Response to Huot, and Connors and Lunsford

Hands-off Teaching

To begin with, I must say that I have never held “proofreading and editing” in very high regard. For some reason, I have always associated the conscious performance of those terms with error-hunting, thinking of them as surface corrections that do not deal with content. (I have, however, always approached the task of polishing my papers as absolutely necessary. I do not remember ever actually being told that my papers had to look a certain way, but rather that the habit of polishing my papers in such a way has long since become second nature.)

Those admissions aside, I realized about half way through Monday’s class that I do actively engage in editing and proofreading, but that those behaviors have become so engrained in my writing process that I no longer consider them distinct or noticeable steps. It was when Professor Takayoshi discussed the fact that many of her students have developed the unfortunate habit of printing their writing assignments without taking the time to read them aloud that I realized how invisible and fluid my writing process has become. Every time I write academically, even as I compose this blog entry, I pause every ten minutes or so to take a deep breath and reread (aloud) the last paragraph or so of what I have written. This process keeps me focused on the “point” of what I am writing, preventing me from haring off on a literary tangent. For reasons that I cannot identify, I actively participate in my own writing process, though no one ever told me that I should.

I say all of this by way of speaking about my reaction to the Huot article, which is one of appreciation and awe. Students are not encyclopedias, they do not come to us with ready-made knowledge of all things writing, and we should not assume as much. I agree with Huot’s claim that we must ease our freshman students into discussions that involve the vocabulary of writing, and that we should be patient, because though their writerly “orientation” may, at the start of their academic careers, be limited, they will learn more given time and opportunity (214). And while it is probably not necessary to hand-hold freshman writers all the way to their portfolios, we should not assume that they can get through the writing process without our support.

In addition to empathy, I fervently agree with Huot’s position that students’ writing can improve through frequent writing assignments of various types. Assigning students reading responses, informal student journals, and polished writing assignments seems like an excellent way of keeping students (who will no doubt find college at least a little bit overwhelming) engaged in both the writing process and what goes on in class. This engagement should not be underestimated, nor should the wealth of experience earned by such regular composition be overlooked. Though the notion of students resolving many of their own composition problems through increased exposure to and experience with the writing process seems highly intuitive, it also seems very, very likely. Thank goodness for writing therapy, in all its forms.

(Im)Perfect Objectivity

Similar to the intuitive-but-still-true nature of the Huot article, much of what I take away from the Connors and Lunsford article would seem almost uselessly obvious, if it was not so important to think about on a personal level. Though I hope to (whenever possible) avoid the sad and exhausted reality of the teachers mentioned in the article (and their blasé responses), it is hard to fault these weary warriors for their unhelpful and uninvolved responses to student writing. Speaking with the hope and enthusiasm of one who is yet inexperienced in the realm of exhaustive teaching, I can proclaim my belief in the idea that teachers must be active and engaged (and engaging) responders to student writing. It is my hope that when I begin the important task of responding to students’ writing, it will be as an interested, non-objective reader, rather than as a distant professional. For though I believe in the need for objectivity in such fields as medicine and history, I do not believe that writing teachers, who are tasked with reaching students on what I believe is a very personal level, should be trained to be clinically objective. Connors and Lunsford’s claim that the teachers whose responses they analyzed “seem conditioned not to engage with student writing in personal” ways is very disheartening to me, and it makes me more aware of the importance of retaining (and, if need be, actively defending) my lack of perfect objectivity (214).

I believe that I truly must “ache with caring,” both about students’ compositions and the students themselves, and that such caring will positively influence many other aspects of my teaching. If I care, I may be able to close the gap that Connors and Lunsford discuss on page 215 that often exists between what teachers claim to be teaching and what they grade their students on. If I care, I believe I will be able to remain cognizant of the fact that the writing process is entirely flexible, and that I will be able to help my students understand and learn that flexibility. If I care, I think I will be more able to pay attention to student writing in a way that looks to see if it seems like my students are making the same mistakes often, and to help them to grow out of such patterns, rather than bleeding red ink all over their work. If I care, I hope that my comments on students’ writing will attend to their work as the most recent part of an ongoing process, instead of an end in itself. If I care, I believe I can reach my students.

Response 11.18.09

I would like to begin with proof reading and editing, which is where every good paper should end. The thing I have learned most about editing this semester is that it is an ongoing process within the writing process. Many writers edit the entire time that they are writing. In my time in the writing center  I have had to give many encouraging pep talks about the value of deeper level ideas before editing. Not over editing, just before.  Many of these students are so caught up in writing perfectly they hardly write anything at all. Yes, there is a value to a perfect paragraph, but that paragraph still needs a content a substance. These students are concerned that what they write will be wrong, so much so, that they cannot even write. They are in a vicious cycle of expecting perfection, but never finding it. The idea of free writing can be looked down on by students like this who do not see the point in using that much time on an unperfect draft. I think that these are many of the writers who will print a draft and never want to look at it again. 

I also valued Dr. Huot's talk and nudge method as an editing tool to help writers. I have used it and I really think it works for error detection. At the same time it is an encouraging effort. I try to remind the writer that their brain is used to and good at this editing stuff it already auto-corrects for them. They need to just see where they are already fixing their own mistakes in their head and then make the paper reflect that. The students who are introduced to this technique usually walk out with a new idea about editing, a new addition to their process. In fact, I liked all of Dr. Huot's suggestions for editing, especially encouraging students to take an inventory of the skills they need to work on and focusing on them. If that idea would have been encouraged in my first year classes it would have blown my mind and saved me a lot of time in my second drafts. The idea makes sense in breaking grammar into easy to use, understand and correct chunks, as opposed to “do all grammar well, now”. 

I felt the Williams piece was eye opening but more than a bit gimmicky. I think students an instructors should acknowledge that there is a hierarchy to grammar error.  Just as every law in America is not enforced, not every grammar rule is created equal. Students know that being forbidden to walk a cow down main street on Sunday in Portland is a valid law, they also know that it is not worth knowing(unless for radio trivia). The same goes for grammar, not every rule should be as valued for the beginning college writer. Proper editing is showing  respect for the reader. The writer proves that with good editing they care enough about the paper and the reader for it to be read easily. That is not to say though, a writer cannot respect the reader in other ways, this is just one of many ways. The reader too, has a responsibility to be understanding in the reading. Not every small error, or style choice should warrant a letter to the editor or the red pen of doom. The Williams article though does remind me to be generous in my readings even if the work must be assessed. 

The Connors Lunsford article I found the most enlightening and encouraging. The lesson I hope to remember is that instructors are human and so are the students. (WHOA) We do not grade and respond in a paper vacuum we are responding to people with feelings. The positive attitude encouraged in the article needs to be in every article in writing. As a field we are so concerned with good papers we forget we are to help people become good writers. There is a huge difference between the two. I take out of this article the need to be honest and respectful, understanding and encouraging in my grading comments. Writing is a hard thing. Writing well is a very very hard thing. It is not too much to  ask in expecting students to try, we should also try ourselves. It is only fair that if I assign a 2000 word essay than I ought to read it and respond to it. There is a give and take between students and instructors that needs to be encouraged. We may not be equals in the process or the classroom but we are partners. In the article, I would have also liked to have heard the writer response to these comments. We wonder what good they do, we should go to the source and find out. 

To get personal and mushy, I think their ought to be a mutual respect for each other and for writing in the classroom. I feel that the instructor leads by example in their attitude. More importantly as writing instructors we need to be aware that all times we are selling writing. The students are just extremely fickle buyers. We are always reminding others of how valuable a skill writing is and why and how students can use it in their own lives. If it was so obvious to them it would be easier to motivate. It is the job of all teachers to sell their knowledge, with tuition we do that pretty literally. Figuratively though, we need to remember as a field that the value of writing well is not as explicit as other skills, but should not be valued less. We need to sell writing to our students with a positive, encouraging attitude. 

