okay, theoretically I found this piece to be interesting. Granted, because of inequalities people are overlooked and academic discourse can, at times, represent the white male and ignore “marginalized” people, places and cultures. This is an extremely complicated issue. One point I would like to highlight in Kirsch and Ritchies piece is the idea that: “In composition, a number of scholars have begun to invent writing that highlights multiple narratives and diverse perspectives… Such innovative writing challenges journal editors to develop a greater tolerance for ambiguity and unconventional forms of discourse, and challenges readers to learn new ways of reading and interpreting texts” (541). This is a good point and I would like to point out, that some of these practices are being used at the high school level. Granted, I do not have my students reading multiple narratives by the likes of bell hooks or Anzaldua, as those pieces might be a bit challenging for a ninth grade student; however, there are many other works to use that offer similar modes of discourse.
A great example of an entry-level book for multiple narratives is the House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. I use this book with my ninth grade students because it is an excellent portrait of a young person, who is coming of age, amidst difficult circumstances manifested by society and culture. The main character, Esperanza, is a Latino female marginalized by society. The book is broken down into vignettes, that at times are poems, and at other times short stories, but pits and pieces of Spanish are used to illustrate the author’s somewhat autobiographical position regarding her place in society. This is a good piece to read with my student’s because it highlights a different voice that is perhaps not always heard in our society.
In regards to how all of this applies to the “politics of location”, Kirsch and Ritchie appear to be suggesting that the higher education English departments need to approach their discipline acknowledging that “[o]ur research instead will need to extend to theory-generating in a self-reflexive and mutually dialogic context to help researchers and participants challenge and change the conditions that keep oppressive structures in place” (542). While I agree that other voices need to be heard, I find this statement to be a little bit over the top. Is it really composition research and academics that keep oppressive structures in place? Reading and writing is the gateway to knowledge. Although different people have their own political and social opinions about what is being delivered in the classroom or in compositional studies, I feel that many teachers do not attempt to ignore “marginalized” students. From my experience as a teacher, I see myself and my colleagues trying to provide students with a large variety of resources for students to look at so they can find their own “personal” truths. Furthermore, is this not what reading and writing about in the first place?
Friday, April 29, 2011
The Act of Composing
Linda Flower and John R. Haye's "A Cognitive Process Theory of Writing" was interesting reading, because as a writer, I have never thought about the process for which I compose.
For example, under the heading of "Writing is a goal-directed process," it states:
"Our subjects often report that their writing process seemed quite disorganized, even chaotic, as they worked, and yet their protocols reveal a coherent underlying structure. How, then, does the writing process manage to seem so unstructured, open-minded, and exploratory ("I don't know what I mean until I see what I say") and at the same time possess its own underlying coherence, direction, or purpose" (377).
This was very interesting because I completely feel this way in some cases when I am writing. Generally I start out with an idea, that leads to other ideas when I am composing, and the end result is usually not what I intended for it to be. In most cases it is better (at least from my perspective).
I wouldn't say that I am unorganized during the composing process, but at times I can become chaotic in my thinking. My thoughts about this are: Sometimes when I write in a non-linear or non-structured manner, I often produce prose that wasn't part of my original plan, but later turns out to be essential to what I was composing. I don't enjoy the feeling of chaos when it comes to writing. I work from an outline for most of the papers that I write. Sure, the outline keeps you on track to a certain degree, but it is those momentary thoughts while driving home, a conversation with a peer, something from your long term memory that presents itself while you are in the act of writing. So I think the "cognitive processes involved in composing" means that there is an awareness that every writer does have a process, whether known to them or not.
I am sure we all compose differently and our minds think differently. However, in terms of student teaching, this article helps me to understand that students' I will encounter while I am currently tutoring, or teaching in the future, will most likely develop or display different cognitive processes that helps them to compose. I suppose it validates what we were discussing in class on Wednesday: "Assume the intelligence of all students" because it will not only help instructors to remain in a happier place, but it can also erode the assumptions that students are unable or unwilling to learn.
For example, under the heading of "Writing is a goal-directed process," it states:
"Our subjects often report that their writing process seemed quite disorganized, even chaotic, as they worked, and yet their protocols reveal a coherent underlying structure. How, then, does the writing process manage to seem so unstructured, open-minded, and exploratory ("I don't know what I mean until I see what I say") and at the same time possess its own underlying coherence, direction, or purpose" (377).
This was very interesting because I completely feel this way in some cases when I am writing. Generally I start out with an idea, that leads to other ideas when I am composing, and the end result is usually not what I intended for it to be. In most cases it is better (at least from my perspective).
I wouldn't say that I am unorganized during the composing process, but at times I can become chaotic in my thinking. My thoughts about this are: Sometimes when I write in a non-linear or non-structured manner, I often produce prose that wasn't part of my original plan, but later turns out to be essential to what I was composing. I don't enjoy the feeling of chaos when it comes to writing. I work from an outline for most of the papers that I write. Sure, the outline keeps you on track to a certain degree, but it is those momentary thoughts while driving home, a conversation with a peer, something from your long term memory that presents itself while you are in the act of writing. So I think the "cognitive processes involved in composing" means that there is an awareness that every writer does have a process, whether known to them or not.
I am sure we all compose differently and our minds think differently. However, in terms of student teaching, this article helps me to understand that students' I will encounter while I am currently tutoring, or teaching in the future, will most likely develop or display different cognitive processes that helps them to compose. I suppose it validates what we were discussing in class on Wednesday: "Assume the intelligence of all students" because it will not only help instructors to remain in a happier place, but it can also erode the assumptions that students are unable or unwilling to learn.
Monday, April 25, 2011
SO during class I had all of these ideas going through my head in regards to the Berlin article and now I want to discuss them. I mean this whole idea about TRUTH is odd, all over the article I see that Berlin is referencing it, yet rhetoric has nothing really to do with truth… Rhetoric, as it is defined by me Microsoft word (as generic as they come), is defined as “speech or writing that communicates its point persuasively.” Nowhere is there an implication of truth, it’s all simple persuasion. Yet, Berlin wants us to recognize the dogmas behind our teaching methods, as Dr. Cauthen explained, but most teachers aren’t concerned with those things. I mean we all employ a teaching style because it fits the way we see the world, and thus want to perpetuate its use in the field, and little regard is paid to ethics. I mean I am as pessimistic as they come and this whole idea of truth and ethical compass is not flying with me.
I love this statement, “Truth is rational,” because it describes something that should be so but isn’t (768). Not all individuals are rational or logical, and because of this, truth is irrational and filled with ideology and emotions. Since speech is filled with what Foucault calls heteroglossia, it is important to keep in mind what Berlin says in regards to “rhetoric as the determiner of reality” (774). This argument, to me, has a firm foundation because it takes into account that reality is not fixed. This notion that reality is in flux, leaves not only room for error, but also takes into account that reality is faulty. As the other trains of thought, they find truth and reality, while this New Rhetoricians point of view takes into account that which the others don’t, the idea that reality does not exist as a universal phenomenon.
I guess that’s all that I have in my head for now in regards to this article. I enjoyed the philosophical trip down epistemology and how it correlates to certain teaching methods, Berlin’s correlation is ingenious to say the least.
I love this statement, “Truth is rational,” because it describes something that should be so but isn’t (768). Not all individuals are rational or logical, and because of this, truth is irrational and filled with ideology and emotions. Since speech is filled with what Foucault calls heteroglossia, it is important to keep in mind what Berlin says in regards to “rhetoric as the determiner of reality” (774). This argument, to me, has a firm foundation because it takes into account that reality is not fixed. This notion that reality is in flux, leaves not only room for error, but also takes into account that reality is faulty. As the other trains of thought, they find truth and reality, while this New Rhetoricians point of view takes into account that which the others don’t, the idea that reality does not exist as a universal phenomenon.
