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.

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.

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.

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:

...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.

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.

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.

"'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.

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!

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

A Rose, A Flower, and a Hayes

Only a graduate student can be excited about a week off from work (Spring Break), not for a vacation, but to get caught up with reading and homework. Instead of a beach, pina coladas, and wet t-shit contests, I am sitting at my local Starbucks surrounded by yuppies and their bratty, screaming children. However, the Starbucks has free Internet, its air conditioned, and I don't have the distraction of TiVo or the beach across the street. So get ready for the epic power-blogging of Ashley Tucker!

Beginning with the Rose article: I found his discourse to be enjoyably sarcastic when trying to prove researchers wrong. I agree with him when he argues there is no correlation between how someone perceives a frame and a rod and their ability to write. That is perception, not writing. The study led up to this assertion, which I both agree and disagree with: "If a student can't structure an essay or take a story apart in the way we've been trained to do, current trends in cognitive research would suggest that her difficulties have more to do with limited opportunity to build up a rich network of discourse knowledge and strategy than with some general difference or deficit in her ability to structure or analyze experience" (Rose 275).

The part I agree with: A student's problem with structuring and analyzing writing has a lot to do with the lack of 'discourse knowledge', i.e. Reading. Perhaps students at the college level are slightly more inclined to read, but my experience at the secondary level tells me that my students reading interests is limited to text messages riddled with slang and video game directions. It is tried, true, researched and proven that the more someone reads, the better they write. Read more, write better. Language and Linguistics 101: We internalize what we read, and when we write we draw upon that knowledge. If our students don't (or won't) read, we can not expect them to have the discourse experience to draw from when they write.

The part I disagree with: There is a LOT of opportunity to build of discourse knowledge, most students just don't take the time to read. As far as the ability to structure and analyze their experience, this can be taught. So if this is the reason they can't structure or analyze writing, have the student's read more, and then write about what they read. This can be formal writing (yuck) or the form of a dialectical journal. I like the latter of the two because the student can pick the quote and then show that he/she actually understands it.

Flower and Hayes: Ok, I hate articles that try to dissect the writing process and turn it into something that can be charted, studied, and used to tell people they suck at writing because this study says so. Writing is organic. I believe you are either a good writer or a bad writer. There are studies that want to pick apart at why, but some people just hate to write. Some people like to write. There are hope for people who like to write to improve. I don't have research or studies to back this up, but with my students, this theory seems true.

So Flower and Hayes have this multi-step process to writing they claim writers go through. I don't do half of those steps in my own writing, and I consider my writing to be above-average. Maybe not excellent, but readable and maybe even enjoyable. One thing I did find interesting, however, was the section on goal-setting. "Poor writers will frequently depend on very abstract, underdeveloped goals...basic writers search for ready made goals instead of making their own" (Hayes 379). I have two types of students: The poor writers who read the assignment one time and assume they "get it" and the basic writers who read it 20 times and then ask, "What do you want me to write?" I also agree with Flowers and Hayes when they assert a writer's plan and goals, knowledge of the topic, and current text "are all competing for the writer's attention". Solution? Learn how to focus on the goal that is important, and go back to the less important goals later. Don't juggle the goals, but address them individually, then as a whole. High-level goal first, then the other goals.

"Like A 'Bridge Over Troubled Water'"

I don't know if I'm ahead or behind with the reading, so I'll just comment on the most recent article I've read, coauthored by Linda Flower and John R. Hayes entitled, "A Cognitive Process Theory of Writing" (1981).

In it, they theorize, via "protocol analysis" (366 & 368), that our traditional understanding of the composing process is ultimately lacking . That is, Flower and Hayes argue that the old linear and sequential model of describing and explaining composition, characterized by clearly delineated and therefore easily identifiable stages in the writing process, does little to help us identify, describe, and explain the cognitive processes that spur the decisions writers make and the subsequent actions they take as they negotiate their way over and across the troubled waters of discourse by building bridges of understanding via meaning-making, bridges we call compositions.

