Reading Response 9/30

I'd like to respond specifically to the Powell article in light of our classroom discussion today. Personally, I look at Powell as a woman who can bring a personal experience to class that is potentially more effective than reading. Throughout these readings, I've noticed a consistent suggestion that tells us to meld 'real life' with composition and to break down the walls that exist between academia and our thoughts and opinions. In the spirit of this recurring theme, I don't see why we shouldn't bring our class, religion, sexuality, and most importantly race, into our teaching experience. Ms. Powell's experience as both an African-American and a woman affords her the ability to relate not just any experience she may have had with oppression, but also allows students to witness a sincere human reaction to racism. I think that reading about sensitive subjects offers students a comfortable distance. They are able to agree or disagree freely when not being confronted by a live, human voice. I am not surprised at all that Ms. Powell encountered a great deal of resistance in her class. I am sure that a good part of her students may have gone their whole lives without having such a charged conversation with someone of a different race. While this may make them uncomfortable, I think it is an important experience for them to have. The danger here is an alienation so intense that the students either close down and stand in complete opposition to the professor, or merely submit and give the professor what she wants. I think that it is important when bringing your personal background into class, be it class, race, religion or sexuality, to remain approachable toward your students. I can imagine this is very difficult to do, especially if offensive language is used towards a group that you identify with. I suppose this is a risk that must be taken if we are to use ourselves as a real life example of something we are trying to bring across in class.

I grew up in a predominately white town, and while I was aware of racial issues through reading and film, the scope and dynamics of racism did not really occur to me until I interacted with some of my African-American professors who adopted a similar approach to race as Ms. Powell did. While this approach engenders defensiveness and irritation in some students, I came away from these professors' classes with a newfound understanding of race and gender.

I think that Ms. Powell's argument is especially relevant now that we are living in a world that some consider to be "post-race." With so many people claiming that racism is over, I think that it takes interaction with a person who has experienced racism to orient students to reality.

My only complaint with the article is that Powell admittedly did not give as much attention to other minority groups. I think that perhaps structuring the course around a timeline of racism (i.e., begin with the genocide of Native Americans, discuss Japanese internment camps, etc.) would detract from claims that she is merely pushing an agenda. In this case her personal experience becomes supplemental to the overall theme of racism in America and does not become the primary focus of the class. I think it would also serve her well to focus on the many layers of oppression an individual can experience (i.e. how someone who is both homosexual and an ethnic minority faces oppression on more than one side) to further explore the nuances of racism.

Response to Brooke, Nystrand, and Powell

Composition Jihad

While reading the Brooke article, I found myself quite pointedly reminded of the Daniell article we read for an earlier class, in that the Brooke article seems to presuppose that all students are oppressed and require professors to “struggle” on their behalf (148). My reading of Brooke is that there is a built-in assumption that in order for writing teachers to consider themselves “successful,” their students must stop thinking of themselves as “students,” and instead think of themselves as “writers” (149). My disagreement with this attitude is many-fold, and begins with an objection to the “we have to save them” mentality of the professorial body represented in this article. Apparently, it is the desire of such professors to save students from being placed in the institutionally-determined “student” box, and instead to place them firmly in the “writer” box, which evidently is more palatable to certain members of our field simply because it is a predetermined identity created by Writing Studies, and not The Man. For a discipline that professes (in this article) to run counter to the goals of the university environment, Brooke’s conception of composition studies reeks surprisingly of dogmatic partisanship. I think we have just been introduced to the fundamentalists of composition studies.

Also, I find the implications of Brooke’s “underlife” theory very troubling, indeed. While I can appreciate the initial purpose of this article as a means of expanding my understanding of the underlife behavior of students, Brooke’s discussion of these activities seems more supportive of the idea that students are being resistant in order to be trendy and nonconformist, rather than as a means of actual identity formation. The implication here is that underlife activity of this sort is much more concerned with not looking like a teacher-pleaser who “conforms” than with taking an ideological stand against that which violates one’s identity.

Effective Classroom Practices

Nystrand’s lengthy discussion of the benefits of dialogic instruction was revelatory, if also slightly repetitive. Even during the early stages of students’ education, fostering critical thinking skills and encouraging the generation of new (rather than remembered) knowledge is critical. Though I am unsure of the exact applications of such elementary measures in the teaching of composition at the college level, I have no doubt that the import of this article will stay with me.