I guess that’s all that I have in my head for now in regards to this article. I enjoyed the philosophical trip down epistemology and how it correlates to certain teaching methods, Berlin’s correlation is ingenious to say the least.
Berlin Again
In his 1982 article “Contemporary Composition: The Major Pedagogical Theories” James A. Berlin urges writing teachers to guide their students to the “truth”. In his 1988 “Rhetoric and Ideology in the Writing Classroom” he defines the “truth” that our students need to see. He sees writing teachers’ responsibility as guiding our charges to a Marxist way of thinking where their major compositional task is to acknowledge and fight against the capitalistic dominated society that is structured to enrich some at the cost of many.
He rejects the cognitive rhetoric and the expressionistic rhetoric schools of pedagogy because they do not have this Marxist ideology as their basis. He writes that the cognitive school of writing is based on a problem solving structure that is modeled on the capitalistic notion that through structured heuristic exploration most obstacles to success in business and writing can be solved. He also rejects the expressionistic rhetoric idea as politically feeble because one of its major tenants is that political, economic and social change can be effected by individuals working alone.
Berlin writes that by adopting a social-epistemic ideology in the classroom the teacher will be able to guide his students away from pre-scientific thought that undermines the political power of people by deluding them into deterministic attitudes where they think they are powerless to make changes because the existing structure of society is immutable. He curiously avoids calling organized religion a pre-scientific institution. But he hints at it by writing that mystifications “obscure [problems] and their real sources and solutions”. He sees hero worship of actors and sports heroes as more pre-scientific thought that lessens citizens’ focus on the real problems in society.
Berlin’s theory is that all writing should be based on the political ideology that change and reform is necessary in economics and society and that if it isn’t based on this ideology it’s part of the capitalistic status quo that keeps the proletariat from gaining full access to the world’s resources. He assigns the writing teacher an important place in society with the responsibility to guide our students to clear thinking about the social, political and economic issues.
Connections
So the more I think about what I want to write on my teaching philosophy, the more my mind wanders back to my literacy autobiography. I keep thinking back to what it is that drove me to teaching and particularly the teaching of English. As I think about what I want to accomplish as a teacher, I can't help but to think back to when I was in high school and what I wanted to change back then. This idea of change keeps popping into my head along with the sample teaching philosophy of the fellow who was working for the TSA and how he wanted change and to do things his way, a way in which he saw that things would be more beneficial to the students he would be dealing with. I like this idea that teachers should be passionate and strive to achieve in excellence using a curriculum that is catered to the students’ needs, as opposed to the outdated curriculum of the k-12 system that seems daunting to most.
Difference: an asset, not a liability.
Bizzell states that education needs an “overhaul…in response to multiculturalism.” Over time, the different voices, perspectives, cultures, etc that encompass our nation has changed the dynamics of our literature. We cannot ignore the struggles, the differences in culture, traditions, and genders, that occur within our society. With this in mind, we must create the “Contact Zone” where we confront the struggles and conflicts within our community. As Mary Louise Pratt states in “Art of the Contact Zone,” “groups need places for healing and mutual recognition, safe houses in which to construct shared understandings, knowledges, claims on the world that they can then bring into the contact zone” (6). Our classrooms provide the setting for these contact zones only if and when we create a curricula which addresses these crossroads. If we simply stick to the literature of the old canon, we are holding our students in a sort of standoff with themselves and society. Instead of progressing into the present nature of our society, we will be forcing an assimilation of language and culture on a society that has moved beyond this hegemony.
Unfortunately, the shift in education has not occurred, entirely; the curricula that dominates and dictates the nation needs to acknowledge the shift in styles and subject matters. The mutuality which exists within all of us needs to be brought out rather than ignored; what better way to do so than in English courses—through literature, discussion, and writing? What better way to teach respect and understanding than to confront the issues. As we know from our historical past, we cannot keep ignoring the issues, they won’t go away until we bring them into the contact zone and deal with them.
Unfortunately, the shift in education has not occurred, entirely; the curricula that dominates and dictates the nation needs to acknowledge the shift in styles and subject matters. The mutuality which exists within all of us needs to be brought out rather than ignored; what better way to do so than in English courses—through literature, discussion, and writing? What better way to teach respect and understanding than to confront the issues. As we know from our historical past, we cannot keep ignoring the issues, they won’t go away until we bring them into the contact zone and deal with them.
Contact Zones
I very much appreciated Patricia Bizzell's idea for the way in which English courses might be restructured: capturing a conflicted moment in time and reading all the texts which discuss that moment from all different viewpoints. Not only do I like that this approach brings in a variety of different (and often overlooked) voices, I like that it is almost cross-curricular in that it seems to have a heavy emphasis on historical context. It is, of course, leaps and bounds better than the approach which randomly tosses House on Mango Street into the curriculum in an effort to represent minority writers. That sort of willy-nilly approach only has the effect of making the added literature seem more alien and un-canonical.
My concern with Bizzell's suggestion is a practical one. I got excited as I read all of the different types of literature that could be addressed in a unit about the New England region between 1600 and 1800:
What an awesome amount of information to read! And then it occurred to me...where would I get these things? My school district has fired hundreds of teachers these past couple of years. We can't afford to replace the one or two books we currently have that are falling apart. How would we find the funds to buy all new materials? And such a vast variety of them, as well.
I see my district's online classroom (eTUSD) coming into play here. It is quite possible I could find electronic copies of texts like this, post them to eTUSD, and ask the students to provide themselves with their own copies. Of course there will always be the students who are unwilling or unable to do this, not to mention the incredible use of paper required to have every student print out every reading every year. Perhaps this is an idea that works best at the university level, where students are purchasing their own materials, and requires a scaled-down version for secondary schools.
My concern with Bizzell's suggestion is a practical one. I got excited as I read all of the different types of literature that could be addressed in a unit about the New England region between 1600 and 1800:
...Puritan histories, autobiographies, and captivity narratives would be studied in connection with historical commentaries and memoirs by non-Puritan Europeans (traditionally treated as "minor"), European transcriptions of Native American speeches (problematic but invaluable), and letters, histories, and spiritual autobiographies written by Native Americans in English (unknown in the academy until very recently).
What an awesome amount of information to read! And then it occurred to me...where would I get these things? My school district has fired hundreds of teachers these past couple of years. We can't afford to replace the one or two books we currently have that are falling apart. How would we find the funds to buy all new materials? And such a vast variety of them, as well.
I see my district's online classroom (eTUSD) coming into play here. It is quite possible I could find electronic copies of texts like this, post them to eTUSD, and ask the students to provide themselves with their own copies. Of course there will always be the students who are unwilling or unable to do this, not to mention the incredible use of paper required to have every student print out every reading every year. Perhaps this is an idea that works best at the university level, where students are purchasing their own materials, and requires a scaled-down version for secondary schools.
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Myers' Marxism
Re: Myers' "Reality, Consensus, and Reform in the Rhetoric of Composition Teaching" (1986).
Though perhaps I could be persuaded to agree with Myers' assertion that "rhetorical appeals" to "consensus" and "reality" are problematic (155), I could never be convinced by his reasoning. His assertion is based upon the assumption that these appeals are necessarily ideologically based, an assertion that is, by Myers' own admission - and, paradoxically, ideologically-based itself. Moreover, Myers ironically engages in the very thing - "reproducing ideology" (156) - that he encourages us to combat, while the ideology that he's "reproducing" (by the way, all ideology is inherently ideological) is no less destructive of the very thing - critical thinking - that he purports to promote.