So how is Flower's and Hayes' theoretical bridge built? Well, presumably the foundations are laid first, so foremost is the principle that "[w]riting is best understood as a set of distinctive thinking processes which writers orchestrate or organize during the act of composing" (366). So, rather than a series of sequential stages, each evidenced by some concrete, identifiable act, writing really involves, according to Flowers and Hayes, a complex series of interrelated cognitive iterations, thus leading us to lay the cornerstone of their theory which states that "[t]he processes of writing are hierarchically organized, with component processes embedded within other [component processes]" (375). With the foundation firmly laid and the cornerstone set in place, we can now put the "keystone" securely in place, that "proposition" whereby composition is seen as "a goal-directed process[, where,] in the act of composing, writers create a hierarchical network of goals and [that] these in turn [further] guide the writing process" (377).

As the keystone of their theory, this proposition is essential, according to Flowers and Hayes, to our understanding of the compositional process, for it describes and explains how writers generate ideas towards further composition, thus generating even more ideas, ultimately leading to the construction of a bridge that effectively responds to any given "rhetorical situation" (365), but before it can do that, the fourth procedure must be identified and realized through the recognition that "[w]riters create their own goals in two ways: by generating goals and supporting sub-goals which embody a purpose; and, at times, by changing or regenerating their own top-level goals in light of what they have learned [during the composition process]" (381). That is, by exploring and consolidating new ideas, stating and developing those same ideas, then writing and regenerating them (382-386, passim), writers are better able to "translate" (373-374, passim) the meanings that they're trying to make.

So, like a bridge over troubled water, this composition theory bridges the gap in our knowledge and understanding that lies between the "venerable tradition in rhetoric and composition which sees the composition process as a series of decisions and choices" on the one hand, and the answer to the question: "What guides the decisions writers make [...]?" (365) on the other.

"Sail on Silver Girl,/Sail on by..."

Guerilla Pettifogging

Title has nothing to do with post...just happened to be my favorite line from the reading.

Sometimes reading these articles makes me feel like a bad teacher. I rarely agonize over whether or not my essay topics are democratic and I don't spend a ton of time creating lessons that will buck the oppressive establishment. My feeling on personal essays is that they are personal essays. They have a place in the curriculum because they are different from other types of essays and students benefit from learning and practicing as many forms of writing as possible. They aren't inherently democratic (or inherently undemocratic) any more than much-maligned rhetoric is inherently empty and manipulative. As for The Man, I'm not totally convinced that it's my place to lead my students in revolt against Him. Not say that I am politically or socially complacent or that I encourage my kids to be, either. But to campaign against conventional dogma in my classroom is simply to campaign for unconventional dogma and I'm not sure classrooms are an appropriate forum for any dogma at all. I think the better way to view a classroom is as a forum for exposing students to the changing Establishment throughout history, for discussing ways people have challenged that establishment and to what effect, and for providing students with the tools they need to do some challenging of their own, if they should ever choose to.

To end, my usual complaint: neither author of either article has "specific new ideas for what we should do Monday morning" (Meyers 170). I acknowledge the necessity of recognizing and articulating problems in education (or wherever), but it ultimately feels an awful lot like simple complaining if it isn't accompanied by some course of action. I liked what Meyers had to say about teachers noticing their roles in the perpetuation (or not) of current social structures. I think it's great to be aware. But to what practical action should this awareness lead? How would Meyers suggest this awareness be reflected in, say, a lesson on mood in poetry? The uses of a comma?

Berlin + Berlin

Yes, I know I am behind on Blogging. Teaching really does take up all of your time. Anyway, I will attempt to expound on Berlin circa 1982, and Berlin circa 1988. In Major Pedagogical Theories, Berlin discusses New Rhetoric in detail. In summary, knowledge "is not a retrievable entity" and there is a denial "that truth is discoverable in sense impression since data must always be interpreted to have meaning." So without language, there is no knowledge. On the most basic level, that is true. Without language we could not communicate orally or in writing. Not to propose a syllogism, but if there is no language, are there no lies or an 'un-truth'? Something might be false such as the sky is green and your skin is purple, but without language, it can not be lie? True language is the way to articulate knowledge and truths, but before language there were truths and knowledge...just not written or told. Sorry to take the opposing side, I just like poking holes in things. I also get immense gratification out of popping holes in packing bubbles.