Response to Mirtz

Although I found Mirtz's article to be a little shortsighted at times, I took some good advice from this reading. I have experienced the “direct/indirect” talk as both a student and an instructor. I like that she breaks down the idea of “off task” talk and instead discusses it in terms of direct and indirect discussion of topics. I think this idea fits well with the other article , because it would be very easy to assume as an instructor that our students were being disrespectful and take it personally. At the same time, assessing the frequency of indirect talk could be a good time to critically self reflect on our teaching methods. One of the areas that Mirtz doesn't really account for occurs when she discusses the reasons for “indirect” talk. She makes a very good observation that part of the indirect talk comes as a result of the students feeling each other out and developing an idea of boundaries or points of connection within the group. It is also important to note that the students are also feeling out the instructor. Mirtz does comment on this later on in the article, but I don't think she stresses the importance of establishing boundaries the first week. It is really no fault of the students if they misinterpret this allowance of exploration as a lax teacher and are subsequently shocked when the teacher suddenly switches from “interpreting” to “enforcing” a matter of weeks later. Even if the switch is not as drastic as this, it is still a much easier task to impress a sense of discipline and boundaries upon them within the first week rather than attempting to constantly redirect them weeks later.

I very much liked her suggestion that we don't attempt to control the discussion too much, and to allow for looser demands. I have felt more comfortable in classrooms where the discussion is rather broad and allows for a number of different ideas to come to the table. I think it also gives the students a sense of confidence that the instructor trusts that they are intelligent enough to direct their own discussions and supply the details to a broad subject. However, for this to move fluidly a sense of community and trust is very important. I understand why she allows for more indirect talk in the beginning and I think that smaller and more relaxed groupings in the first weeks could be effective for establishing this. In the class that I most recently observed, the instructor spent the first five minutes talking to the students on subjects other than class. He was very friendly and allowed the students to talk to him and to each other briefly while he organized himself. I was instructed to do this in my ESL classes as a “warm-up.” Again to bring in the second article, I think it is important to check ourselves when we do anything like this, because the students could take it as laziness, etc. on our part if we don't keep the first discussions under control.

Mirtz gave some good advice when discussing just how to get these conversations under control. I like her idea of the instructor as an interpreter, rather than a controller. I definitely think addressing issues of group dynamics in class is a good idea. Especially if tension develops within a class. I personally would not just put it on a handout, although a brief mention of what is expected could be a good thing to included on a syllabus. By discussing it in class you allow the students to give their input and they can freely address issues that may not have been apparent to you. Her suggestion to reflect on why indirect talk occurs is good, but I don't think it's a good idea to devote too much time to this for reasons of practicality. Giving specific tasks seems to be the best of these suggestions. This was another strategy that I am familiar with from my ESL experience. It not only keeps the students on task without being too constrictive, it also allows a series of ends for those who move at a slower pace. It keeps students who move at a quick pace occupied and gives extra time to those who need it. By providing a series of questions, etc. there will be no awkward silences where one group is still working when all others have finished. This strategy is also effective in that you don't end up being too hard on yourself as an instructor because you don't meet all the objectives that you want to accomplish.

When reading this article, the personal biases I have against group work were not entirely squashed. While I see the benefits of group work, and definitely intend on incorporating peer review and discussion groups into my class, I would never pick groups myself and I don't think I could bring myself to assign a graded major group project. I think that students know themselves well enough to choose those they work best with (within reason). I have read various theories (mainly in ESL) that suggest the idea of scaffolding (or pairing weak students with strong, etc.). While this idea can have benefits, it puts a lot of unfair pressure on students and is often very transparent. Scaffolding seems more reasonable within the context of a composition class, but I would still be concerned that the students would figure out that I was pairing weak and strong. I suppose this would be a case where larger groups could be more appropriate if I were to employ scaffolding.

I liked Mirtz's idea of peer group reports, but I would keep these anonymous or in the form of a paper. If a student in my class felt uncomfortable for some reason I would definitely want to know and I think the only way to find this out is in a private paper or anonymous hand-in. The anonymous idea could get ugly, so I suppose I would ask for signed papers. As for the students' awareness of their own direct/indirect talk – I would ask this at the middle or end of the semester so that they would have time to develop a classroom community before attempting to assess how things are working.

Response to Freeland and Johnson

In reading Freeland's article, I couldn't help thinking about my own writing experiences as an undergrad. Everything she described sounded familiar and I remembered my endless revisions, without even being aware of what was really expected from me. Also it reminded me of the annoying times when I waited for the professor to give feedback to my paper. I always did the changes they offered without learning anything at all. So, was the end product mine after all? I have almost always got good marks, yet I wouldn't say that my identity as a writer was affirmed. The control in my own writing process was never mine. The article led me to question the true nature of revisions.

I very much liked Freeland's suggestion that the teacher should be referred to as a reader and the student as a writer. This seemingly minor shift in the roles would definitely give a writer freedom and control over his/her own writing. As a teacher, I believe that it's not easy to disregard structure and control issues. Likewise, the use of collaborative language in responding to student writings is not something easy to accomplish. The responses end up being a monologue. As Freeland argues, using nonevaluative, open-ended questions might be a solution to this problem. And of course "generosity" should be the key. The writing conferences she also offer are very productive but at the same time very time-demanding and I don't know how to manage those given the limited time and the number of students. We can meet them individually as a group and in this way we'll also be a member of the group.

Johnson also stresses the importance of peer response groups as an effective way to introduce students to collaborative writing. He gives some good advice on how to guide students in the practice of peer revising. He suggests that students critique their peers under pseudonyms. In this way, the identities of students would be unknown to each other. The anonymity brings objectivity and the students would focus on the ideas, not on particular identities. The anonymity might also help them to respond one another purposefully and make them evaluate the responses more carefully. The interpersonal relationships do not play a role in commentaries, so I think anonymity helps students to overcome their confidence problems.

reading response to Johnson and Freeland

Reading Johnson’s “Critical Reading and Response: Experimenting with Anonymity in Draft Workshops” was eye-opening on a number of levels. First, though I know that peer groups are well-established in the field and have been proven to be effective by years of practice and research, my personal experience with them has been rather poor. As nearly every English class I’ve had since 7th grade has incorporated the peer editing process to some extent, I’m extremely familiar with it, yet I can’t say that I’ve ever felt like it improved my writing in any obvious way. Perhaps I’m just a pretentious snob, but I never really took seriously the comments and suggestions of my peer writers and generally regarded their ideas with suspicion, dismissing their them as the artificial product of a process where they simply had to say something to fulfill the class task. I can’t speak for others, but for me, peer review has been an interesting if not particularly enlightening exercise that has yet to provide any demonstrably useful information to me, and these feelings of peer editing often being busy work undeniably color my cynicism toward its effectiveness in a general sense.

That said, reading through Johnson’s article, it’s clear that peer review is helpful to the great majority of (probably less pretentious) writers, and the extent to which it appears to be busy work could easily be explained by the fact that most peer editors are afraid to say anything terribly critical in their commentary. In particular, Johnson’s use of anonymous reviewers seems to be an idea worth pursuing, and I definitely know that I’ve both given and received comments that were so vague and bland as to be practically useless out of discomfort with being asked to evaluate the work of a writer who is sitting right next to me and who will read my comments in my presence. The anonymous review process circumvents those particular problems and seems to open up the route of communication to honest and forthright feedback without fear of recrimination of any sort. There might be inherent problems that I don’t yet see, but I can’t really think of any reason not to use such a system if one is comfortable enough with the technology needed to put those ideas into practice.

Further, Johnson’s attention to establishing the criteria for proper peer editing seems particularly helpful. Though I hadn’t considered it (probably because of my general disregard for the peer editing process), it is somewhat unreasonable to expect that every student will enter the classroom knowing how to read and give helpful comments to a piece of writing, and the time that Johnson spends practicing the editing process through showing actual drafts and walking through the process with students would seem to make clear that the usual “this is good” and “I like it” comments would be unhelpful to a writer. In fact, I was struck by just how specific and probing the questions were that Johnson cited, as his students were clearly addressing higher order concerns that show a remarkable depth of insight into the structure of effective writing. Similarly, having this whole process unfold in a public online forum seems to insure that students actually give thoughtful feedback, as the social pressure inherent in the situation would push them not to turn in comments that show that they aren’t taking the task as seriously as everyone else, not being too insubstantial nor too harsh in their appraisals. In this case, the social pressure of the situation would seem to create a context where the work takes on extra meaning and the failure to complete the task takes on extra authority.