That is, admittedly, I may indeed think that what I think "is free and progressive thought," and that, in doing so, I may also be "perpetuating a[n ideologically-based system], " (156) but in "reality," so is Myers. His assumptions are just as ideological-based and biased, and his ideology is just as liable- arguably more so, to committing "injustices" as any other, particularly considering the fact that it is founded upon the (modern or postmodern?) presupposition that "our social system constructs our view of the world" (157), and therefore any notion of justice is just as arbitrary and capricious as societies are supposedly themselves, ultimately denying the notion of individual exceptionalism, such that each individual truly is just a another brick in the wall. And remember: bricks are disposable. So are you with this view. To the contrary, my "worldview" sees the individual as exceptional, uniquely valuable, and therefore indisposable.
So, where Marx denies any spiritual component to human existence, I confirm it: we are - including our human consciousness - essentially spiritual beings, and life is determined by consciousness, not the other way around. How do I know this? How do we know anything? I don't know.
But I do admit that the assumptions I make are just as ideologically based as everyone's. Mine are grounded in the notion that there exists an objective reality, one that, despite our respective positions of existential subjectivity, can and will be discovered. I also believe that rhetoric and composition can and will play an important part in this discovery process.
Though perhaps I could be persuaded to agree with Myers' assertion that "rhetorical appeals" to "consensus" and "reality" are problematic (155), I could never be convinced by his reasoning. His assertion is based upon the assumption that these appeals are necessarily ideologically based, an assertion that is, by Myers' own admission - and, paradoxically, ideologically-based itself. Moreover, Myers ironically engages in the very thing - "reproducing ideology" (156) - that he encourages us to combat, while the ideology that he's "reproducing" (by the way, all ideology is inherently ideological) is no less destructive of the very thing - critical thinking - that he purports to promote.
That is, admittedly, I may indeed think that what I think "is free and progressive thought," and that, in doing so, I may also be "perpetuating a[n ideologically-based system], " (156) but in "reality," so is Myers. His assumptions are just as ideological-based and biased, and his ideology is just as liable- arguably more so, to committing "injustices" as any other, particularly considering the fact that it is founded upon the (modern or postmodern?) presupposition that "our social system constructs our view of the world" (157), and therefore any notion of justice is just as arbitrary and capricious as societies are supposedly themselves, ultimately denying the notion of individual exceptionalism, such that each individual truly is just a another brick in the wall. And remember: bricks are disposable. So are you with this view. To the contrary, my "worldview" sees the individual as exceptional, uniquely valuable, and therefore indisposable.
So, where Marx denies any spiritual component to human existence, I confirm it: we are - including our human consciousness - essentially spiritual beings, and life is determined by consciousness, not the other way around. How do I know this? How do we know anything? I don't know.
But I do admit that the assumptions I make are just as ideologically based as everyone's. Mine are grounded in the notion that there exists an objective reality, one that, despite our respective positions of existential subjectivity, can and will be discovered. I also believe that rhetoric and composition can and will play an important part in this discovery process.
Teaching the Unteachable
Blogging each week has helped me to discover new things about what I would like my teaching philosophy to be. Practically speaking, I have been able to look back at previous blogs in order to extract information about my teaching philosophy, which I did not know was there. For example, after completing the 12 Readers Project, I have formed a new awareness about responding to student writing. In combination to what Sommers and Lindemann have to say about it, I found that I was one of those teachers whose perspective was limited when it came to responding to student writing. I did not usually look for the things that were good, and in most cases, I was so focused on correcting a students' paper, rather than giving them the opportunity to become involved in the revision process themselves. In short, I have evolved.
I have been thinking about what I would like to discuss in the few remaining weeks. One of the things that I would like to discuss is how do you deal with overlapping information that students say they receive when they are taught by different English instructors. This discussion is in no way to undermine an instructor, but to understand how and why students (at least the ones that I have tutored at CSUDH) get locked into this notion that if they were taught to write a certain way, that there is no room for further instruction, or that your instruction is "simply wrong." Before I give an example of this, I have thought about the why of this question. Students become paralyzed when they fear that further instruction will diminish what they have previously learned, because it means they may have to revise more, or think of alternative ways to write outside of the restrictions of the five paragraph essay, that I will be discussing as part of my Prospectus.
I was previously working with a third year undergraduate student (CSUDH). He asked me to look at his paper, and upon making some suggestions, he immediately said, "That is not how my teacher taught me." In that moment, I thought two things to myself: First, "Then, why are you wasting my time asking for my help" and "What do you mean that is not how your teacher said to do it." The suggestion was about subject verb agreement, comma use, and lack of transition. I explained to him that perhaps you misunderstood your teacher, because there is not much to refute when it comes to subject verb agreement. In the context of a sentence that I looked at with him, I explained, "That you cannot have a plural subject and use a singular verb. And you should have a comma after this introductory clause"-- I also said, "You may think about using a transitional phrase." Needless to say, he lost it. He couldn't believe that he was being told something new and different, at least the way he understood it. Obviously I do not believe that his instructor gave him this information, but that he clearly did not grasp the information. My point is: Students' can sometimes get trapped in this box, and often times (at least from my experience) they are not teachable because they fear learning something new will somehow inhibit their ability to write successfully. They hold on to what they have been previously taught as gospel, and it leaves very little room for them to enhance their writing. Writing is a process, and in my experience you are able to reach new heights by mastering the stages prior to it, but having writers' block and simply being "stuck in limited thinking" are pitfalls that some students cannot get out of. The example that I described is just to name one that is quite common. I have had more complex discussions with students that surpass mechanical issues, to discussions about semantics and absence of a thesis.
At any rate.... Although I understand you can only teach a student who wants to learn, I would like to know how to deal with those students who want to go the distance with me, to truly understand why the process that they previously used in which to write, could perhaps be viewed from an alternative perspective.
I have been thinking about what I would like to discuss in the few remaining weeks. One of the things that I would like to discuss is how do you deal with overlapping information that students say they receive when they are taught by different English instructors. This discussion is in no way to undermine an instructor, but to understand how and why students (at least the ones that I have tutored at CSUDH) get locked into this notion that if they were taught to write a certain way, that there is no room for further instruction, or that your instruction is "simply wrong." Before I give an example of this, I have thought about the why of this question. Students become paralyzed when they fear that further instruction will diminish what they have previously learned, because it means they may have to revise more, or think of alternative ways to write outside of the restrictions of the five paragraph essay, that I will be discussing as part of my Prospectus.
I was previously working with a third year undergraduate student (CSUDH). He asked me to look at his paper, and upon making some suggestions, he immediately said, "That is not how my teacher taught me." In that moment, I thought two things to myself: First, "Then, why are you wasting my time asking for my help" and "What do you mean that is not how your teacher said to do it." The suggestion was about subject verb agreement, comma use, and lack of transition. I explained to him that perhaps you misunderstood your teacher, because there is not much to refute when it comes to subject verb agreement. In the context of a sentence that I looked at with him, I explained, "That you cannot have a plural subject and use a singular verb. And you should have a comma after this introductory clause"-- I also said, "You may think about using a transitional phrase." Needless to say, he lost it. He couldn't believe that he was being told something new and different, at least the way he understood it. Obviously I do not believe that his instructor gave him this information, but that he clearly did not grasp the information. My point is: Students' can sometimes get trapped in this box, and often times (at least from my experience) they are not teachable because they fear learning something new will somehow inhibit their ability to write successfully. They hold on to what they have been previously taught as gospel, and it leaves very little room for them to enhance their writing. Writing is a process, and in my experience you are able to reach new heights by mastering the stages prior to it, but having writers' block and simply being "stuck in limited thinking" are pitfalls that some students cannot get out of. The example that I described is just to name one that is quite common. I have had more complex discussions with students that surpass mechanical issues, to discussions about semantics and absence of a thesis.