I think I will just stick to something I can agree with in this article, which is "in teaching writing we are tacitly teaching a version of reality and the student's place and mode of operation in it" (Berlin 766). I will buy a ticket for that train ride. Writing is a reality, and I mean that on several levels. I suppose I am somewhat of a Platonic Expressionist, according to Berlin, since I agree with his sources that "all good writing is personal, whether is be an abstract essay or a private letter...justification for writing is to sound the depths, to explore, to discover." Academic discourse does not and should not make readers want to take a nap. Someone said it has to be impersonal to be credible, and it sucks. Bring personality back into it, while still adhering to the principles of argument and making a point, and you have something people actually want to read.

Okay, Berlin II. Best quote in the article is on page 483: "The purpose of writing is to create commodified text (see Clines) that belongs to the individual and has exchange value--just as the end of corporate activity is to create privately-owned profit." While I do not know if I am entirely comfortable comparing my writing to something for profit, I agree with the metaphor. When we write, it does become a currency in a sense. Unless writing in a journal, we write and then send it out into the world to be read, criticized, and judged. It has the ability to anger, inspire, bring joy, or make someone laugh. It can enlighten and change a mind about an issue. Or confirm what one already believes. It is, indeed, our intellectual property to be picked through, bought, sold or traded by our reader.

My first thought as I was reading through "A Cognitive Process Theory of Writing" was whether or not the writer whose process was transcribed in the article (383-385) was on drugs while writing. How did those thoughts ever turn into a coherent piece of writing? Does everyone think like that when they're just beginning to address a rhetorical problem? Have I been doing something wrong all this time, simply because my prewriting thoughts make logical sense? Maybe that's why I've never found prewriting all that useful. I like to talk to someone to generate ideas, but the ideas that I generate tend to come out in fully-formed, coherent sentences which can then be inserted without much extra thought into my essay/story/whatever.

That craziness aside, I have to say that I think this cognitive process theory of writing favors a particular type of student. A student like myself, actually. A student like many of us in this class. A student who already knows how to think and can juggle several writing tasks at the same time. "Common sense" tells us that these sort of skilled writers "are constantly planning (pre-writing) and revising (re-writing) as they compose (write)" (367). The problem, of course, is that most of my sophomores are not skilled writers. They don't necessarily even know what planning, revising, and composing mean, let alone what kind of work the various processes entail or how to perform said work. So while I might be fairly easily able to define a rhetorical problem and plan, translate, and revise my text all in the space of a single high school class period, most of my students would still be struggling to form a thesis statement at the end of their first paragraph as the bell was ringing.

I think that the stage model of writing must be relied on, to a certain extent, until writers have learned how to think and how to juggle the cognitive processes on their own. I think of the stage model as a kind of prompting. I would never suggest to a student that a pre-writing activity like word webbing is going to give him ALL the fodder he needs to write a paper, but I'm still going to ask him to do the word webbing so that he has SOME fodder to start arranging into an essay format.

Thank you "professionals." You opened my eyes.

I’ve been a student now for long time (and what I mean by “student” is a person who sits in a classroom and is lectured by a “professional” in a particular field). I don’t remember too much about high school papers I wrote. I’m not sure if that’s a good or bad thing, but in college alone I’ve written countless reports ranging from Alex’s societal issues in A Clockwork Orange, to Aeneas’s importance to the Roman Empire and the everlasting acronym SPQR (Senatus Populusque Romanus - The Senate and Roman People), to Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. On the vast majority of papers I got back, comments made on them by professors/instructors were of no use to me. It didn’t matter what subject I’d written about, most of the time I couldn’t understand what their remarks meant, and, therefore, couldn’t improve drafts or my writing style to perform better on term papers and in-class assignments. I was resigned to believe that teachers’ comments on papers were supposed to be ambiguous and contradictory, and that it was a good thing for teachers to, as Sommers states in “Responding to Student Writing”, hold “a license for vagueness while the student is commanded to be specific” (153). I recall getting papers back with comments like “detail needed,” “what does this mean?,” and my personal favorite “too wordy.” This last one was most paradoxical because it would sometimes be followed by a statement like “elaborate.” I would read “detail needed” and ask myself “why?” I’d be stumped by the request to shorten my sentences and ideas while at the same time elaborate. After discussing methods of teaching and grading in class, after analyzing the responses of “professionals” in The Twelve Readers’ Responses, I’ve come to a better understanding of how to comment on student papers.