I found the idea of making “public space” for student voices of particular appeal (15). As a person who has been a student for the last nineteen years, I can honestly say that the best experiences I have had in class were ones in which there was a back-and-forth interaction between all of the parties involved. The list of valuable experiences lost through monologically organized instruction is dishearteningly long, especially in light of the fact that such methods are still used so widely. Critical to this argument is, in my mind, the distinctions that Nystrand makes between students’ engagement in “procedural display” and “substantive engagement” (17). The difference between these two types of student engagement seem to lie at the heart of the debate concerning monologically versus dialogically organized instruction. As teachers, we have to ask ourselves a very simple question: Do we want our students simply to “do school,” or do we desire that our students are more fully engaged in their educations? A teacher’s answer to this question is basically an explanation of their teaching methods and beliefs.

Teaching with Resistance

My response to the Powell chapter is one that is connected to my personal experiences as a person of mixed ethnicity, who also happens to be quite liberal. While reading about Powell’s experience of the power struggle with her students concerning her position of authority and the goals she hopes to accomplish during the semester, I cannot help but wonder if I will ever be in the same difficult predicament, and what I will have to do if I am. The discussion on page 160 of the way a professor’s “accent” and the language they use affect students’ perceptions of them is troubling to me, and not just a little intimidating.

I found Powell’s discussion of the ways in which she encourages students to create meaning through their interpretations to be both inspiring and thought provoking. I like the idea of incorporating other mediums, including film, into the composition course. “Composition” is not limited to inscribing words on a page, so why should the study and instruction of it be so limited?

The inclusion of class discussions of race and gender give this chapter a kind of immediate significance, especially in light of the incredible biases that still quietly creep through the academic environment. On page 165, Powell discusses the need for “rigorous discussion on issues of difference,” not out of a need to embarrass students, but rather in the hope of broadening the scope of students’ perspectives and what they will consider. I think this is an important part of our field, but, as Nystrand implies, not the only part. I think it is important to achieve a balance between genuine student involvement and social awareness within the classroom. Now if I only knew how to do that…

Discourse and "The Box" (Response 9/30

Now, far be from me to support the status quo. I'm a hip cat, I hate the mindless "yes sir of course sir" of ideological conformity as much as the next guy. However - am I the only person who sees a substantial difference between exposing students to alternate viewpoints and browbeating them into accepting your own thought process, protected by your ideology's "alternate" status?

This, of course, is not to say that I'm against letting kids know about issues of race, or gender, or sexuality, or any of the myriad other subjects that could easily stand in one of those others in my listing. I support these issues both personally and as a foundation for positive social building. Nevertheless, it concerns me that the two examples of this "out of the box" focus that we've seen in this class - Annette Harris Powell in "Conflicting Voices in the Classroom: Developing Critical Consciousness" and Sherry Cook Stanforth in Durst's Collision Course - certainly seem to excel at luring students into deeper thought patterns, but in a way that, to look at the individual writings, appears counter-productive to the students' sense of acceptance in the classroom.

Not surprisingly, I believe it was Phil who said it best in our small group discussion last week: Why do we have to push the envelope all the time? Sherry herself seemed to acknowledge that her choice of sensitive subjects had an inverse effect on student participation and involvement at times. Moreover, and it is here that she mirrors Powell, her very choice of topics betrays an agenda of presenting personal views with the adjoining assumption that these views will, by their very nature, eventually be adopted by students. Now, I feel a little Snidely Whiplash-esque at this point, since the views that Sherry and Powell each have chosen are certainly ones that I think all mature, socially competent thinkers should adopt; I am not attacking the individual views of these instructors. However, I do want to suggest that this model that they're showing us seems, to my young, inexperienced mind, to push students back on their heels, and not in a good way.

Looking at Nystrand's article on dialogic instruction, we have clear evidence that students benefit from a classroom paradigm that values discussion over recitation. However, if you're purposely picking viewpoints because they are foreign, and perhaps even hostile, to the viewpoints your students have of their own, it seems to me that any "discussion" the class generates will devolve into a barely concealed recitation of your own views as their own by the savvy students, or an angered refutation of the point by the stubborn ones. I can see, in Nystrand's terms, the ideal hope for the "transformation of understandings" through the presentation of loftier thought processes, but these are students whom we don't even trust to put verbs in every sentence. Not to say that they can't absorb this knowledge, but, frankly, that they won't.