At any rate.... Although I understand you can only teach a student who wants to learn, I would like to know how to deal with those students who want to go the distance with me, to truly understand why the process that they previously used in which to write, could perhaps be viewed from an alternative perspective.
"'Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose'"
Whether we attempt to describe and explain the cognitive differences between those who write well and those who write poorly using "studies of cognitive style," "popular articles on brain research," "Piaget's work on the development of logical thought," or the work of "orality-literacy theorists" (267), any conclusions we may come to are, according to Mike Rose, naively generalistic and hopelessly reductive. Rose may be right in his recognition that "cognitive reductionism" mistakenly presumes that "unsuccessful writers think in fundamentally different ways from successful writers" (ibid.). So maybe the difference between "good" writers and "bad" writers involves more than simply cognition, for certainly there are other factors to consider, factors cultural, societal, etc. So then the question becomes, "How do we go about judging the thought processes involved with reading and writing when performance is problematic, ineffective, or stunted?" (297), particularly when every approach so far is just more of the same but by some other name? If it is even possible, we must first recognize, as Rose does, that "human cognition... is rich and varied" (ibid.). Such richness and variety precludes theories that don't directly attempt to explain the cognitive differences, if any, that exist between writers; moreover, any theory that does attempt to do so must be considered provisional only, recognizing the transformative nature of language qua literacy, and the protean processes involved in cognition qua thinking, covering a complex spectrum of histories, cultures, and peoples who possess the same abilities to both think and write, but do so in decidedly different ways.
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Democratic Stretches
I have to admit that Joel Haefner's article, "Democracy, Pedagogy, and the Personal Essay," stretches my prior definitions of the term "democratic." In this instance, a dictionary actually helps me a little in applying the term to my previous schema: democracy, n. 2. That class of the people which has no hereditary or special rank or privilege (OED). A little odd to apply to an object, but I'll go with it. I essentially take it to mean that Chris Anderson (as quoted by Haefner) feels that the essay is not something restricted to one class of people, that it is open for everyone to use.
To be perfectly frank, I think Anderson's premise is fairly asinine, and Haefner goes into detail explaining why that is the case. Honestly, Haefner could have proven that Anderson is wrong simply by asking students in freshman writing whether the form is open or exclusive--if it were open, I doubt we would have half the issues we do in teaching it. No, the essay is very exclusive, requiring elevated language from everyone, native speaker or not. To some degree, that's why I tend to have some issues with that part of the multicultural movement that vies for inclusion of other language vernaculars in writing. If I'm not allowed to use my own vernacular in essays, I don't see why someone else should be able to just because they learned a different language first. But that can be another rant.
Though I don't see why there should have been a need for Haefner's article, I appreciate his refutation of the essay as democratic. And for those of you who want a more democratic medium of writing, join twitter or facebook, or post on youtube. Or, to borrow from Conan O'Brien, join all three, YouTwitFace!
To be perfectly frank, I think Anderson's premise is fairly asinine, and Haefner goes into detail explaining why that is the case. Honestly, Haefner could have proven that Anderson is wrong simply by asking students in freshman writing whether the form is open or exclusive--if it were open, I doubt we would have half the issues we do in teaching it. No, the essay is very exclusive, requiring elevated language from everyone, native speaker or not. To some degree, that's why I tend to have some issues with that part of the multicultural movement that vies for inclusion of other language vernaculars in writing. If I'm not allowed to use my own vernacular in essays, I don't see why someone else should be able to just because they learned a different language first. But that can be another rant.
Though I don't see why there should have been a need for Haefner's article, I appreciate his refutation of the essay as democratic. And for those of you who want a more democratic medium of writing, join twitter or facebook, or post on youtube. Or, to borrow from Conan O'Brien, join all three, YouTwitFace!
Stupid Kids
I have noticed a definite pattern in a lot of the readings we have, but I especially recognize it with Ann Berthoff's article, "Is Teaching Still Possible?" The pattern is that the errors we see in student papers do not mean that the student is incapable of abstract thought, do not indicate that our students are stupid. I appreciate the fact that Berthoff points out that "What the child does or does not do may lok like what the incompetent or deficient or uneducated adult does or does not do, but it does not follow that the two instances are alike so far as motivation or function are concerned" (331). Admittedly, I think I have been guilty in the past of going along with so many people that apply the Piagetian models to adults. Fortunately, I can admit that I've started to learn my lesson: look for the logical (and consistent) ways that students make errors.
If nothing else, knowing that the mistakes students make are based (in large part) on logical choices rather than on carelessness, or, in extreme cases, stupidity. Granted, for my own sarcastic self, I have to admit that there are, in fact, stupid people out there, but they really are an exception. As so many of the people's articles we have read indicate, most students make errors because they are 1) applying the wrong rule at the time, 2) applying rules that they perceive from their own experience(s) with language, or 3) incorrectly applying a rule they thought their teachers taught them.
Interestingly enough, this brings me back to Patrick Hartwell's article ("Grammar, Grammars, and the Teaching of Grammar"). Connecting the Hartwell and Berthoff articles provides one more support for the notion of looking for aiding students in their work on content before even thinking about correcting grammar, spellings, etc. Granted, this means that plenty of time needs to be given for conferencing and drafting, and students need to have the opportunity to make corrections given.
I promise this is all related, and I'm going to bring it back to the title of this post. I have come to the realization that, with but rare exception, when we find stupid kids in our class, it isn't really the kids who are the stupid ones, but us, as teachers who fail to recognize the logical, intelligent patterns out students use. Even more, it is us stupid teachers who sometimes exacerbate problems by being to anal-retentive in matters of grammar and usage, especially when dealing with second language learners. The solution? Let's be stupid together, and learn from each others' mistakes.
If nothing else, knowing that the mistakes students make are based (in large part) on logical choices rather than on carelessness, or, in extreme cases, stupidity. Granted, for my own sarcastic self, I have to admit that there are, in fact, stupid people out there, but they really are an exception. As so many of the people's articles we have read indicate, most students make errors because they are 1) applying the wrong rule at the time, 2) applying rules that they perceive from their own experience(s) with language, or 3) incorrectly applying a rule they thought their teachers taught them.
Interestingly enough, this brings me back to Patrick Hartwell's article ("Grammar, Grammars, and the Teaching of Grammar"). Connecting the Hartwell and Berthoff articles provides one more support for the notion of looking for aiding students in their work on content before even thinking about correcting grammar, spellings, etc. Granted, this means that plenty of time needs to be given for conferencing and drafting, and students need to have the opportunity to make corrections given.