Freeland’s “Awakening the Writer’s Identity through Conferences” was similarly revelatory, though in a somewhat opposite way. Having worked as a psychotherapist, I would characterize her participant/observer approach to instruction as something akin to a “writing counselor” (or a tutor), someone who doesn’t exactly impose her values on the student writer but who reflects, models, and clarifies objectives through questioning in an unassuming and unimposing way. This egalitarian approach is fascinating, and I’d like to think it is effective; I just wonder how easy it is to simply expect the student to assume the “writer” persona without being forced to do so. I’m not yet entirely sold on the idea that simply setting up a free and open learning environment will provide the transformational spark needed to create such a chemical reaction in the student, though it certainly seems to work in Freeland’s classrooms.

Though I don’t have the benefit of watching these processes unfold over the course of an entire semester, my experiences as the Kent writing center indicate that some students would be resistant to not being given more active instruction. I agree that it’s ideal to sit back and allow the student to claim this process for his or her own, giving as little instruction as possible and pushing the student to develop his or her own authoritative voice, but I wonder how students who are too insecure or unwilling to accept that responsibility progress through the class. Perhaps I give students too little credit and am too quick to provide direction, but I tend to assume that some writers will need more hands-on instruction than others. What do you do if they simply aren’t identifying the variables that add up to effective writing, despite your questioning and mirroring techniques? This approach seems to be at least somewhat at odds with Johnson’s, as it almost seems that Freeland would see the pronounced emphasis on peer reviewing as potentially stifling the emerging voice of a writer, with too many hands in the molding process.

Finally, Freeland’s use of portfolio grading is intriguing and probably a natural outgrowth of her extensive use of writing conferences seems to establish the context of collaboration between students and teacher. Though it’s difficult for me to believe that this approach creates the impression that “the notion of grades seems unnatural,” as I still assume that most of our students are there more to get a good grade than become a good writer, I think the goal of creating a context where students are rewarded for revising their body of work throughout the semester is something to consider. The idea of negotiating a grade with a student still seems a bit intimidating to me, as I fear that I would be too easily persuaded by the student’s good faith arguments, similar to how I often feel uncomfortable giving negative feedback in peer editing groups. Still, I’ve often been struck by how most students seem to have an intuitive sense of how good or how lacking their writing is, and Freeland’s assertion that disagreements rarely occur seems reasonable to me. In the end, as a lazy person, I’m certainly drawn to Freeland’s less-is-more ideology, but I may not be ready for such a hands-off, non-directive approach quite yet.

real writers in students

In both Johnson and Freeland’s articles, I discovered the valuable idea of regarding students as real writers, who are capable of, if given sufficient preparation, critiquing others and their own writing. Both the online peer response and the collaborative teacher/reader-student/writer conferences remove the social, cultural, and interpersonal factors that are disruptive to the identity of students as responsible and intelligent writers and critics. As teachers of College Writing, we must recognize that in every student there is a writer. No matter what their writing backgrounds, experiences, and levels of proficiency in writing, they have the need to express their opinions on issues of their concern and they are proud of putting their opinion in words. As teachers, we must protect and refine that pride at the outset of their college writing experience. Moreover, we need to nurture the capacity of the critic in student writers to enable self-sufficient writing process. Once students are at the wheel of the writing process, they will be willing to and often enthusiastic for explore (-ring) audiences, purposes, rhetoric, and other strategies.

Peer review and conferences

The greater part of this week’s blog post is inspired and supported by my writing center experience. Our latest readings have reminded me just how formative those experiences have been to me as a teacher, student, and writer. While I may differ from the authors in my plans for implementation, I consider peer revision and student-teacher conferences essential to the learning process for student writers.

Like Freeland, I see great value in both reflective writing and reader-writer conferences, and plan to incorporate them into my course. With respect to the latter, I have been a writing consultant/tutor for so long and worked with so many people that the experience has come to shape my pedagogy as an instructor. My extensive writing center experience has led me to become something of a true believer in one-on-one writing consultations and in precisely the sort of Socratic, non-evaluative dialectic upon which Freeland relies. I’ve seen countless students – many of whom were frustrated, confused, miserable, and even irate – make dramatic, fundamental improvements at all stages of the writing process. Even the most sensitive and understanding teachers are, to some degree, limited by the dynamics of a classroom setting. There are ways to make a classroom more inclusive, and I plan to do so – but in even the most interactive of classrooms, personal attention given to one student necessarily excludes the others. However, a personal conference can work outside these constraints, allowing teachers to work one-on-one with each student. I want to move away from treating my class a collective whole (which, admittedly, is necessary at times) and towards viewing my students as a group of separate, distinct writers with widely varying backgrounds, learning styles and personal inclinations. Reader-writer conferences are a step in that direction.

And while “cancelling” 10 classes (!) in order to hold these conferences seems a bit much (would we even be allowed to do that?), I see numerous benefits to them, most notably (for me) that writing conferences (as well as peer revision) allow students to see writing as social and collaborative. A central goal of my writing class is to debunk pervasive myths about writing, particularly the widely-held view of writing as an individual, spontaneous undertaking, as if brilliant prose spontaneously emanate from writers’ brains and pens at will. Woods speaks to this notion, noting that students more inclined towards “creative” writing tend to “believe that all their writing comes from within, from some deep-down burning desire to express something” (193). This is all well and good (perhaps one should be happy that students are excited about writing at all), but I want to move towards an appreciation of writing as a social undertaking in my classroom. As such, I want students to talk about their writing – to one another in peer review sessions, on the blog in the form of reflections, and to me in teacher-writer conferences. This emphasis on talk (especially with respect to revision) will hopefully foster a more Bakhtinian understanding of writing as inherently dialogic. I want them to struggle not only with their own ideas, but the ideas of others.

I also plan to continue incorporating peer revision into the classroom. The advantages here are twofold. In terms of production, students gain a wider sense of audience, writing not only for themselves and the instructor but also their peers. In terms of consumption, students learn to respond with critical empathy as readers. As an added bonus, the looming imperative of peer revision may even dissuade some students from writing those contrived emo-confessional type papers (actually, I’ll probably explicitly discourage them from those). Moreover, the prospect of additional readers may also move students away from ‘please the teacher’ type papers.

One issue with peer revision is how to introduce it, since some students are reticent towards any group work, and others see no point in using their class time on someone else’s paper. I particularly like Woods’ exercise on p.189-90 for introducing peer workshops; I think it would really help reluctant students to see the exercise as useful. I have in the past devoted almost an entire class period just to showing students how they should approach a peer’s paper. Again, this is steeped in writing center pedagogy – ask don’t tell, describe don’t evaluate, address macro-level concerns before moving to grammar/mechanics, etc. After hearing about Matt’s experience yesterday (the tutee whose peers refused to review his anti-Obama paper), I now am considering having students review some sample papers first. Peer revision, when students believe in it, can teach them to navigate between a variety of responses and expand their understanding of what it means to write.

I also want to debunk the myth that writing is the linear creation of a fixed final product. Both peer review and conferences implicitly stress the importance of multiple drafts. I want to show students – not only through what I say, but what we do in the classroom – that writing is ongoing, recursive, and subject to constant revision. I will be telling my students that they need to revise, revise, revise...but merely telling them isn’t enough; my classroom practices should reflect my goals – otherwise I’m just repeating empty words. As such, I want to avoid the rough/final draft dichotomy; students will create first, second, and third drafts.

And, perhaps most importantly, I want to really know my students, and I want them to know one another. Certainly, I will become acquainted with them through class discussion and interaction, but a personal conference affords us a chance to develop an even stronger working relationship. Having taught and worked in writing centers, I have found that it much easier to develop trust in a one-to-one consultation. Conferences and peer revision sessions allow students to share their struggles – with me and with each other – and can build the kind of trust necessary to make a classroom more like a community. I’m aware of how touchy-feely that sounds, but the importance of having a good rapport with students, of working with people who like and trust you – cannot be overstated.