Consider Brooke's discussion of "underlife" in classrooms. Students are well aware of the boundaries of their expected roles in the classroom, and are equally cognizant of the ways to subvert them. Also, we've seen throughout other readings for this course (notably Durst) that students can penetrate through the meaning of an assignment in order to view the brass tacks of the expectations of them. I will, in a simple phrase, offer my assessment of these facts of the classroom: That sucks. However, I have to ask, how can we know these things about students and still trust them to truly embrace a social lesson of the sort Powell or Stanforth offers? Especially when no effort seems to be made in disguising the teacher's personal agenda? Accepting this new view has now become a homework assignment, and though they'll grumble about it, my suspicion is that few students will risk their grades by clinging to their prior views. As for the ones that do, well, they've clearly misinterpreted all the presented information in class, and thus they were probably going to do bad anyway. Right?

Wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. Where is the harm in setting aside untouchability for a moment? I fully agree that social awareness is an admirable goal in any course, and that composition classes are a specially apt fit for its acquisition. However, if we're going to be so sure of the maturity of our students and the rightness of one view over another, why not let them realize what's "right" or "good" for themselves? By this I mean, present both sides of a two-sided issue! Or three sides of a three-sided, and so on. I would, if pressed, admit myself a liberal, but any statement in that vein would be exactly that: an admission for myself. There is an equally well-defined, though in my opinion "wrong," position to take on every issue, but it strikes me as pedagogically imperialistic to approach a class under the assumption that this "wrong" view must be wrong.

Again - why not let students decide for themselves? I've had classes, which I enjoyed, where instructors gave readings that illuminated both sides of an issue, and then challenged us, the students, to evaluate these interpretations side by side. Here is your Ms. Lindsay, Nystrand; here is your discussion model put into use, generating knowledge by asking students to determine it for themselves. Though I know now, and possibly knew then, that the teachers giving these assignments surely had their own opinions, and possibly even what those opinions were, they were not forced on me as the true meat of the lesson. Rather, they had the decency to presume that, if they were as right as they assumed, I would have no choice but to adopt the "correct" social view, and that, if I did not, I at least solidified my own interpretation of the world instead of being spoonfed someone else's.

And, it would seem to me, if we're going to praise the "Ms. Lindsay" model of classroom instruction, we also have to praise this possibility for dissent.

Response Week 5

I would first like to respond and agree with Daae's post from last week in offering the students a chance to choose the writing class that they are in. I understand the practicality of the idea of offering differing classes and I know that this is far reaching but why not let our themes of our courses become available for students to learn about and choose from? Even if it is just a chance to have a more engage d and interested classroom that is a chance worth taking.  The extra paperwork  is worth having a student come in feeling more interested in the classroom. The example or classroom theme that  I keep  coming back to, is the underlying themes of music. This idea is great if people are into music. I am not. Music does not define me, give me nostalgic flashbacks, or represent me in almost any way. Music plays a very small role in my life. If I were to get into the  music themed course I would be either playing school as I went through the motions of the assignments or I would drop the course and potentially screw up my time line of courses. If the themes were available for student options . I think we would have a more interested and better motivated class. We would at least all enter on the first day having one thing in common, in that, we all chose to be there knowing what was going to going on. 

Brooke 

“In the classroom students write to comply with our demands they don't write because they see themselves as writers. The need for writers to develop their own voices is the central place where pedagogy in writing comes in conflict with itself .” This is quite a catch-22 we as instructors want to help develop the students own personal voice but in that same time we are limiting it to the assignments given. But with out assignments how will any voice develop authentic or not. This is a heck of a problem. I agree with students having an underlife in the class room as well as their writings. Often assignments force the student to take a stand on an issue not valued or often  not thought about this leads to false opinions and false voice. I do think these false opinions are better than no opinions. If assigning a persuasive stop smoking essay to a group of smokers requires them to think critically and analyze and in the future helps with real world writing in a persuasive manner then I guess their false voice was a success. This thought of developing voice in one semester seems far stretched. 15 weeks is not very much time to grow into a voice even if it was the only class the students were taking, we met everyday, and wrote reams of discourse. I would like to see students develop a voice but the practically of it is limiting. I don't see where there voice comes into a formal essay. The job of conforming to the requirements of academic discourse can be daunting enough without trying to wedge the writer's voice in too. Writers that are writing for more than just the grade is a a very noble goal but I feel it may be out of reach. Maybe we should strive for teaching the building blocks skills that lead to this and  hope and encourage them to continue with writing that gives them a chance to express their own ideas in a their natural voice . Not just playing school.  I also thought the Brooke article gave an important insight into the classroom environment and all the things that go on aside or concurrently with the “educating” The underlife currents all rang true to my own experiences even now at the graduate level . I have seen examples of all of the 4 major classroom underlife activities. I think this information  will be valuable as I get into the classroom and can identify actions not as disrupting, but as necessary.  I would love to have writers in my classrooms but I am also prepared to have students and that is ok too.