Why the United States Is Destroying Its Education System

A column by Chris Hedges. Comment is invited.

"We spurn real teachers—those with the capacity to inspire children to think, those who help the young discover their gifts and potential—and replace them with instructors who teach to narrow, standardized tests. These instructors obey. They teach children to obey. And that is the point. The No Child Left Behind program, modeled on the "Texas Miracle," is a fraud. It worked no better than our deregulated financial system. But when you shut out debate these dead ideas are self-perpetuating."

Lousy Beatniks

While reading about expressionistic rhetoric in Berlin's Rhetoric and Ideology in the Writing Class, I found myself thinking, "Wow, this sounds like a bunch of hippies came up with it." And sure enough, a couple sentences later, I'm reading that the major proponents came during the 60s and 70s. Not that I have anything particularly against hippies--my parents were of that generation, so I would be a rather ungrateful child to find too much fault with some of the ideas that came from that time period. I am glad that, as Berlin puts it, "This more extreme form of political activism in the classroom was harshly criticized by the moderate wing of the expressionist camp."

Reading through the Berlin piece as a whole, I find myself thinking a lot about where I fall in the various camps. More often than not, I find I am like a connoisseur of wines--purchasing what I like and leaving the rest. Consequently, I can't say that I belong to any one particular school of thought. Certainly there are times I fall more in line with one than the other. For instance, I tend to follow Elbow much more than Bartholomae, mostly because I feel Bartholomae follows traditional methods of instruction to a degree I find ineffective. However, I feel that for as "moderate" as Elbow might be, he takes notions of expressionistic rhetoric farther than I think they need to be taken.

So when it comes to Berlin's article, I really don't have an issue with saying that writing can be "scientific," that said science is influenced by ideology, and that power, indeed, comes from within. I don't find these ideas at all contradictory, though I am sure others might disagree. If, then, I am given a choice between hippies and scientists, I think I'll opt for the art-loving dabbler in science.

The Mystery of Topic Sentences

In reading Richard Braddock "The Frequency and Placement of Topic Sentences in Expository Prose," he presents a study which indicates that the frequency of topic sentences in expository prose, is not so frequent at all. Braddock states, "While helping students use clear topic sentences in their writing and identify variously presented topical idea in their reading, the teacher should not pretend that professional writers largely follow the practices he is advocating" (310). I think this is interesting because from the moment that I began to take English composition courses, it has been drilled into my head that each paragraph must contain a topic sentence. I have always wondered how this can be true. For instance, you many have a topic sentence in the first line of a new paragraph, but perhaps your topic overflows into multiple paragraphs, where you need to transition, then the question becomes is the topic sentence something that instructor like to see, that has been taught to them, or is it really useful to teach students that every new paragraph needs an initial topic sentence. Braddock addresses this rule by citing Gorrell and Laird: Most paragraphs focus on a central idea or unifying device expressed in topical material. Occasionally this topical material is complex, involving more than one sentence and some subtopics; sometimes it carries over from a previous paragraph and is assumed to be understood or is referred to briefly; but usually it simply takes the form of a sentence, sometimes amplified or made more specific in a sentence or two following it (Gorrell and Laird, p.25) Although I do not agree that each paragraph needs a topic sentence, I do believe that each paragraph which presents a new idea should have a topic sentence. My belief is that writers get into this mode of writing where everything must be universal, such as the five paragraph essay. These confinements could possibly limit the writer, in producing a great body of work. Yes, structure is needed in composition, but I think readers and writers can become too legalistic, and we miss out on great prose. As a future educator, I will teach the topic sentence to my students, but not to the extent in which it is taught today. I do not agree that every paragraph needs a topic sentence, nor does that sentence need to come at the beginning of the paragraph. I want to give my students every opportunity to compose without overwhelming them with all the rules and regulations of writing that have been imposed by men. Basically, the topic sentence is helpful in guiding the reader through the paper, but in my opinion, it should not define the heart of the paper, if it is missing.