Ultimately, peer revision, reflection and reader-writer conferences are all part of a larger objective: to encourage students’ to see their writing as something ongoing, fluid, and collaborative.

Problems of Authority, Identity

Two of this week's articles address some very troubling concerns of mine regarding how I structure class sessions. I will refer to the selections from Mirtz and Freeland, as they make me uncomfortable and I wish to tease out why I have such a reaction. I wonder how I might combat this unease or how I might incorporate their suggestions in less-threatening bits and pieces.

In my past teaching experience I found myself questioning the nature of my authority, my comfort with my authority, and my students' recognition of my authority. I served as a "peer facilitator" (see also: underpaid TA) for a 100-level philosophy course. At the time of my appointment, I was 19-going-on-20... hardly a year older than most of the class, and more than 4 years younger than two of the students. I initially justified my authority by telling myself well of course I'm smarter than them but that was a very cowardly way of approaching the class. Some students were much brighter than I in regards to the material the class covered, and I quickly learned that even if I had some wealth of knowledge they didn't about Descartes-- that wasn't the point of the course. And, I realize, that really isn't (or shouldn't be) the point of ANY course...
In this appointment I was not to grade papers. Because of my status as an undergraduate, and because of the nature of my position, it was against policy for me to actually be the person assigning any sort of final grade to the students. This relieved my anxieties quite a bit. I got to avoid the issue of how one properly evaluates assignments. For me, this question is all about authority.

Currently, as a TA, I struggle with commanding the classroom. Alongside a very experienced professor, I manage a class of 60-70 people. When I call the class to attention there are still pockets of gossip in the back of the room. It takes a few tries to draw the class together; I often I feel defeated.
I now do the majority of the grading in this course. Although the professor and I work together to set up an approach with which we both agree, I often feel as though I'm doing something wrong. What if a student deserves an 87 instead of an 83?? These numbers all seem so arbitrary to me, but they have a concrete effect on the lives on the students. Those four percentage points could be a very important difference for them.
Two important questions bounce around in my head:
1) What/Who gives me the authority to make these sorts of decisions?
2) What happens if the students do not accept this authority?

#2 is where I tie in our readings. I feel that with both Mirtz and Freeland's approaches there is a really progressive way of handling power in the classroom... that worries me as a first-time teacher with all the duties/responsibilities of a REAL instructor (qualified by the grading I wasn't allowed to do as a peer facilitator).

In Mirtz, I do understand what she is pointing out as an important "writerly" activity. That is, the identity-formation of these "indirect" conversations. Furthermore, as a student, I value this indirect talk in my groups. These sorts of exchanges make me feel comfortable; without this comfort, I don't talk. I clam up. I stare at the floor. I shake, blank on words, and so on.
What I do not understand regarding Mirtz's article is the way we, as writing instructors, can best distinguish ourselves from other college classrooms. If indirect talk can be thought of as a positive activity in our writing classrooms, one that is conducive to the type of learning we want our students to engage in... then what is the value of indirect talk in other classrooms? In a geology classroom, with small groups, how would a professor be responding to indirect talk? Better yet, how should they be responding-- is this different from what Mirtz is advocating for our purposes?
My concern here is that this approach to indirect talk seems contrary to our responsibility in some sense to introduce first-year students to the college environment. (To borrow from James, if we are to act in some sense as those who introduce first-year students to the environment of this university...) How different are our classrooms, really? How different should they be?

Regarding Freeland's article, I find so much discomfort in this set-up. I believe my main concern with a conference-heavy writing course is simply that I do not have experience as a writing instructor. I feel that, as a first-timer, I will tend toward a more traditional approach. I don't want to be thought of as that teacher who James spoke of today in class. Don't I need to establish, in some tangible way, that I have and deserve the authority given to me by the university (?)
Again, to bounce off of James, he points out, "since our professor ran our class so poorly, beyond the accepted definition of ‘free-spirited’, and we knew what the expectations were (none), grading scale (made up), we didn’t do a thing and didn’t feel bad doing it. If a student is not feeling like he/she is getting her money/time/effort worth from the professor, what’s to stop them from blowing off the class?" I feel as though even though Freeland is obviously not as absent-minded as the unnamed professor in this example, s/he could easily be misconstrued as such by the students. And isn't maintaining respect for authority absolutely essential to the job?

I hate phrasing it as such. But ULTIMATELY the grade has to mean SOMETHING, and that weight comes from authority, right??(!)


Perhaps an important jumping-off point here would be, you are thinking about this all wrong.
I invite any/all suggestions here.

Multimodal Presentation on youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kE6PcVLVUrA
Just thought I would share my presentation on youtube with the class. Unfortunately, the sound does not transfer from powerpoint to a .mov but the rest of the video works.
Justin

Blog Response 11/2-11/4

Ruth Mirtz’ article irks me not because I necessarily disagree with her assessment, but because group discussions are a tricky business. Our class is the only one in which I feel group discussion works as it should, especially in the smaller groups of two or three. First, we’re grad students. Our concerns with what classmates will think of our opinions shouldn’t be our primary concern. Second, the assessment of our group discussions is not limited to our classroom evaluation at the end of this semester. In fact, I’d say we don’t care much about how Pam interprets our conversations or conclusions, let alone how her evaluations of our work will affect our final grade. For us, there is a greater pressure on the horizon.

We’re working towards a frightening few semesters, dipping our toes into instructional waters that could be icy or boiling. We have goals beyond the classroom, life goals, and occupational goals: getting a job, keeping it, spreading what we perceive as our wealth of knowledge to students, others, whomever, becoming good teachers, good human beings. Undergraduates, in this case college freshmen, are insecure, intellectually shy individuals who have yet to find a place in their world or within themselves. What Mirtz diagrams, the sociological aspects of groups’ idle chatter, is a form of coping, of finding out what the rest of the group is about, and filling a role they feel comfortable with and feel others will feel comfortable with, too.

I don’t know if you can diagram or control group discussions at that stage of education and you certainly cannot avoid idle chatter. I prefer classroom discussions instead of small groups unless, as Brian suggested last week, we know students as well as they know each other. That’s a great goal to have in class, to get everyone conversing in a friendly manner whether about classroom topics or ‘how much beer they drank that weekend’. Mirtz glosses over an important factor, teacher presentation and interaction, to focus on students. Yes, the classroom is a fifty-fifty divide between teachers and students, but I consider the classroom like a family. When children do wrong, their parents are questioned. Similarly, when students do nothing, if they are uninvolved, staring at one another like bumps on a log, I would first question the instructor.

I’ll share a personal story. Last fall in one of my classes we had to do group presentations on certain short stories. The class so far had lacked any structure, with constant changes in due dates, assignments, syllabi, and professor opinions. This wouldn’t have been a problem if the professor was the root, the stable foundation of the classroom. The first day of class the professor was fifteen minutes late, left for a cigarette break, cursed, hadn’t made a syllabus, and farted, rumbling the table under her while giving a little laugh (I kid you not). This was an almost every day occurrence (well, everything but the flatulence). For writing conferences, the professor made appointments with students, like me, and never showed up or asked if we could wait an extra hour for her to get back. The professor took our contact information and would occasionally call some of us to talk about our work, but the conversations would stray off topic after a few minutes, as if a professor calling your cell phone to chat wasn’t uncomfortable enough. There were no real grades in the course. The expectations were whatever ‘you felt’ or ‘it doesn’t matter to me’. The worst part were our assigned readings, not because they were arduous, but because the professor filled class time with stories about her sex life, dangerous children, serial killing, high school talent shows, and questions about African American hair, not discussion of our text.

So, when our group presentations came up, we just sat and talked or sometimes did other homework. The professor never checked to see what we were doing, instead running errands around campus during class or chatting it up with students in the hallway. This went on for about a week. I did nothing in my group, learned nothing, wishing I hadn’t driven in the snow to get to a class where the professor didn’t take attendance anyway. The professor, who liked to belch aloud and comment upon the sound of it, didn’t know our presentation schedule, didn’t know who was covering what stories, didn’t have set groups, and didn’t really have any sort of grading method in mind. My group didn’t even present. We sat and watched a few others. I got an A in the course.