Nystrand

What I took away most from the Nystrand piece directs back to the epistemological in that: “Knowledge is something generated, constructed, indeed co-constructed in collaboration with others. Students figure out not just remember.”  I would like to become the type of instructor that can foster this kind of learning. I want to as Nystrand puts it, “moderate, direct discussion, probe, foresee, and analyze.” I would like my students to do more than just play the school game I would like for the time that we are in the classroom together to be engaged and plugged in to the lesson. This seems easier said than done. This idea of playing school goes back to Brooke's development of voice.  How as instructors do we ask students for essays that in assigning them, we are only  playing instructor? Nystrand “ The inevitable dead end of assignments requiring students to explain things we already know- things our dialogically astute students know we know. Good students play along, of course, so that we can tell that they know we know they they know what we know! This forced discourse seems silly and at the same time as a soon to be instructor almost nearly impossible to avoid. How do we balance these things? I want to be a Ms.Lindsay. But am having a hard time seeing how.   

Response 09/23

As I read all the articles, by amazement I discover how people are sharing the same concerns with me. The case studies and examples of students from different learning styles and backgrounds also lead me into a new kind of search for themes that I could use in my own classrooms. I have to admit that I had great difficulty in grasping the eaning of his “pinyin” analogy in Hartwell’s article. This article made more sense to me after discussing the concept of “literacy” in class.

Hartwell seems to be very disturbed by the idea that, we as teachers are so busy analyzing the surface forms of the language that our students use, that we forget about literacy, and the importance of communication. I found the iceberg metaphor highly relevant in talking about the surface and the underlying levels of literacy. When it comes to the transmission of literacy, I still tend to believe that the teacher plays an active role in this transmission, but I also agree that it’s embedded in social relationnships and doubtlessly metacognition and metalinguistic awareness are of equal importance when it comes to literacy. A student has to be conscious and analyze himself constantly but in order to monitor his/her own learning he would need a guide and this would be the teacher.

Hartwell also harshly criticizes the false assumptions of the teachers who emphasize alphabetic literacy, he claims that the world is not stable and literacy is a dynamic thing, and culture has a huge impact on the development of literacy which I totally agree. He also talks about how we can acquire literacy outside of schooling. Thus, he underestimates the active role of the teacher. I would agree on his view that teacher is not the center of authority in a classroom and there’s something called “teacher talk”, yet I don’t believe that all teachers are isolated from the real world. I can’t also see how teacher talk can hinder learning. Of course the social use of the language is as equally important as the teacher talk, but in my view teacher’s role is to facilitate learning not to impede it by imposing an authoritarian approach.

Keeping dialogue journals is a great way for the students to express themselves and the dialogue between the teacher and student would be a continuous one, so they would produce more and more. I would also try to involve my students in a language in the real world like assigning them various topics at different literacy events and they would end up writing more each time.

In Hartwell’s view establishing a sense of recovery from the traditional teacher role seems like the ideal role for a teacher. However, neither we as teachers nor our students would see each other as equals no matter what role the teacher assumes. What really matters is the encouragement that they would get from their teacher. Giving them the feeling that they can achieve, that is to say embracing positive reinforcement is indispensible.

Regarding Collision Course, Chapter 2 gave me some ideas of different methods that I can make use of, but the results of these methods weren’t really clear to me. If students write from their personal experiences as in the case of Cris and Clarissa, they’re too much involved in expressing their own experience that “their lack of personal distance” precedes over the nature of the essay. However, when Chuck and Larry write about other topics that are not related to them, the result is another dissapointment. So, we can conclude that, giving them a social context may not always work. The answer lies in providing students the right, individually tailored social contexts and to motivate them.