I promise this is all related, and I'm going to bring it back to the title of this post. I have come to the realization that, with but rare exception, when we find stupid kids in our class, it isn't really the kids who are the stupid ones, but us, as teachers who fail to recognize the logical, intelligent patterns out students use. Even more, it is us stupid teachers who sometimes exacerbate problems by being to anal-retentive in matters of grammar and usage, especially when dealing with second language learners. The solution? Let's be stupid together, and learn from each others' mistakes.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Gender
Okay, I understand the debate about the differences between men and women and how it applies to education, but like any debate there are generalizations. One statement that Flynn, in the piece Composing as a Woman, made really stuck out to me: “The mental process that are involved in considering the abstract and the impersonal have been labeled ‘thinking’ and are attributed primarily to men, while those that deal with the personal and interpersonal fall under the rubric of ‘emotions’ and are largely relegated to women” (Flynn 575). This really stuck out to me because although I am a man, I am not a very logical thinker, on the contrary, I am a very emotional thinker and will gladly admit it and I do not view women as being “emotional thinkers”.
A classic example I have of this is a prompt I’ve used in the past to get my students to engage in persuasive writing. For my ninth grade students, I would pose the prompt: “Girls are smarter than boys.” I got this idea from a female literacy coach who helps new teachers get a handle on the curriculum when I first began my career as a teacher. The responses were interesting. Typically I found that the arguments from the females were much more logical, whereas the boys’ arguments were emotional, repetitive and egotistical. I would then show each class some examples from the boys and the girls, and the boys got quite a wakeup call. Now, I do not know if feminist scholars would disapprove of this practice, but I used this exercise hoping that the boys could improve their writing by seeing a better example set by their female peers.
From my experience in public education for the past eight years, I’ve noticed that females do considerably better than males. Women fought hard for their rights and appear to have the upper-hand in some ways, but there are still differences. For example, it has been my experience that men express the emotion of anger with aggression; for example, slamming their fists on the desk of a boardroom and this is deemed acceptable; whereas, some women assert the emotion of anger with tears. For example, one time I had a student pulled outside of the classroom and I was reprimanding her for not doing her homework and doing terribly in the class, when she started crying. I asked her, “Why are you crying? Did I hurt your feelings?” She then responded, “No, I am crying because I am angry”. So men and women display emotions differently, I guess.
Perhaps the appropriate approach to take, as Flynn suggests: “We must alert our women students to the dangers of emasculation and provide them with a critical perspective. But we must also encourage them to become self-consciously aware of what their experience in the world has been and how this experience is related to the politics of gender. Then we must encourage our women students to write from the power of that experience” (583). I agree with this statement, and would hope that teachers would not insist that female students not write from such a perspective.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Myers and Haefner
Since the inception of the composition class, there has been debate on how to teach writing, and what should be included. Sometimes when I read these articles by the major players in the field (Elbow, Lunsford, Burke, etc.) I feel like I am the little kid that doesn't quite understand the argument, and even if I did try to speak up, they would probably tell me to stay out of it. Either way, I read and I have our humble blog to state my opinions and reactions to the readings.
Haefner: To keep it simple, I will cite pg 133 because it gets to the point of his argument. "I want to suggest three ways in which the personal essay can be integrated into a collaborative writing pedagogy. First, by asking students to reconstruct the cultural context in which personal essays are written. Second, by urging students to test the ethos of the rhetorical situation...Third, by asking students to examine for themselves the place of the personal essay in the university curriculum." I think these are all great suggestions to "begin a dialogue that will lead to more possibilities." This argument was inspired by an assertion that essays are accessible by all. Haefner disagrees with this notion, based on education level and socio-economic background. I agree that the essay is accessible to all is a wonderful ideal, but it is not the case. How "democratic" is the essay? I'm not really sure what Haefner is suggesting by stating the essay is 'collaborative' because that word has many connotations, especially in the teaching world. It seemed like jargon that was thrown out there (Collaborative pedagogy) but was not thoroughly explained enough.
Myers: I like that he discusses Marxism, and how "reality is always a social construction", even using Huck Finn as an example of what he means. He thoroughly set up his argument before making his point. He is trying to debunk Leonard's argument that student's must write for "the real world". But what is the real world if it is a construction? If we ask a student to write an essay about their neighborhood, and then "cut out any statements unsupported by facts" then we aren't "really learning what a place is like." The end for the professor is a more "readable" paper. However it is not reality. It is a reality through the editor's lens.
What I also find useful and interesting in this article is Bruffee's metaphor of writing as "a 'thing' someone has made, like a table or chair--something artificially designed, shaped, and put together to serve a purpose." I like that Myers thought to include this because in essence, this is what an essay is. Essays serve a purpose. Myers is also not a fan of Elbows, as he picks apart his reformist efforts by pointing out that authority is not just present in school, but in culture as well, something Elbow does not apparently take into consideration. Meyers concludes his argument by stating a request "for more skepticism about what assignments do to reproduce the structures of our society" (170).
Haefner: To keep it simple, I will cite pg 133 because it gets to the point of his argument. "I want to suggest three ways in which the personal essay can be integrated into a collaborative writing pedagogy. First, by asking students to reconstruct the cultural context in which personal essays are written. Second, by urging students to test the ethos of the rhetorical situation...Third, by asking students to examine for themselves the place of the personal essay in the university curriculum." I think these are all great suggestions to "begin a dialogue that will lead to more possibilities." This argument was inspired by an assertion that essays are accessible by all. Haefner disagrees with this notion, based on education level and socio-economic background. I agree that the essay is accessible to all is a wonderful ideal, but it is not the case. How "democratic" is the essay? I'm not really sure what Haefner is suggesting by stating the essay is 'collaborative' because that word has many connotations, especially in the teaching world. It seemed like jargon that was thrown out there (Collaborative pedagogy) but was not thoroughly explained enough.
Myers: I like that he discusses Marxism, and how "reality is always a social construction", even using Huck Finn as an example of what he means. He thoroughly set up his argument before making his point. He is trying to debunk Leonard's argument that student's must write for "the real world". But what is the real world if it is a construction? If we ask a student to write an essay about their neighborhood, and then "cut out any statements unsupported by facts" then we aren't "really learning what a place is like." The end for the professor is a more "readable" paper. However it is not reality. It is a reality through the editor's lens.
What I also find useful and interesting in this article is Bruffee's metaphor of writing as "a 'thing' someone has made, like a table or chair--something artificially designed, shaped, and put together to serve a purpose." I like that Myers thought to include this because in essence, this is what an essay is. Essays serve a purpose. Myers is also not a fan of Elbows, as he picks apart his reformist efforts by pointing out that authority is not just present in school, but in culture as well, something Elbow does not apparently take into consideration. Meyers concludes his argument by stating a request "for more skepticism about what assignments do to reproduce the structures of our society" (170).
We don't need no education, we don't need no thought control....
What has resonated most with me about Myers's article, is his criticism of a "consensus" being the driving force behind pedagogical practices in teaching English (I'm sure this applies across a number of other disciplines). "Leonard's exercises... can be seen as part of a larger effort to create consensus by eliminating or at least concealing diversity and conflict" (160). Although Leonard presented alternative theories on how literacy can be taught, I notice a contradiction in his favoring a consensus to decide what type of grammar and writing style are best. He went on to influence prominent guys like Elbow and Brufee, yet in many ways seems to have influenced Bartholomae and his posse of social constructionists. I'm not quite sure what to make of the contradictions Leonard made, but I tend to think there is always going to be a need for contradiction when trying to prepare students for the complex society we live in. I think if a teacher were to only implement Elbow's methods in a classroom, a great disservice would be committed toward students. The some goes for a completely social constructionist classroom method. A balance, which I look at as a contradiction, seems necessary to provide students with a platform capable of allowing self expression and communication considered "proper" in mainstream society. The latter is subjective, but I think we can all agree that it's important to know how to write memos, reports, emails, etc., with correct punctuation and word usage for work environments.