If the professor had a semblance of a pedagogical, methodological, hell, logical clue or care, our group discussions would’ve been productive as we read great stories and were all English majors. But since our professor ran our class so poorly, beyond the accepted definition of ‘free-spirited’, and we knew what the expectations were (none), grading scale (made up), we didn’t do a thing and didn’t feel bad doing it. If a student is not feeling like he/she is getting her money/time/effort worth from the professor, what’s to stop them from blowing off the class? I tell you, when I showed up for my conference about final grades with that professor and was told, after waiting for a half hour, that she had went home to pick up her kids and run some errands and oh, could I wait for her to get back, she doesn’t know when, I felt betrayed. When a professor betrays that sense of commitment and trust, everything, group discussions, classroom atmosphere, student participation, will be lost.

Response to Nelson and Brookfield

"What really counts”

In a discussion of “what really counts” in terms of students’ academic writing, Nelson shrewdly highlights the fact that students tend to focus on the finished product of their writing processes, instead of the actual processes of writing, as a response to what students judge is the evaluative goal of their teachers. Idealistic fool that I am, I would like to fight for the right of teachers to reward student participation in the process itself, as opposed to the giving of rewards for the production of final products, but this ideal actually raises two very contentious problems.

The first problem is that teachers, be they high school literature teachers or freshman composition instructors, work under the auspices of their departments and their institutions, and as such, are ultimately are responsible for enacting the prevailing orders of their employers. Much like the employees of multinational corporations or national governments, teachers must, in addition to their duties as educators, also serve as vendors of their institution’s party line. Part of that institutionalized party line normally involves the production of a certain quantity of finished products during the course of the semester. This entire line of finished product-centric thinking, as well as the “evaluative climate” that Nelson discusses, truly serves to place the focus on the production of work, rather than protracted consideration of the writing process (365).

It is in this climate that teachers must work, their hands effectively bound by the output requirements of their institutions. So, as much as progressively-minded instructors may want to place the foci of their classes on the actual process of writing, they must instead limit the scope of their teaching to the production of quantifiable pages.

This focus on production, instead of process, actually bears within it the seeds of a second potential problem. Even if an instructor was to attempt to buck the system and make the writing process the focus of their class, the question of evaluation remains an outstanding issue. How does one evaluate a process? One possible avenue would be to award points for student participation in various stages of the writing process, but even this course of action is problematic. If students come to perceive that instructors are awarding points for the completion of discrete steps of the writing process, do not those steps then become final products in themselves? Will not students then simply devise new ways to “get around task demands in accomplishing” this new type of “academic work” (367)?

And so the question of “what really counts” becomes a circular issue of evaluation versus process versus evaluation.


The “conspiracy of the normal”

The Brookfield article was interesting to me on a number of levels, the first of which is that seeks to debunk many of the myths by which many instructors conduct their classes, including the theory that group discussion is the “only” way to conduct a class. As is discussed on page 5, “democratic” group discussion is highly counterintuitive, as it is “a habit that is rarely learned or practiced in daily life.” And while it is true that group discussions are conducted with the (instructor’s) intent to involve all class members in equitable and moderated dialogue, what often ensues is a cross between the active participation of a few confident students and what Brookfield calls “egomaniacal grandstanding” (5).

Similar to Brookfield’s debunking of the “good” necessarily accomplished by group discussion is his treatment of the myth of “the circle” (9). This part of the article raised an issue that I have never had occasion to consider, which is the relationship between group discussion, the circle, and power in the classroom. In addition to the issues raised in the article, concerning the feeling of being forced to speak that is encouraged by the circle, the dynamics of what occurs in the circle can also be seen to support external social and cultural structures of power, as well as “inequities of race, class, and gender” (6). Much in the way that group discussions can provoke displays of class and micro-illustrations of the larger power struggles of society, the formation and enforcement of the classroom circle can, and often does, lead to student feelings of disquiet and discomfort. From this view, organizing desks in a circle can actually lead to many more complex problems than it solves.

Also raised in this article is the idea that teachers, though they seek to make themselves more accessible and less intimidating to their students, really must act like teachers much of the time, and that to act otherwise often amounts to an implicit insult of both their students’ intelligence and their own hard-earned expertise. Expanding from this idea, it is my contention that students, like young teenagers, do seek and benefit from some amount of boundary-creation as instituted by their teachers. As is discussed in the article, students are always aware, not only of their teacher’s presence, but also of the “power relationship” that exists between themselves and their teachers (11). Though the article does not delve into a detailed discussion of it, I think it is safe to conclude that students often attribute the “learner/learned” dynamic that exists between themselves and their teachers to the achievement of their teachers of a certain measure of expertise in their particular fields. In the way that the greater society did before them, students perceive this expertise as an indication of the permissibility of classroom deferral to an “expert.” Teachers should not seek to demean both their own expertness and the readiness of their students to learn by acting as though their expertise is an “accident,” soon to be rectified (10).

Reflection 10/28/09

The Nelson piece highlights the idea of intent of the instructor. In my experience on the other side of the desk I have mostly overlooked the intent or objectives of the instructor.  I feel though that my age as a young instructor will benefit me in being aware of the students' attempts to circumvent the lesson objectives. The idea that so much weight in the mind of the student is based on task competition rather than the lesson of the task is scary. In the dual role as student and instructor I am having a hard time balancing the strategies of the student to navigate the course with the goal of attaining a grade versus the role of the instructor who worries less about the final grade and more about the knowledge behind the course. The two things seem hard to reconcile.

The thing I keep going back to among the many different topics we discussed in class is the idea that school is a specialized setting. School is a very unique way of thinking and communicating. The Nelson article makes clear that  "Too often teachers expect students who are newcomers to a field to be able to determine  the implicit ways of thinking and presenting evidence required to write successfully in  their particular disciplines." This knowledge is acquired over time, knowledge of writing correctly in a very unique and singular way that can be different than any other kind of writing done in the students' lives. The school setting of the nature of our work puts the profession in a bind. We are teaching for the academic setting but the academic careers of our students might have any variety of lengths. Teaching only to the academic setting over looks the life of the student. Teaching only to the life of the student then too, takes time away from the academic writing of the student. I hope in my class room to navigate this treacherous crossing in focusing on audience awareness. I would also like to stress the importance of recognizing the rhetorical situation and strategies to navigate these situations successfully.  I cannot and will not decide which is a more important part of a student's life of writing. I can only hope to give options and to provide lessons that the student can put in their tool box and use as they grow. Writing is a challenge to teach in any form, let alone in multiple forms. 

The Nelson piece, in writing about the resources available to the students, enlightened my thinking that I will not be the only meaning maker in the classroom setting. The meaning and even the course are up for negation. Negotiators being me as the instructor, as well as my students. The students play an important role as the pace setters. The students also have each other to inform or confuse each other on the topics of teaching. I am hoping to encourage process thought and multiple evaluations. These multiple evaluations, I hope, will give my students the tools to navigate the course with more input from me rather than using each other to define the course expectations. In reading Nelson, I have decided to keep this in mind as I design my assignments. The students that come into my class room will not be tabula rasa. They may be blank slates when it comes to college. But most will have roughly a dozen years experience in navigating or playing school. With that experience they will bring with them strategies that I need to respect as being part of their process. Not necessarily as a more correct or effective process but a part of it just the same. I will also in my teaching try to keep in mind that what is obvious to me will certainly not be obvious to my students, especially my intent of the assignment.  This sharing of intent I feel would have helped the sociology professor from the Nelson article in sharing the value of the assignment with the students. I found it very surprising  that I was not surprised that most of the students did not even do a field study but just faked it knowing that it did not matter.

Students who are perceptive decision makers frighten me going into my first semester teaching. If the student can circumvent the lesson and feed me what I want to hear in their work then what have I taught them? Teaching those who do no want to be taught is just a hazard of the job though. I will also need to keep in mind that just because a student my play school and play me, that does not mean they are a bad person. This game of school for grade reward was built over time not necessarily a malicious decision. In this case the lesson would be solely my own in that I am the one who will be subjected to the learning curve of teaching. The students come prepared to adapt to the college setting, because being a student is a highly adaptive field of work. This balancing act of placing my needs and the students needs together in mind seems like it is going to be one of the interesting things about teaching. I look forward to never having the same class dynamic twice. I am hoping to keep this attitude as the actual work of teaching takes off.  