A Cognitive Look at the Writing Process

I found the readings for this week to be of interest, in particular, the pieces which examine the cognitive process as it applies to composition. I would like begin with Flowers and Hayes piece, A Cognitive Process Theory of Writing. It appears to me that these scholars are challenging the standard way to look at the writing process. For example, when composing an essay the student should pre-write/outline, write a first draft and then revise the writing. According to these theorists, the writing process is by no means so linear and I agree with this assertion. Flowers and Hayes believe that ‘[w]riting is a goal-oriented process… People start out writing without knowing exactly where they will end up; yet they agree that writing is a purposeful act” (377). Good writing, as it appears these two are suggesting, makes discoveries. They go on to suggest that “[p]oor writers will frequently depend on very abstract, undeveloped top-level goals” (379). This statement reminds of the results I saw from an essay that I just finished grading for my ninth grade students.

For the assignment (a transition between a unit about poetry to the reading of The Odyssey), I asked the student to write a compare/contrast essay about two poems about Helen of Troy. The first poem, To Helen by Edgar Allen Poe, is essentially a love letter to Helen; whereas, the other poem, Helen by Hilda Doolittle, makes Helen out to be a plague on Greece. For the essay, the students were expected to compare and contrast the poet’s ‘portraits” of Helen using poetic elements such as alliteration, diction, metaphor, form, etc… to analyze the differences between the two poems. Students, who struggled with the essay, attempted to write beyond their capabilities. Basically, their goals were not realistic. I advised students who were being overly sophisticated, to spend more time analyzing the poem as opposed to critiquing Helen’s role in Greek history. In other cases, I saw students who were talking about how the form of the poems influenced the meaning, but provided no examples from the poems to properly illustrate the claims they were making. Perhaps, this is an example how “very abstract, undeveloped top-level goals” (377) hinders the composition process for students.

I wonder how Mike Rose would respond to all of this. In his piece, Narrowing the Mind and Page: Remedial Writers and Cognitive Reductionism Rose challenges cognitive development theories from the likes of theorists like Piaget. Rose appears to be arguing that the research regarding students lacking cognitive abilities, especially to composition process, is biased and ignore the social, political and social implications influencing control groups responses to research which studies cognitive abilities. Furthermore, Rose feels that cognitive research finding raise further questions because students were often blindly tested. A psychologist named Donaldson, challenge some of Piaget’s findings by “provid[ing] a chance for the children to get familiar with the tasks, and rephrase instructions to make sure children understand what is being asked”. Not surprisingly, [c]hildren in these conditions end up performing remarkably better on the tasks” (284). This finding made me think about the dreaded standardized testing process. Students, who have very little education in their homes or community, typically perform inadequately on mandated state assessments in public schools; however, these tests are not an accurate reflection of their cognitive abilities as it is in a context that they are not familiar with. This is the point that Rose appears to be making, that cognitive theory is not the best frame of reference to use when addressing the composition process for remedial students. Essentially, Rose appears to feel that the cognitive approach to writing is too narrow because cognitive process research does not represent students from marginalized parts of society, rather it uses the status quo to determine what patterns of thoughts and actions best solve problems, but the status quo has a different set of social, political and historical circumstances surrounding their thought process; hence, those who do have difficulties are being ignored in the field of cognitive research and if this is the case, how can instructors possible use the cognitive approach to the writing process, when the cognitive process essentially “reduces remedial writers”?

Spring to Sommers

Well, I finally got to reading the actual Sommers article we were assigned to read ("Responding to Student Writing" 1982), and I found it to be just as interesting as the other, yet much more informative.

As I began reading, I had to pause and ask myself: "Was I ever motivated to revise a paper, even when confronted with "thoughtful comments" (149) and the blessed opportunity to improve its final grade?" And honestly, I have to admit that I haven't always taken advantage of such opportunities, and unfortunately, such opportunities to revise have been few and far between- even in grad school.

Nevertheless, I found this article uniquely useful in that it diagnosed the primary problem - "a confusion of process and product" (154) - while also offering solid solutions grounded in the understanding and recognition that writing is a process comprised of a series of (often discrete) stages and that our comments should be tailored, synchronically, to address whatever stage in the diachronic process any given draft of a student's discourse is situated.