Reading Response(9/23/09)

While reading Durst's obsevation essay and having a group discussion, a couple of question have haunted me for so long. The first questions is what the nature and the goal of college writing class are in universities? If the course is necessary, what makes students in compostion class have a trouble? (Many writiers including Durst have pointed out some problems in writing course, troublining students.)

Significantly enough, such fields as mathematics, geology, or biology are not required but only writing course is mandatory. Also, it is distingused from any other kind of writing courses in creative writing department. Why is it so? One possible answer is that it aims at familiarize students with general academic writing. However, as the term, "general" implies, it is not easy to define what academic writing is in general. I admit that surely regardless of subjects, the institutionalized writing share certain common features in its formality. Following this logic, then, college writing is and should be focused on "how" one should write and failing to connect it to "what one wants to write about." In other words, from my perspective, writing course tends to separate writing strategies and styles from writing contents. It is this generality or "neutrality" of college writing course that makes students less engaged and enthusastic. By analogy, it is like an attempt to teach how to be a "generally" good cook without asking one "what kind of food one wants to make."

Therefore, I like to suggest that college writing course should be combined with more specific subjects and let students have a chance to choose one among them instead of taking general writing course. For example, each class can have one theme such as film critics in popular culture, gender issue or even the interesting theories of the origin of the universe. Then, before registering for the class, students can negotiate their interests with these topics. In this way, I believe they can have more specific expectations and goals of that course, which results in eliciting more engagement and enthusiasm from them.


p.s I was struggling with the blog posting. I made a couple of different accounts here with different email address. I feel like this is another process of learning. Sorry for the late unploading.

response to Durst and Daniell

Response to Durst and Daniell
Arthur T. Zheng
9/23/09

Where Interests Fail to Work in the Composition Class

In a previous response I touched on a theme-based approach to organize the composition class, much of which is linked to students’ interests in a certain field. However, Durst provides examples in Collision Course that call the approach to question: sometimes interests do not work as expected in the composition class.

Problems
That happens when the composition class in the study moved on from personal narratives on an event to the argumentative writing on a problem and its solution. Cris, one of the case-study students, chooses the topic of rape, which is her personal experience. A close review of the sample essay produced on the topic shows that Cris is too close to the topic to produce “a well thought-out argument essay” (Durst, p. 115). Examples are found in her essay where she is too concerned about her experience to remain calm and analytical. In the same group of interest type we find Clarissa, who had a baby when she was 15 years old. In a class discussion on teen pregnancy, she would have contributed well if she has walked out of the shadow of her own experience. In the two examples, the social and cultural contexts exist and function evidently in the process of writing. It is social background that helps shape what is (in Cris’s case) or could have been (in Clarissa’s case) topics of significance in writing. The problem with both Cris and Clarissa lies in their lack of personal distance (Durst, p. 118) to the matter of interest.

To the opposite we find Larry and Chuck, the former intends to write on guns in school and the latter on toxic wastes in the neighborhood. Both topics are of general concern to the public, but neither of the two had any personal engagement in the subject matter. Only vaguely in shape, those matters do not constitute real subjects of interest. In other words, they do not carry with them the feature of a social context for the writer.

The only success story in the study is Joshua, the engineering major who picked up an interest in mountain biking. What makes mountain biking a genuine interest, according to Durst (p. 117), is that Joshua not only regards it as a personal involvement but also conducts research into it along his real experience with the sport. As a result, he could relate the personal matter to other social, political, and environmental issues (Durst, p. 117). In reaching out for the broader meaning of mountain biking, Joshua has succeeded in distancing himself from what may look to others as too personal to be concerned.

Implications
Oftentimes one is either too close to (Cris and Clarissa) or too far away from (Larry and Chuck) his or her personal interest to make it possible for valid argumentative writing. How, then, is it possible to find an approach to produce the right type of interests to motivate and feed the writing of argument?