The Composition Reform Debate
I found Myer’s piece, Reality, Consensus, and Reform in the Rhetoric of Composition Teaching to be of interest. Currently, in my graduate studies, I’ve read quite a bit about reform and how composition instruction is not an accurate representation of society, etc… And although I agree to this point to some extent, there is another side to the story as well. Myers makes an interesting response to some of the beliefs of likes of Leonard and Dewey: “It is not the connection of business that is in itself disturbing, but the sense of the naturalness and inevitability of this connection as the one way of reaching out to the world outside the school. For Leonard, as for Dewey, to criticize the subordination of education to the needs of business and government is to fail to face reality” (446).
The later part about “fail to face reality” really stands out to me and I agree; however, I also feel that you can take a more personal, multicultural perspective with composition and achieve similar results. For my high school English classes, I have my students engage in a variety of creative/alternative types of writing that allows them to express themselves and let their voices be heard, but I also take a more structuralist approach. A good way I’ve found to do this is by finding topics of interest for students write about, that are of interest to them and take a more formal approach. For example, I often do unit on expository writing with my ninth grade students; the topic is juvenile justice. Very popular with teenagers, as you might imagine. Although the culminating writing task is formal, students are very passionate about the topic and we spend a considerable amount of time familiarizing ourselves with the justice system as it applies to juveniles. Along with the writing process, I ask students to create an advertisement advocating their position in regards to the juvenile justice debate.
So although I agree with Myers that the people involved in the education process cannot escape the realities of government and business, students can be taught to formally challenge these positions (read: democracy) while also addressing their personal ideologies and beliefs.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Computers in the Classroom...if only
I an ideal world, Lindemann's chapter "Teaching with Computers" would be read by district leaders, and then would allow English teachers to have a few computers in the classroom that are actually modern enough to for students to word process and email. Unfortunately, students in California receive the least amount of funding per student than any other state in the union. The computer in my own classroom is so old, it still has a place for large floppy disks, and no USB drive. We have one computer lab in the library, but it can not accomodate a class over 25 students. Next year, we won't even have that because our librarian recieved a lay off notice, like all librarians and computer lab teachers in the district. When assigning a paper, I have to keep in mind that 1/3 do not have a computer at home, and of the 2/3 that do, maybe 1/2 have a printer (Time for some fun with fractions!). They ask if they can bring in their USB and print in my room, but as aforementioned, my computer does not have a flash drive.
Lindemann sums up this dilemma by stating "Even the most recent studies still indicate that access to computers is inequitable. Access varies widely by socioeconomic class, with poorest students having the most limites access. Wide disparities exist among schools as well, again with underfunded schools having the worst access" (Lindemann 288). I think she summarizes what many teachers in this state feel, and leaders can not figure out why when our students enter college, they can hardly type a paper. Most still emloy the 'hunt and peck' method. Even with computer technology as advanced as it is with facebook, myspace, and YouTube, access is limited. I've actually had students type their paper on their phones and email it to me because they dont have a computer.
If we did have access, Lidnemann's ideas about prewriting and writing as a process, peer editing, and sharing work would work well, and give students a sense of pride in their writing. Typing adds a formal aspect that hand writing lacks, even if handwritning is more personal.
Lindemann sums up this dilemma by stating "Even the most recent studies still indicate that access to computers is inequitable. Access varies widely by socioeconomic class, with poorest students having the most limites access. Wide disparities exist among schools as well, again with underfunded schools having the worst access" (Lindemann 288). I think she summarizes what many teachers in this state feel, and leaders can not figure out why when our students enter college, they can hardly type a paper. Most still emloy the 'hunt and peck' method. Even with computer technology as advanced as it is with facebook, myspace, and YouTube, access is limited. I've actually had students type their paper on their phones and email it to me because they dont have a computer.
If we did have access, Lidnemann's ideas about prewriting and writing as a process, peer editing, and sharing work would work well, and give students a sense of pride in their writing. Typing adds a formal aspect that hand writing lacks, even if handwritning is more personal.
Monday, April 18, 2011
Social-epistemic rhetoric
"It [writing] is an art, a creative act in which the process-the discovery of the true self-is as important as the product-the self discovered and expressed" Pg. 485 I found myself torn between Berlin's descriptions of expressionistic rhetoric and social-epistemic rhetoric because there were things I liked about in both. I liked the focus on the individual subject and the romantic beliefs that Berlin attributed to expressionistic rhetoric because they "argued for the inherent goodness of the individual, a goodness distorted by excessive contact with others in groups and institutions" (484). I interpret expressionistic rhetoric as more self-centered and focused on the individual writer than the other two Berlin discusses. More power and control seems to be attributed to the individual rather than to the groups to which they belong therefore in writing less attention is paid to the audience. Writing is seen more as an individual act of self-exploration rather than a collective one in which the audience dictates the process. Though I like the focus on the individual that expressionistic rhetoric embodies I also like social-epistemic rhetoric because it focuses on the relationship between the individual and group as the producer of knowledge. The notion of knowledge as a "historically bound social fabrication" was the most intriguing part of social-epistemic rhetoric for me because it is similar to my own thinking concerning the topic as individually defined and subjective rather than concrete. Also the idea that there is no universal self and further that the self is the product of their place in history, I sympathized with because it does acknowledge the effect of the group on the individual that we cannot escape. "As Marx indicated, we make our own histories, but we do not make them just as we wish" (489).
Finding the Balance Part II
**Not sure where we are in the reading...but I decided to write about the Berlin article "Rhetoric and Ideology in the Writing Class."
After reading this article, I found myself questioning the same aspects of teaching that I did when I took Sherman's Alternative Discourse course (the course number escapes me at the moment). Within his class, the discussions of Elbow and the importance of a student's voice left me in a quandary as I struggled to connect some of the aspects to my own reality, my classroom, my kids.
As I was reading the article, Berlin discusses in the section "Cognitive Rhetoric" the development of this pedagogy, the study of the processes of writing, rather than the mere product of writing. Teachers should analyze, develop, hone in on the mental processes that produce good writing. We cannot merely look at the final piece, without developing and teaching the processes which lead to it. As much of these ideas coincided with my own teaching practices, I came to a sudden reality when he states "that the cognitive skills leading to success may be the product of the experiences of a particular social class rather than the perfecting of inherent mental structures, skills encourage because they serve the interest of a ruling economic elit, is never considered in the "scientific" investigation of the mind" (483). How alarming!! The brute reality of our education stated in one sentence. Is the ultimate outcome of our teaching, the result of a system that has been in play by the elite? I often tell my students, "You will need this in college," "We need to go over this because it is one of the standards," "You will be tested on this later on." Although I know the system that is in play right now is one that I grew up with, one that I teach, and one that I am too am forcing on my students, but does it make it the most effective? Are we losing the voice of the students to make sure they conform to a rigid educational system that has lost its original intention?
As I read further, the next section discusses "Expressionistic Rhetoric," I am confronted with the idea that "Power is a product of a configuration involving the individual and her encounter with the world...realizing one's unique voice"(486). Sounds like a bunch of fluff to me...but is it? Are students becoming more apathetic because they must follow all the rules and "expectations" set by standardized testing and the public educational system. Aren't teachers losing their same voice due to the same issues? To continue, Berlin states that this rhetoric "includes a denunciation of economic, political, and social pressures to conform--to engage in various forms" (486). It seems as though these two could be at opposite ends of the pole of public education.