Student Conceptions and Critical Teaching

As a graduate student, I straddle, among other things, both sides of the student/teacher conceptual divide Jennie Nelson describes; I teach, I grade, I study. I have worn, these two months into my career, the hats of instructor, evaluator, and learner interchangeably. As such, Nelson is describing ME. I am interested in what she has to say about me.

As an instructor:

In the Major Modern Writers class that I TA, my cooperating professor occasionally (and let me emphasize the occasional element at play here) lets me teach. This previous Monday was one of those occasions. Hence the vest I wore to class. My modus operandi for teaching my wee young blossoming minds was, after having introduced the poem to be discussed, breaking them into four small groups and giving each group a theme to investigate in the poem. I thought "It's like a game! Hee hee! They're going to hoist me on their shoulders for this."

Obviously, no hoisting occurred. Where I saw an opportunity for active and engaged participation with a text, the students, damn them, saw through to the meat of the matter: They were being expected to act out their knowledge of the poem, and did not appreciate that the stress this entailed had no immediate pay-off. When I walked around the room to listen in on the small groups discussion, the students were not shy about acting (and, again, emphasize the act there) out active involvement. Brookfield's proffered assumption on visiting small groups, eat your heart out.

In any case, the students clearly generated from the instructions I gave them for class involvement their own definition of successful participation. They were aware of the nuts and bolts elements of the classroom setting, and, realizing that their participation could not be reflected in their grade for the course, limited their effort accordingly.

As an evaluator:

In the same class, I am responsible for all the grading, which so far has only entailed one essay test. Here, I would like to quote Nelson in deference to her delineation of my own experience:

"Too often teachers expect students who are newcomers to a field to be able to determine the implicit ways of thinking and presenting evidence required to write successfully in their particular disciplines."

Very, very few students in Major Modern Writers are English majors, or are even well versed in the requirements of critical college writing. However, the class is run in such a way that English competence is assumed, not constructed. As such, the VAST majority of the grading I've had to do has revealed that students need to understand HOW to write an English essay before they can know WHAT to write in an English essay.

Additionally, and actually more directly applicable to Nelson's point, I encountered significant difficulties in reconciling MY interpretations of student success with what I was forced to imagine would be the professor's. The evolution of expectations has certainly never been clearer to me than in the moments when I have to juggle my definition of success with what I know of the professor's. This is especially difficult when our opinions on these matters differ.

As a student:

In these past few months, I have discovered that, in graduate school, it is en vogue to never really have any idea how you're doing until the absolute end of the course, when you turn in one assignment that constitutes three quarters of your final grade. As such, I have slowly started to panic as I realize that, not only do I have to produce a substantial amount of original work to fulfill these assignments, but I also have had no sort of outside experience that will guide my understanding of teacher expectations. This feeling of unease at having this experiential safety net certainly underscores what Nelson is describing in the case study, as it urges me to explore other avenues of work completion.

Now, I realize that this examination of the relevance of Nelson's, and to a lesser extent Brookfield's, articles on my recent life has been little more than a largely self-serving digression. However, I would like to underscore what I hope comes through as my central belief regarding these two readings: that the material presented here is far from abstract, and that it is simultaneously accurate and significant.

Brookfield's article on critical reflection positions itself to have considerable importance as my career in academic instruction continues, if for no other reason than that I can easily imagine myself taking personal responsibility for aspects of teaching beyond my control. While I understand that this introductory point is far from the crux of the matter at hand here, the ability of critical reflection to identify not only the areas of responsibility that I have as a teacher but also the responsibilities contingent upon my students is largely comforting. I view this as an affirmation of my commitment to adaptive teaching, certainly, and also as a method whereby I can distinguish areas of improvement from elements beyond my control.

this is not the future; this is now

In my email this morning, from the Edutopia article linked below:

Increasingly, institutes of higher education are collaborating with K-12 teachers to help them use digital tools to get at-risk students excited about learning. ...

"We want our undergraduates to create projects, not just write papers," says Holly Willis, director of academic programs at USC's Institute for Multimedia Literacy (IML). "This is key to our mission of conducting research on the changing nature of literacy in the 21st century. It's crucial to our own goal that our undergraduates make teaching and learning happen at the same time; that they become peer mentors within the broader community."


http://www.edutopia.org/digital-literacy-video-games-gamedesk

--Pam

Look a dog dressed as a hot dog! Now I am multimodal!

I bring up the wiener dog to show there is more to multimodal composition than just slapping any random image with any random text. There is a craft to using more that one mode correctly.  

This may be in relation to my overall agreeable nature but I do not hate Wysocki and that makes me feel dirty. There are things I found less than readily applicable to the first year composition course, but I also found the reading interesting. I found the Wysocki readings interesting but difficult to relate to my ideas of the classroom. The activities were creative but I feel to silence more critics  the authors should have been more writing focused.  It felt in some of the activities writing was tacked on as an afterthought in the end. There were cool things done, discussions had, then ..... oh yeah maybe write about it. The text was just hard to relate to but I did not hate it. I think I skimmed the cream and will retain that and let the other stuff go. As I am now safely in my home and far enough away from any one who would care, I like multi-modality. I think that it is new, exciting, and challenging. 

Challenging, in that I am not visually creative on my own. I usually need the kind of prompt I will be giving my students to think visually. The few multimodal projects I have been assigned I have enjoyed. I enjoyed them more when they were finished and I was back in my word comfort zone. While working on multi-modal projects my brain juices were forced to flow against the current. This thinking creatively in a new format is a good learning experience for students. It is not often we go into any classroom and find challenges awaiting us. There are assignments, readings, that are more difficult than others but  a challenge, hardly ever. There are also few surprises in the work of classrooms. If multi-modality can challenge and surprise me as and instructor as well as my students, I choose to value the idea.

I also think this multimodal work has a place in our classroom. I do not expect it to replace essays. But they can support each other and the student. I do not want to be a hippy new wave teacher and say that “everything is writing” because it is not. But there is a lot of writing out in the world that is not as valued in the first year composition course.  I would like to encourage my students to explore this. I don't find multimodal composition to be a form of busy work. I also think that it is hard to separate “busy work”' away from the classroom. Unless I am prepared to sit and watch 24 students write or they to watch me write for the class period there will need to be work done in the classroom, busy or otherwise. The lessons learned in the classroom maybe short but they are at least I hope lessons that will serve the writers in their writing. Not every assignment can be an expository essay that is well thought out, prepared, crafted, and edited. Not that it would not be nice to get a few of those. I would equally like my students to value other shorter less formal types of writing. Take this blog for example. It is not graded by the same rubric as an academic essay and yet I value the writing I am doing. I have had to gauge and hedge against my audience. In fact I value this writing enough that I had three outside class discussions with peers. I briefly outlined my thoughts, and will if time allowing edit it. Even though this is being written for an academic setting this writing is not academic in nature and I value it still. This is a lesson important to impart on our students. Not all writing is academic but all writing should be valued. 

One problem I keep coming to in the course is the curriculum questions for the first year writing class. I cannot reconcile in my heart to teach only for the college years. “College is very short, the rest of life is very long” I cannot remember who said this but it was certainly not me.  I have a hard time looking forward to teaching my students to write solely academically. Four years, a handful of papers, and some essay tests are there goals. There is a value to them. It is important to write academically, but there is also a whole life past graduation, if we are lucky. If teaching in a multimodal form will encourage my students to write in at least some form that is what I am going to do. If they take away lessons that they can use in writing and presenting information in their careers than I see the class in part a success. The extreme concentration on academic writing I feel is daunting in narrow. That is not to say I don't value academic forms of writing. But I do not believe it is the end all, be all of human communication through writing. I am not suggesting I will teach how to twitter, but I am also not against using it as a tool. I know many people who could not even remember what they had learned from their first year writing course on graduation. Many people do not value the skill set we are trying to impart, because they don't see it as applicable to their own lives. First year writing should not be a throw away course to get though in the first year and never think about again. I  do not know how to change these things but I know I am going to try. 