In the case of Joshua, we may have found some hints for a new approach to develop the right interest. He is profoundly interest in a subject matter and, at the same time, he is personally detached from it to allow room for critical reflection. As the little narrative of literary (Daniell, p. 405) points out, research in composition is moving away from the classroom to what she calls extracurriculum of composition writing, which is a part of everyday life. It is true as postmodernism sees it, the contemporary social life has been deconstructed in such a way that we may wonder at the “diversity of discursive species” (Daniell, p. 403). Combining these theories, we could make the claim that the social context is too complex and problems are too many for any writer to understand if he or she is not personally involved. At the same time, the writer must remain critical and personally detached from the social context to allow room for the participation of readers through addressing the problems and contexts as universally concerned. To put simply, the writer has to discover general truth in small matters that he or she may be involved.

Such an understanding of the social context a writer is in is conducive to an experimental approach to writing. By experimental I mean a writer is self-conscious of his or her involvement in a subject matter to experience the entire (or major part of) fullness of that matter. In the process, the writer remains both personally involved and critically detached. He or she takes the role of observer of social events and processes, which enables him or her to keep a proper distance from the subject. Specifically, such observation could take the shape of research, investigation, internship, or even experiments. I do not mean one has to be a teen mother to be able to write a good argument; I mean one an experimental environment has to be constructed to allow critical thinking to take place. Such an environment constitutes a quasi social context that supports the formation of real interests. People may be equally concerned about date rape, for example, as either a victim or a member of date rape society.

Conclusion
The experimental approach to argumentative and other types of writing may serve as a context to facilitate students’ ability to simulate a strong interest (Durst, p. 117).

Prometheus and Composition

Why Josh Could Only Write About Mountain Biking

On Cincinnati Durst writes that the city is, "noted for its conservatism and pro-business environment." And with a self identifying glee, Durst notes that his university, "both defies and reflects the city's conservatism."
Durst continually engages throughout this book in a certain subversive antagonism that he seems to relish and I believe functions as what he sees as the focus of writing in general. Throughout chapter 2, which I believe to be an excellent dissection of a professor's goals (and the struggle within a department, within an administration, within a professional college, within a city) he consistently makes small observations, and unexplained asides that I find problematic.
The first undercurrent of strangeness was his description of the University of Cincinnati, in which he writes, "but the university's greatest strength and most important priority, according to the administration, remains an undergraduate education." I didn't have to break out my sarcasm detecting device in order to interpret a hulking pile of acrimony on Durst's part towards the professionalism present in the administration of the university.
I don't disagree with Durst, I went to undergraduate institution where I fully expected to experience a rounded liberal education that was not purpose/career driven. However, that seems to be what his particular educational institution does. Should we also deride the administration of a culinary institute for not permitting its students to study 19th century French Literature?

This is not an abject utilitarian perspective on composition, but rather a recognition that writing actually gets stuff done. It can get you a loan, get you a job, win you a love and prove your innocence. Durst seems to occupy a place in chapter 2 (which I know from the later chapter's to be more nuanced and compromising) that composition should be about self reflection and social change. And his zealotry in this regard blinds him to the functional necessity of writing in every-day-life.

The second problematic quality to Durst's writing is his insistence on highlighting conservatism, religiosity, dogmatism and capitalist pride whenever possible. Why is it important to his classroom that Cincinnati is a bastion of North-Kentucky traditionalism and southern Ohioan right wingers? Does it not snow in Cincinnati and produce terrible winters that could affect the psyche of the young writer? And what of the city's strategic location on the boarder during the Civil War and the deep wounds that guerrilla warfare by the confederacy played on race relations ? Isn't this a profound influence on a young writer? Why is it that conservatism and an appreciation of business are highlight as if they are inherently antithetical to the composition process? Must writing always be a subversive attempt at the reclamation of identity or voice or cultural capital? It seems that Durst believes this, as made evident by his jabs and aside about his administration and curriculum.

This type of perspective in academia, that we should be tolerant of all perspectives aside from conservatism of thought or religion, pushes bright minds towards banality. Think of poor Josh from page 23. Durst attempts to describe him as kindly as possible, yet the author cannot help but frame Josh as some sort of antebellum conservative fossil. And the rammifications go further than just a teachers perception..."His classmates seemed to like him and respect him and enjoy his writing, rather than finding him pedantic." If this isn't projection than I don't know what is...his fellow students seemed to like him. Seemed. As if the observer could not imagine a situation in which young adults interact with a religious and traditional young man and find him engaging.
It's therefore no wonder Josh kept writing about mountain biking. He read Durst better than Durst was able to read him. He saw the none-too-subtle scorn behind the eyes of his teacher and retreated to a place of apolitical compromise and irreligious empty gestures.