In taking these rhetoric and comp classes over the last year or two, I have noticed that my own theories of rhetoric have taken a spin. Although I have no answers or solutions, I have come to realize that both of these aspects are important in the classroom, for both student and teacher. We cannot become the robots and followers of a system which has taken some of the voice from our own teaching pedagogy, instead we need to find that balance where we incorporate the "ruling economic elite" and the "individual self expression" that Berlin discusses. They are not that far from one another as long as we are creative and realize that we are not teaching to conform to a system of rules, but to teach and empower the students within our classroom.
After reading this article, I found myself questioning the same aspects of teaching that I did when I took Sherman's Alternative Discourse course (the course number escapes me at the moment). Within his class, the discussions of Elbow and the importance of a student's voice left me in a quandary as I struggled to connect some of the aspects to my own reality, my classroom, my kids.
As I was reading the article, Berlin discusses in the section "Cognitive Rhetoric" the development of this pedagogy, the study of the processes of writing, rather than the mere product of writing. Teachers should analyze, develop, hone in on the mental processes that produce good writing. We cannot merely look at the final piece, without developing and teaching the processes which lead to it. As much of these ideas coincided with my own teaching practices, I came to a sudden reality when he states "that the cognitive skills leading to success may be the product of the experiences of a particular social class rather than the perfecting of inherent mental structures, skills encourage because they serve the interest of a ruling economic elit, is never considered in the "scientific" investigation of the mind" (483). How alarming!! The brute reality of our education stated in one sentence. Is the ultimate outcome of our teaching, the result of a system that has been in play by the elite? I often tell my students, "You will need this in college," "We need to go over this because it is one of the standards," "You will be tested on this later on." Although I know the system that is in play right now is one that I grew up with, one that I teach, and one that I am too am forcing on my students, but does it make it the most effective? Are we losing the voice of the students to make sure they conform to a rigid educational system that has lost its original intention?
As I read further, the next section discusses "Expressionistic Rhetoric," I am confronted with the idea that "Power is a product of a configuration involving the individual and her encounter with the world...realizing one's unique voice"(486). Sounds like a bunch of fluff to me...but is it? Are students becoming more apathetic because they must follow all the rules and "expectations" set by standardized testing and the public educational system. Aren't teachers losing their same voice due to the same issues? To continue, Berlin states that this rhetoric "includes a denunciation of economic, political, and social pressures to conform--to engage in various forms" (486). It seems as though these two could be at opposite ends of the pole of public education.
In taking these rhetoric and comp classes over the last year or two, I have noticed that my own theories of rhetoric have taken a spin. Although I have no answers or solutions, I have come to realize that both of these aspects are important in the classroom, for both student and teacher. We cannot become the robots and followers of a system which has taken some of the voice from our own teaching pedagogy, instead we need to find that balance where we incorporate the "ruling economic elite" and the "individual self expression" that Berlin discusses. They are not that far from one another as long as we are creative and realize that we are not teaching to conform to a system of rules, but to teach and empower the students within our classroom.
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Zoning Out
So far, I’ve hated the articles we’ve had to read. I enjoyed reading about the imagined audience and about teacher comments, but the Braddock and Rose article have discouraged me from wanting to read the other remaining articles. The Berlin article, “Rhetoric and Ideology in the Writing Class,” fascinated me and made me want to read more on ideology. I believe this was mainly the case because I enjoy reading up on philosophical arguments and the discussions that precede them. In this particular piece, the topics that Berlin addresses are quite interesting. Yet, the notion that individuals should find self-fulfillment through buying commodities shocked me (488). I mean, he’s writing this in a section where he is stating that one should find one’s voice and overcome the rule of the elite, this then makes no sense. Because by feeding into one dimension of society, the individual only finds false fulfillment that helps keep the ruling elite’s position. But aside from this rant on that portion, I think that we as college students and teachers already know that we are in ideology and that everything is ideological. It seems that he’s trying to promote an awareness of the Marxist class system in students, when it isn’t all that necessary. Students become aware of these things on their own ie. why the little girl across the street got the newest Barbie doll and I didn’t. As these children grow up, they are presented with notions of Marx in school and do not need to be pressed with such issues in an English class. The Braddock article, “The Frequency and Placement of Topic Sentences in Expository Prose,” was a difficult read. I found it hard to finish because it was a study that took place and I’m not all that interested in the data, I’m more of a content and analysis type and having to read all of the steps and procedures was quite tedious. I found the findings and the implications for the teachers kind of redundant because I think most of us teachers are aware of these things. When Braddock says that teachers shouldn’t stress that ‘professional writers” have their topic sentences in the beginning of a paragraph, as his only true finding…. Well this to me, seemed kind of dumb . I mean you performed this study only to find out that everyone has a unique writing style and that not everyone follows the rules., this was disheartening to read because I already knew this. As for the Rose article, “Narrowing the Mind and Page: Remedial Writers and Cognitive Reductionism,” this one was just too long! The analyses of the tests were interesting, but just too tedious as well. I hope that the remaining articles are shorter than this one because I will surely be losing focus as I read and will definitely fall behind on my reading especially with the two last assignments coming up. Rose, I understand, is writing for a journal and the more thorough her analysis is, the more credibility it will be granted. But for a student reading it, I must confess that I zoned-out many times.
A Collaboration
In reading Lindemann's "Teaching Writing with Computers," she states "Most writing today requires that students apply both language and technology skills as they arrange ideas to communicate successfully" (280). Computers definitely provide a resource that is invaluable, because it allows the student to quickly refer to online sources such as: Purdue Owl in order to look at practical examples of mechanics, MLA format, and how to develop a thesis. Although computers have proven to be a beneficial resource, it does not arrange ideas for the student. I would incorporate technology into my teaching by presenting the computer's use as a tool in order to enhance student writing, but the writer (the student) still composes the text. An example would be the doctoral student I have been working with. According to the comments by her professor, she has problems with comma use, run-on, and fragmented sentences. We looked at some examples in one of her previous papers, while also referring to Purdue Owl for practical examples of "Comma Use." In this case, by using technology, the student was able to recognize pitfalls in her writing regarding comma use, in order to draft her next paper where she made a few, but not nearly as many mistakes that she had previously made. Writing is never replaced by technology, but the balance and collaboration between the two aids in the construction of enhanced composition. In the process of writing these blogs, I am learning more about what my teaching philosophy is. In the area of teaching writing with computers, I see the student as the ultimate navigator in the composing process. Understanding how to use technology usefully will save the writer time, and produce confidence when revising. We live in an age where technology is at our fingertips, but it is my conviction that successful composition begins with the writers' knowledge of understanding first, how to compose. Composition is a process, one where computers do not provide a quick fix. Walt Whitman says it best: "The secret of it all, is to write in the gush, the throb, the flood, of the moment--to put things down without deliberation--without worrying about their style--without waiting for a fit time or place. I always worked that way. I took the first scrap of paper, the first doorstep, the first desk, and wrote--wrote, wrote...By writing at the instant the very heartbeat of life is caught."
Multiculturalism Contact Zones
I found these readings to be of interest and of importance due to the multicultural circumstances that represent our society. In particular, I would like to focus on Bizzell, her approach to this concept is a more, historical approach: “For example, the New England region from about 1600 to about 1800 might be defined as a contact zone in which different groups of Europeans and Native Americans were struggling for the power to say what had happened in their relations with each other” (483). Bizzell, then goes on to suggest that providing students with the opposing literary/ideological point of view from a said historical period of time provides a less canonized view of the work and a way to look at different rhetorical positions as they apply to the political context of the time period.