Technocentrism, and other assorted ills

I would like to preface this response with the following disclaimer: I, like Garth, did not overly appreciate the New Media readings for this week.

That having been said, let me say that I did agree with many of the points that Wysocki in the early parts of her first chapter, including her citation of Horner. I think it is true that “the materiality of writing may be understood to include social relations,” but more than that, I think we need to go beyond considerations of materiality and talk about the fact that writing itself is social in nature, that it is always in response to something, and that whatever kind of response it is, its form is, to an extent, socially determined (3). Wysocki goes on to discuss the fact that it is part of our jobs as teachers to show students that they do not write in an intellectual vacuum, and that there is exigency for their work. I agree that there is a question of the definition of the rhetorical situation of new media texts, and that the consideration of that situation would be helpful to composition students in order to further their understanding of the link between rhetoric and successful writing.

It is basically after this point in the reading that I begin to diverge from Wysocki’s understandings of text, power, and teaching. Wysocki seems to indicate, on page 8, that not only is there not necessarily such a thing as “new” technology, neither is there such a thing as neutral technology. Her contention here seems to be that because any kind of technology always comes out of existing structures (economic, political, or habitual), technology is incapable of neutrality because it is always made by something that is biased in some way.

I also have an issue with the block quote on page 12 that deals with the seriousness with which we consider texts of varying appearances, when it suggests that a reader would think less of a text that drew “such visual attention to itself.” I disagree with the entire notion that instruction in new media texts is necessary to the composition class because composition courses do not involve the serious consideration and production of a variety of literary forms. I will grant this argument that there are, unfortunately, some professors who conduct their First Year Composition courses as if they were essay-writing seminars. But there will always be professors who will take a hard and literal line about the instruction of their subject. It seems to me, based on both my experience and the related experiences of friends, that there is in fact a great deal of variety in what is seriously considered and produced in Freshman Composition. I think it is very easy to write about extremes of behaviors and situations, all the while implying that these extremes are normal, when in fact they are unfortunate rarities.

Following our informal group discussion on Monday, I would like to raise the issue of the problematic nature of Wysocki’s formal definition of “new media texts” on page 15. Wysocki’s definition is predicated on both the composer’s awareness of the various materialities of texts, and the subsequent awareness of the viewer of the interconnectedness of the text that they are reading (15). The problem with this definition is much like the one that exists with current debates concerning hate crime laws (i.e., the question of how an institution can legislate thought and intent), in that it is nearly impossible, during the five minutes that a person devotes to checking their e-mail, to determine the connection that the Hotmail designer intended to encourage between the size of the icons and the color of the font. It is impossible for anyone besides the Hotmail designer to assess the level of awareness and exact intentions that preceded the creation of the Hotmail website. If anyone has determined a means by which intent can be assessed with complete accuracy, then that person needs to stop talking about composition instruction and needs to start talking to the people who operate the security checkpoints at airports.

My point here is that intent is nearly impossible to establish beyond any kind of doubt, and as such, such devoted consideration of intent probably does not belong in the composition classroom.

It is at this point that I would like to raise the issue of reverse discrimination. It is my contention that Wysocki is privileging new media texts disproportionately, while also clearly denigrating the value of texts that are not written with complete authorial awareness of what the reader will think about the choice of black ink instead of blue. I disagree with the idea that reader awareness of the social relativity of texts can only occur through the production and consumption of new media texts. I believe that all media (including the texts discussed in current composition classrooms) can be considered “interactive media,” if “interactive” is taken to mean “psychologically interactive and engaging” (17). Is it not impossible to read a book or poem or peer essay without being minimally engaged with that text on a psychological level? Even when I read a very boring text for an equally boring class, I am psychologically engaged with the text on at least a minimal level. I think it is incredibly technocentric to assume otherwise.

As a sort of post-script, I would like to add that “The Sticky Embrace of Beauty” was unforeseeably difficult to relate to the teaching of college writing. I can agree that the images and formal aspects of a visual composition should not be divorced from one another during analysis, and I agree that there are apparently quite serious limitations with the formalization of rules for visual composing (or any other form of composing, for that matter). Now, I consider myself a lightweight Marxist-feminist critic, but when an author starts mixing what is apparently quite angry feminist rhetoric and Kantian philosophical explanations of aesthetics and beauty, I confess to becoming much less able to understand the connection between the majority of this chapter and the teaching of college writing.

Writing New Media; or, Garth Goes Bananas

To save you time, here is the shortened, one sentence form of my response to the Wysocki chapters as it shall follow: I don't like 'em.

That being said, allow me to elaborate. One of the things that I have found most effective in the readings thus far in the course has been that they have minimized the artistic emphasis of our field; that is to say, they have pointed out the universality of communication, and emphasized style, certainly, but not "art". While countless authors thus far have indicated the existence of graphemes as a signifier of meaning, thus far it has been understood that these elements of language are secondary to the more abstract, in my mind rightly so. My understanding of graphemes, and correct me if this is flawed, has been that they enhance a message inherent to the text. For example, large red text certainly can convey anger, but usually in accordance with a message that would've gotten that point across anyways, like "Stop drinking my coffee you bastards!" Form, to pander oh so much to Shuy, has followed function, and there was much rejoicing.

Now, enter Wysocki. Here we examine at greater depth the intuitive element that visual presentation affords to a text. I will give her her due; I wanted to be on board for this. I spent a substantial amount of time in undergrad writing about a novel called Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, which used new media elements left and right, and for which I praised the author substantially. However, I can't help but get caught up on this one nagging point: It succeeded for Jonathan Safran Foer in his novel because, well, it's art. Similarly, when, in "The Sticky Embrace of Beauty," Wysocki peppered her argument with examples of the sort of layout innovations she's expounding, my thought was immediately of poetry. "This looks like poetry," I thought. Then: "Is that appropriate for this?"

Well? Is it?

I would like to suggest, flatly, that it is not. Wysocki is quick to denigrate the current layout conventions as perpetuating cultural values like efficiency, and draws some (in my mind) shady and negative correlations to "assembly lines, in parking lots, and in the rows of desks in classroom" (159). I'll grant her this: she's probably right, standard layout does emphasize efficiency, and in doing so reflects a larger cultural emphasis. But (and let me emphasize the but-ness of this but) why is she so loath to examine the implications of efficiency as the guiding element of graphic composition?

It seems to me that the current layout form emphasizes the meaning of a text; that is to say, it is as unobtrusive an element of a reading as possible, so as to direct one's attention to the abstract statements being made with the ink. Efficiency, thus, is gained by removing every imagined impediment to the acquisition of meaning to a text. Now, if we suppose, by Wysocki's example, a layout convention predicated upon "compassion," we can certainly add additional meaning to what would be essentially the same text. However, this addition would bring with it a meta level of interaction with the text that would distract from the meaning inherent to it! Arguments thus relying upon an extra-textual element of meaning comprehension would be, I argue, arguments that by necessity introduce a boundary between themselves and the reader.

Now, I will wholeheartedly embrace Wysocki in pointing out the oppressive cultural values that come into play in the manufacture of meaning from written text; as a middle class, white Christian male, my life is as endorsed by "the system" as it's going to get, but I am not so dense as to imagine that things must, or should, be this way. I do not want my comments against Wysocki's arguments to be seen as rejecting her pleas for gender and racial equalization in texts. However, I would stress that her methods for achieving these are far from the only present option. It seems to me that withdrawing into a radical stylistic and idealistic shift would underscore the theories of inherent gender inequality that Wysocki purports to be struggling against. Again, I offer my vision of textual aesthetics in their standard iteration as intentionally understated so as to emphasize the message conveyed. If this is the case, then certainly the issue lies not in the appearance of texts, but rather in the language and values contained within them. I question the efficacy of a purely artistic movement in addressing deeply rooted problems of content.