Turning Daniell Against Herself (and Other Brief Responses)

In "Narratives of Literacy: Connecting Composition to Culture," I found Daniell's approach compelling. As with many other articles we've read in this class: I feel as though I come to the text unprepared being that I am unfamiliar with the slew of studies she cites... Now, I assume she does a fine job of summarizing, and I suppose I can move on with my critique of the article without knowing the ins-and-outs of the particular studies she cites as I am more interested in how she manipulates Lyotard for her purposes.

Moving on...

She employs certain concepts of Lyotard quite well--in her base explanation of how the Grand Narratives of literacy have been succeeded by the "little narratives of literacy" (403). Quick sidebar: It is interesting to me that she notes this shift as occurring sometime after the noted "literacy arguments" in the 1980s as what Lyotard analyzes in The Postmodern Condition is a process evident as early as the 1950s. So, composition studies is late to the game!

Although the article strikes me as a sound argument, I feel as though Lyotard is not a theorist one should be leaning on for these purposes as The Postmodern Condition has always struck me as a very bleak judgment of the University. There are two points here I'd like to bring into the conversation regarding Authority and Economy.

First, on authority:

"[T]he process of delegitimation [...] [is] sounding the knell of the age of the Professor: a professor is no more competent than memory bank networks in transmitting established knowledge, no more competent than interdisciplinary teams in imagining new moves or new games." (Lyotard 53)

This "process of delegitimation" is Daniell's focus. What Lyotard points out here is that traditional professors work within a system ruled by these now nonexistent Grand Narratives. Their practice reflects and reinforces them. With the dismantling of these, the role of the professor becomes unclear and is thereby superseded by "memory bank networks" (or, in contemporary terms: the internet perhaps) and "interdisciplinary teams." That knowledge exists to be transmitted from teacher to student (or from the internet to the student) is but one epistemological theory, and we've already grappled with the concept of an instructor who does not function according to this. The notion of "interdisciplinary teams" touches on our continued discussion of shared knowledge/group discussion/etc.

And, on economy:

"Knowledge is and will be produced in order to be sold, it is and will be consumed in order to be valorized in a new production; in both cases: the goal is exchange. Knowledge ceases to be an end in itself, it loses its 'use-value.'" (Lyotard, 5)

This is very important to consider in relation to Durst's study. He notes that the students at UC are largely focused in professional and business-based fields and that this affects the way they view the critical literacy writing courses required there. The student resistance to this approach highlights what Lyotard says here about "use-value."

Both of these points are damaging to the traditional University. We've discussed many times how, in fact, discarding such traditions is probably a good thing. But where do we pick up from there. With this shift in power and in how society views knowledge, are we trying to revive a dinosaur? Is the University something so massive and massively anachronistic in our particular historical moment? These are all very loosely coherent thoughts at this point, but I hope I'm communicating something with this post.

I may be way, way left-field with all of this. Maybe it isn't necessary to consider the rest of the philosophical report. But I believe that Daniell is lifting only what is useful while ignoring what is potentially damning. Again: perhaps I am off-base, and it may be legitimate to employ only one tiny fraction of said report in support of her findings... but what I've pointed out above is so relevant (?) to the topic of college composition.

However, I would accept the argument that I've radically shifted the focus of the conversation for no good reason other than discussing something much more satisfying to my particular personal interests. And this may stem from my view of blogging as inherently self-centered.

Students and the desire/motivation to write

I used up most of my words (and spent most of my brain power) on the other post, but I do have a few words about this week's readings.

It's becoming increasingly apparent that most students - even those who profess to enjoy writing - approach freshman composition with great trepidation, dread, and suspicion. It seems that even the students who like to write dislike or distrust the sorts of writing typically done in composition classes. The four students in Durst's study are starting their comp class with precisely the sort of misconceptions we've discussed - preoccupations with grammar, fears that the academy will impose its ideological agenda on them, etc. The message is clear: students don't tend to embrace what we do.
After years of writing center work, having talked frankly, face-to-face, with countless students about their courses and instructors, I can say with some certainty that the vast majority of students do want to succeed. However, very few of them had come to embrace writing as a sociocultural process.