I use a similar context in my classroom, and as Bizzzell suggests, then apply these theories to writing. For example, for an AP Literature course that I teach, I take the historical approach and look at colonialism. For this approach I ask the students to read Heart of Darkness, Things Fall Apart and Poisonwood Bible. These texts all have a different perspective in regards to the history of the colonization of Africa. After the students do a close reading of each book, while writing responses to the texts in their reading journals, I ask them to write compare and contrast essays in regards to colonialism, obviously constructing their own opinions and beliefs about the situation. Perhaps Bizzell would consider this to be an example of a “contact zone”.
Another point that stood out to me is her idea that “[u]nder the new paradigm, there would be no need for two separate courses. The abilities needed both to enter literary studies and to refine one’s own writing would be the skills of analyzing imitating rhetorical arts of the contact zone” (485). This point stood out to me because Bizwell is making the claim that literature and composition do not need to be separate entities, as they intend to seem when one looks at a course catalogue for college level English courses. I my mind, the two are interchangeable and should be looked at in this regard when it comes to teaching composition. Writing, after all, in the academic context, is an analysis of said study materials, where students then form, express and defend their own position on the subject at hand. At least, in my humble opinion.
Does School Really Suck?
Although everyone's experience with school differ, I HATED high school and would never wish to go back to that place of magnified emotions and social awkwardness. It is ironic that I now teach at a high school, but never mind that. As a teen, it wasn't that my classes sucked; I enjoyed the academic challenge, even if my writing was mercilessly picked apart, and I was never formally taught how to write. There was this baseless assumption that if you are in honors and AP, you knew how to write and knew grammar. So I learned through trial and error. I tried something, the teacher didnt like it, so I tried something else. What sucked in high school was the social aspect. In college, school never sucked. If I had a professor I didnt like, I would just shop around for one I did like (This was back in the day before budget cuts when you could choose between 10 sections of the same class). I could pick when I wanted to go to class, and it didnt matter who you were in high school because most people you encounter in college, you don't know anyway.
Of all the articles I have read in grad school (too many), Johnson's "School Sucks" is by far my favorite, even if toward the end things got a little freaky with the S&M masochistic talk. I enjoyed his prose, his anecdotes, and everything led to a broader point about composition and discourse. There is a lot to say here, so I will begin with the heading Pleasure, Process, Professionalization. Just as I mentioned in the previous writing, if a student hates to write, it shows in his/her writing and it will be difficult for him/her to get better. Johnson correlates Gorgias with this: "Before a student can learn to persuade an audience about anything, the student must first learn to enjoy composing, to generate a rigorous, positive excitement around the task of rhetorical action" (Johnson 626). Easier said than done. Motivating a student to write is so difficult. At the college level, its not much different, you just have a more willing participant in the "this is a bull shit paper" game. If writing assignments could be more practical and applicable, I think we could generate some excitment about writing.
Johnson expounds on "magical rhetoric", which I find interesting. He states "And herein lies the paradox that perhaps divides our field at its very heart: The enthusiasm and pleasure, the 'sensational rush' that colored our profession when it first began to form are, in a very real sense, unprofessional." I agree, and it sucks. Writing should be enjoyable. When it is enjoyable, it is real, and that authenticity in voice comes out. It is not stiff and fake.
"Renegade rhetorics offer us a shiny renewal, a transfusion of fresh vitality" (Johnson 631). Traditional versus non-traditional has been a long-standing battle for awhile. I have had to read traditional literary critics who, although informative, has the effect of popping a muscle relaxer: I just want to take a nap. I have to wade through the formal prose and discourse, and re-read several words that don't necessarily supply a 'better' connotation, if only to sound more pretentious. This is just want Johnson believes: We have 'demonized' the renogade, and "in doing so, we have not simply diminished the pleasures of awakening literacy but have linked the experience, perhaps indelibly, to pain" (JOhnson 632). Yes we have! Why do certain literary articles have to be so boring and painful to read? Please assume if I am an English major and well-read, I have read the same novels, poems, and stories as the critics, and perhaps enjoy and appreciate them. Scholars, please don't criticize them in a discourse that makes me wish I had never read the book in the first place if only to avoid having to read a certain criticism that probably contains important information, but is just so painful to read, I won't pay attention, and will dread having to incorporate it into an essay.
Lastly, Johnson writes that students avoid revision in their writing because "revision constitutes a kind of 'deathwork'--that is, the act of dismantling and reconsidering an essay runs perilously close to the act of dismantling that fragile scaffolding of experiences, identifications, and beliefs we conjure and sustain as self" (Johnson 643). While many of students do not revise because they are just lazy (the admit this themselves), many might not be revising because they think what they have turned in already constitutes a 'good' paper and they don't see the need to revise. By revising, they are invalidating their work. I'm not sure how to dissuade them of this belief.
Of all the articles I have read in grad school (too many), Johnson's "School Sucks" is by far my favorite, even if toward the end things got a little freaky with the S&M masochistic talk. I enjoyed his prose, his anecdotes, and everything led to a broader point about composition and discourse. There is a lot to say here, so I will begin with the heading Pleasure, Process, Professionalization. Just as I mentioned in the previous writing, if a student hates to write, it shows in his/her writing and it will be difficult for him/her to get better. Johnson correlates Gorgias with this: "Before a student can learn to persuade an audience about anything, the student must first learn to enjoy composing, to generate a rigorous, positive excitement around the task of rhetorical action" (Johnson 626). Easier said than done. Motivating a student to write is so difficult. At the college level, its not much different, you just have a more willing participant in the "this is a bull shit paper" game. If writing assignments could be more practical and applicable, I think we could generate some excitment about writing.
Johnson expounds on "magical rhetoric", which I find interesting. He states "And herein lies the paradox that perhaps divides our field at its very heart: The enthusiasm and pleasure, the 'sensational rush' that colored our profession when it first began to form are, in a very real sense, unprofessional." I agree, and it sucks. Writing should be enjoyable. When it is enjoyable, it is real, and that authenticity in voice comes out. It is not stiff and fake.
"Renegade rhetorics offer us a shiny renewal, a transfusion of fresh vitality" (Johnson 631). Traditional versus non-traditional has been a long-standing battle for awhile. I have had to read traditional literary critics who, although informative, has the effect of popping a muscle relaxer: I just want to take a nap. I have to wade through the formal prose and discourse, and re-read several words that don't necessarily supply a 'better' connotation, if only to sound more pretentious. This is just want Johnson believes: We have 'demonized' the renogade, and "in doing so, we have not simply diminished the pleasures of awakening literacy but have linked the experience, perhaps indelibly, to pain" (JOhnson 632). Yes we have! Why do certain literary articles have to be so boring and painful to read? Please assume if I am an English major and well-read, I have read the same novels, poems, and stories as the critics, and perhaps enjoy and appreciate them. Scholars, please don't criticize them in a discourse that makes me wish I had never read the book in the first place if only to avoid having to read a certain criticism that probably contains important information, but is just so painful to read, I won't pay attention, and will dread having to incorporate it into an essay.
Lastly, Johnson writes that students avoid revision in their writing because "revision constitutes a kind of 'deathwork'--that is, the act of dismantling and reconsidering an essay runs perilously close to the act of dismantling that fragile scaffolding of experiences, identifications, and beliefs we conjure and sustain as self" (Johnson 643). While many of students do not revise because they are just lazy (the admit this themselves), many might not be revising because they think what they have turned in already constitutes a 'good' paper and they don't see the need to revise. By revising, they are invalidating their work. I'm not sure how to dissuade them of this belief.
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