For example, if the hypothetical draft we're commenting on is only in the nascent stages of development, then certainly we don't want to waste our time or energy ("commenting on student writing consumes the largest portion of our time" 148) and the student's with persnickety comments about, for example, punctuation when the student's ideas are at best inchoate, while at worst, absolutely and utterly confusing; rather, we want to offer constructive feedback, feedback that will assist the student in further developing his/her ideas, feedback that is both specific and clear so that the student is sufficiently motivated to uncover and discover ("We need to show our students how to seek, in the possibility of revision, the dissonances of discovery" 156) the meaning s/he's been making.

The challenge for me will be setting aside my prejudices and biases long enough to approach any given student's text as a respectful reader, one who's simply trying to understand the meaning of what the writer has attempted, however haltingly and faultingly (?), to convey.

Twelve Little Things to Ponder While Sipping on Pina Colada During Spring Break

While the idea of having a “break” from school seemed appealing to me, I slowly began to see that this really wasn’t a break at all. I spent most of week pondering how I would approach the 12 Readers Project. I never graded a paper in my life, not in the professional sense at least. The only instances I had to rely on were my own graded papers that I dusted off and stacked on my desk. What did, and continue to help me in my journey through this project are the supplemental readings that were assigned. While Lindemann’s chapter on responding to writing speaks of setting goals for students, encouraging them the take new risks and establishing a climate of trust (233), I realized quite quickly that I didn’t have that chance with these students. I envision someday, that having a relationship with my students will be the case when I actually start my teaching career, but now the question is how do I approach showing my fictional student how to improve.

One of the articles that helped me tremendously in the formulation of my ideas is the Lumsford and Ede article. The article speaks to the writer as the audience as well as the contributor to the text. According to Lumsford theses roles are equal (158). I agree with this concept especially when I began to contemplate how I would respond to the student’s papers. Since I am still a student and have yet to tap into the teaching side, I took the stance that I would respond the way I would like for my professors to speak to me. I feel after reading some of the “professional” responses, they took on this authoritative voice that at most times became condescending. I think one should take into account when they are grading papers that the student did read their own writing so they know what it says, and with some form of certainty they deemed it acceptable to turn in. So a mere question mark after a sentence you do not agree with doesn’t help your student. With that being said, you cannot limit your responses to mere grammar and mechanics. These will hopefully iron themselves out…the meat of the critique should contain examples or comments that brings the writer closer to making effective writing. Voice or audience is a huge part in how we write. Wither it’s a fictional audience as Ong suggests or ourselves. While I am not too sure how well my responses will be received by my audience, I feel that I am closer to finding some kind of resolution. I think that a successful response would include putting myself in the writers shoes, and not removing myself from the process as a contributor to the success of the writing as well

Some Answers, More Questions, and Definite Reevaluation

After reading the Brodkey ,Hartwell, and Witte and Faigley, I feel that teaching English has just become more complicated. I have more questions than answers at this point in time. There are a few things (okay…more than a “few”) that I struggle with in my teaching, grammar and coherence. Although many of my students are considered English Language Proficient, I continue to struggle teaching them “proper writing” and coherence.