Again, I find myself using this term "art" to describe Wysocki's position, and here I have to break down and ask what place "The Sticky Embrace of Beauty" has in a composition classroom like the ones we'll all be encountering. THESE ARE THE CONCERNS OF AN ARTIST! I eagerly await the day a freshman composition class comes along that is so proficient that their time is best spent with theoretical concerns of the impact of font choice. I try to imagine what my own reaction would be if, as a student, I encountered Wysockian principles or, worse yet, assignments in a class supposedly dedicated to writing proficiency. I would think of it as groundless busywork, especially her assignments. If I had a writing teacher who spent, as she suggests, "6-8 class periods" examining commercial advertisements, I suspect that I would not be the only person considering a drop, at the very least.

Now yes, I can see how that indicates cultural entrenchment and resistance to change. I have to ask, though: Isn't there a practical line we have to acknowledge? No matter our theoretical impressions of instruction, there comes a point when brass tacks will force us to conduct classes in a way that will allow our students to succeed later on. I do not think, to finally conclude, that Wysocki's new media practices will allow for this.

Multimodality

Since Marshall McLuhan declared, "The medium is the message" in 1960s, the medium has evolved itself into more various forms, which now seem to dominate our sensory world and the message it produces. Those different media such as TV, Internet, magazine and newspapers, textmessaging and academic journals have greatly influenced words, images and symbols that it conveys. In this sense, as McLuhan acknowledged, the message might be nothing more than the combination of all; words, visual images, sound, and the communication technology, and the environment where you read, listen to, or watch the text. If this is true, shouldn't we redefine the meaning of "text"? Now a text is making a sound, moving, and having colors. It is spontaneously being produced and reproduced as it is communicated. It never stops flowing. It is also the confluence of the rest of the texts. That is, a text is already intertextual.
In this context, the issue of multimodal pedagoy might be addressed too late. More and more young students are used to communicating through various media. In addition, the new media is getting faster, more diverse and more sensuous. While the old texts instigate your senses through your imagination, the new media arouses each of your senses spontaneously.Perhaps, the more you are used to its speed, diversity and sensuosity, the more easily you lose your patience and taste in reading, intepreting and producing old print-oriented texts. These texts might teach us the depth of our life yet not quite well talk about its width and varieity. Fortunately, we no longer want the depth actually; instead, we appreciate the shallow vivacity of the world represented by TV shows, disposable movies, and internet. Perhaps, it is more exact to say that there is a different kind of depth in the new media.
Then, what a composition teacher can do in the world becoming more sensory? How can these sensual texts help to develop our thinking and sophisticate our writing? Or, aren't they detrimental rather than helpful? How can the new media take off the scarlet letter of "shallowness" attached to it? To me, all of these questions still remain unsolved despite many educators' passionate advocacy of the new media.

On "Multimodality"

As most of us would agree, I see technology as necessary to writing instruction. Needless to say, we’re in the digital age and almost all writing activity is online. The writing environment has changed and technology and writing classes are inseparable today. If we provide a technology based learning environment to our students, they would feel more comfortable in expressing themselves. In the first place, they are familiar with using technology and they feel at ease when writing web sites, blogs, chatting online, text messaging etc. If we include a computer based approach in our writing course curriculum, we can provide more real- world practice into writing. In doing so, I believe that we can encourage student participation. Another significant aspect of integrating multimodal texts into our curriculum is students are offered the role of being not only the writers but also the publishers of their own writing. This implies that, being the publishers they can get and give feedback, so communication does not stop. Feedbacks and responses are also essential in the sense that they allow for collaboration. I also agree that traditional classrooms constrain students’ work in intellectual and physical ways, since such classrooms tend to kill the imagination of students, and they also feel trapped inside the classroom. Digital space offers more room to present their ideas and their creativity is not limited. English composition teachers also play an active role in the writing process by engaging in students’ production and by providing constant feedback. “Engagement” is a two sided process involving both teachers and students. Teachers might feel challenged by multimodal practices, as instructing in the traditional way is much easier without posing any challenges other than teaching the same rules, patterns and organization (introduction, body and conclusion), and essay types over and over again by paying close attention to grammatical details. However, we should not disregard the fact that students are fed up with taking the same, monotonous composition classes. Therefore, if we can adopt a multimodal focused approach, they would feel that they are an active part of something, they are producing something and they can relate what they produce to their lives outside the class. The only challenge remains to be the effects of technology on a Composition course, and I think that the benefits will far outweigh potential drawbacks.

Yea, about multimodality...

I'm as internet as one can be at my age, I assume. I've had it since 3rd grade or so, and I've poured more hours of my life than I'd like to admit intoabout a half-dozen softly blue-lit screens. In these years I have blogged, downloaded various media illegally, networked (socially), and used multiple messaging programs. Napster, friendster, etsy, ebay, youtube, vimeo, twitter, pirate bay, AIM, myspace, makeoutclub, yahoo messenger, trillian, audiogalaxy, kazaa, oink, facebook, last.fm, flickr, livejournal, deadjournal, xanga, tumblr, digg... this is just what I can remember off the top of my head. Currently I'm involved in a few covert music communities. I've dropped my very adolescent blogging habit (aside from this one, which is not voluntary or nearly as whiny as my previous endeavours...). I try to keep social networking to a minimum, although the temptation is always a few inches to my left when I'm reading for class.

Despite my comparatively low membership in these sort of sites now, I make the rounds; I am aware, generally, of what-is-happening-on-the-internet. As a result of my past hyper-involvement I can use photoshop and I somewhat know html. I can make a funny picture and distribute it to all of my friends very, very quickly. I can also stumble upon funny pictures/videos/what-have-you and distribute. These are valuable skills, apparently, because my mother sends me chain e-mails that have a half-dozen funny pictures of walmart shoppers every day... whereas I found http://www.peopleofwalmart.com about a month ago on http://www.buzzfeed.com and posted a link on my facebook wall. After three days I was sick of it, I had moved on to bigger and better and funnier blogs that I would soon tire of, and so I delete all my mom's e-mails. She also likes to send me funny videos of people not using fireworks correctly-- as if I haven't been using youtube for years.

Despite my enthusiasm for all things internet, I remain a neo-luddite when it comes to incorporating it into education. I have never not grimaced as the insistence of posting to a class message board, enrolling in a listserv, or blogging. I find this sort of technology staunchly opposed to what we do in academia for two majors reasons: 1) No one cites sources here. And if they do, they're on news sites or blogs that are re-blogging. Aside from that, there is an absolute free-flow of information, ideas, media, and jokes. No one claims authorship. Look at wikis, chans, twitter even... 2) There is no professionalizing or standardizing of the internet. This is difficult because often class projects come in conflict with our private digital worlds, and that can be, speaking from experience, very threatening to students. Regardless-- these points are very important as I feel they are crucial to understanding how the digital world works. While I agree that this medium offers a lot of opportunity for generating and consuming and interpreting texts, it does so in a way that is decidedly un-academic... and I don't say this as an insult. I am not dismissing the low culture of the internet. Rather, it is an alternative culture. And academic efforts to reach it are, again speaking from experience, embarassing.

Internet: Serious Business.

Talk to any 19/20-year-old who has to do a discussion board post for a class or maintain a blog such as this.

More on point, perhaps: talk to any 19/20-year-old about CREATIVE projects like these multimodal examples Shipka talks about.

Trying to stay "relevant" is, to borrow from James, "the older generation confused, frustrated, and taking out their sense of displacement on youth."

Most on-point section of this blog post:

In response specifically to Takayoshi et. al., I understand the need to expand analytic skills to multimodal texts. Authoring though? This brings up an entire slew of problems, related to the two issues I emphasize above....

Additionally, if engaging with multimodal texts somehow enhances one's standard rhetorical and writing skills-- then doesn't the opposite work as well? That is, if we focus on writing and developing critical thinking skills in the way that we do currently, will it not come to affect the way students engage in all forms of media. What I am saying is, even if we do not specifically, say, dissect a movie in class, won't the skills one learns from dissecting a speech come to bear on movie-watching? /relevance

I realize that everything I've presented here figures me as somewhat of an opponent to these texts we read specifically for today's class. This is, for all intents and purposes, a rant... And I apologize for the unfocused nature.

What I would like is for these two institutions to remain separate. Perhaps I am a purist. In my writing classes, I'd like simply to write... And on the internet, I'd like to re-blog a video of a dog going down a waterslide.