After reading Brodkey, I question what I consider to be proper? Is it the way in which I was taught? And how is that an injustice to my English Language Learners? As Brodkey states “each institutionalized discourse privileges some people and not others by generating uneven and unequal subject positions as various as sterotypes and agents” (127). As teachers, we find ourselves in a bind between the institutionalization of education (standards/testing/district curriculum maps) and what we believe to be beneficial for our students. Within our classrooms, we continue to do what we believe is beneficial, not falling prey to the easy robotics of standardization. However, I must wonder after reading the Brodkey article, do I transcend class, race, and gender in my classroom? Can I truly understand all the issues of my students? Am I responding to their needs “properly”? And then the bigger question: How can or do I unify the experience of my students? Should we transcend these realms or do we unify them, so that they can feel the connection between what we teach and how we live?
On grammar…many of my colleagues would agree, grammar must be addressed, students should learn the rules, and we must bring awareness to their grammatical errors. Our struggle becomes…HOW? Hartwell states that “seventy-five years of experimental research has for all practical purposes told us nothing” and, within my own classroom, I find that the various way in which I teach grammar has led me to believe that it has made little difference in the writing of my students (or at least it feels this way). In the article, it was concluded that “the formal study of grammar, whether transformational or traditional, improved neither writing quality nor control over surface correctness” (107). So, what are we to do? As Hartwell discusses the three meanings of grammar, I wonder how exactly do I define grammar in my students writing? Do I know all the rules of grammar? Or is my grammar based simply on usage and how have I come to know what is “proper”? In the section titled, “Grammar in our heads,” I agree with Hartwell in that students often know what seems to be proper without knowing the rules, but how do we know these rules? I am far from being a grammarian or a linguist, so how does one bring awareness to students when grammar 2 is unconnected to productive control over grammar 1? Furthermore, when Seliger states that he “found no correlation between the ability to state the rule and the ability to apply it correctly, either with native or non-native speakers, how do we address the difficulties presented in our native and non-native speakers? One thing I did understand is the need to bring awareness to our students, especially in our assessing. I have found that since the beginning of this semester, I have made more efforts to NOT correct all the grammatical errors I “see”, but rather provide a comments and check marks where there are errors, and have them review them and make the revisions. Instead of giving them the correct form, they are now aware that there is an error, and must figure out how to correct it themselves. Is this more effective? So far, it seems to be a move in a positive direction.
On coherence, cohesion, and writing quality…This article brought to light a few things that I have forgotten over the years. I have spent much time basing the quality of student work on examining errors and syntactic features. Of course these two things are important, but more importantly is how to examine and give proper feedback to their work. I often find that students lack the cohesion and coherence that is needed to produce a good work. In that, reading this article enlightened me on the different types of cohesion and coherence. By analyzing these types, we can see where students are disjointed in their writing. Determining lack of or misplacement of transitions allows us to take notice of patterns in students ‘writings to help them improve. It is much more complicated than spelling errors and grammar rules. On page 197, when the authors discuss their studies on cohesion and invention, the lower papers tended to reiterate the same pieces of information, unlike the higher papers where students were able to elaborate and extend concepts. By analyzing cohesion, teachers can provide more feedback on directing lower student to create more unity and coherence in their writing. In my classes, I have used the sentence-combining exercises that were discussed in the article, and they worked for some. I encounter the same issues in doing this as with grammar rules…they are fabulous with exercises, but they do not internalize it. If anyone has any other ideas for cohesion and coherence, let me know.

The Reader and the Writer.

As Ede and Lunsford discuss the role of the audience and the writer, a few things come to mind. First, can one exists without the other? NO. Second, how do we get students to understand and acknowledge the importance of the audience when they are centralized on themselves, the writer?
Invention of the writing piece is dependent on not only the writer, but also the audience. As teachers, we must assist in this invention, helping students understand the “fictional” audience, whether it is the jaded teacher or the persons of which the article is addressing. As Ong states in his article, the writer succeeds in writing because “he can fictionalize in his imagination an audience he has learned to know not from daily life but from earlier writers who were fictionalizing in their imagination audiences they had learned to know in still earlier writers” (11). In reading and in writing, it is important to address this aspect as it determines the effectiveness of the work. In most cases, my students write for themselves—each creating a masterpiece in THEIR eyes. To their dismay, a peer response or a teacher comment slaps them across the face when they have failed to realize their audience. In this case, we cannot focus a student’s writing merely on the writer and the final product. As stated on page 167, “the most complete understanding of audience thus involves a synthesis of the perspectives we have termed audience addressed, with its focus on the reader, and audience invoked, with its focus on the writer.” Based on this assessment, Corbett’s model of “The Rhetorical Interrelationships”,” on page 169, best demonstrates what Ede and Lunsford are pointing out. The relationships demonstrated in the model address how the writer must always be aware that he is a vital and necessary component of his writing, but he must also acknowledge the various audiences, meaning, and messages. Whether it is the fictional audience, as Ong describes, or the obvious teacher audience, students need to invent writing that is not driven by the audience, but writing that has an awareness of all elements and audiences. In teaching this awareness, the slaps may not be as brutal, but rather an understanding of what needs to be addressed for their audience.