They are motivated, in a sense. But probably not in the sense we want them to be. Stephen North characterizes student motivation quite well:

Students will […] be motivated to finish writing, but only to be finished with writing, to have their writing finished. It does come as a shock when, having been led by your training to expect some deep, unalloyed genuine engagement – some eager wrestler of texts – you meet instead a frightened freshman who seems only to want a super proofreader (11).

This was the case at Durst's institution, where students were quite "clear about not wanting a broad-based liberal arts education" (12). A few years ago, I worked in a writing "centre" (Canadians and their crazy spelling conventions) at a university that, in similar fashion, placed an emphasis on co-op study and professionalization. An overwhelming majority of undergraduate students were enrolled in the Business and Engineering schools. Most of these students had practical, real-life goals, and, consequently, very little interest in writing classes. Occasionally, I would extol the virtues of metacognition and learning for its own sake, but I was met with resistance from both students and faculty. A few students came to me for tutoring help, quite literally outraged about their course requirements. What does writing have to offer them, as prospective engineers or CEOs?

There are several good answers to such questions, but the important thing here is that students are more typically outcomes-oriented, focused on ends rather than means, concerned (in terms of writing) with the product rather than the process. We may want to make students better writers, but many of them are only concerned with writing insofar as they are required to be. No matter what our individual goals are as teachers, I think we would be best served in the classroom by following Sherry's (Durst Ch. 2) lead and "invit(ing)” first-year students into the conversation, rather than “bully(ing) them with a 'you're in the academy now' ethos" (20). Students need an “other” to challenge them, but not to undermine them, especially if they are predisposed to resist new ideas.

response to Durst/9-23-09

Although I very much admire the intent of Durst’s research and feel that he is attempting to address some very legitimate questions, I have doubts in his methodological design. For one, I don’t know how generalizable any of his findings are, as studying four different classes is a very small sample, and his selection of four case study students out of 2,500 seems so small as to possibly provide little more than anecdotal information. Similarly, I don’t know that a large college in the mid-west is typical of all American colleges nor that the students in Ohio are necessarily the same as those in, say, San Francisco or Boston or Montgomery, Alabama. (They very well could be exactly the same, but I have no reason to believe that without evidence.) As Durst admits, the University of Cincinnati has a professional/business focus, and the students he studied might have been predominantly of the sort that would be less interested in writing to begin with and see writing instruction as something that was to be endured in order to get a good grade and move closer to their end goal.

Further, however careful he was not to influence the learning process, Durst’s role as observer in the room immediately changes the dynamic of that entire class, and it’s very possible that the increased engagement observed in a few of his case study students was due to his regular interviews with them discussing class topics. His offer of giving the students who volunteered to be case study examples extra help with their writing (and even money for lunch, in one case) provides another confound in his research, as that further complicates how representative his volunteers actually were.

I don’t mean to be nitpicky here; I believe in Durst’s goals and see no duplicitous intent in his methods. It’s very possible that my reaction is off base and that I’m still viewing this study through the lens of the “Research Methods” class I took while getting my Master’s Degree in Psychology, but I don’t know that I’m ready to believe that his experiences are necessarily typical of students in the United States, in the mid-west, in Ohio, or even at the University of Cincinnati. It seems possible to me that the specific nature of his findings could be limited to those four groups he studied and the unique composition of those classes.

That said, I have no reason not to trust Durst, either. He knows far more about this topic than I do, and his findings make sense to me (someone who, admittedly, knows nothing about this field). Still, I sometimes think that Durst forgets what it’s like to be an insecure and inexperienced freshman. I remember being in a Geology course during my freshman year and being surprised when I learned that England was an island and that Spain wasn’t located in South America (and this was after four years of high school Spanish!). I was an honor student from a fairly good high school, I read a lot, and both my parents were college professors, but I was profoundly naïve about almost everything that would require critical thinking. Even so, I got the sense that I was still much better prepared than the majority of the students in my freshman writing class, despite the fact that I knew virtually nothing about anything.

I don’t provide that example only for pity (and recognition that I’ve heroically overcome my previous state of ignorance) but to suggest that it might be a bit much to expect that freshman are able to fully understand what making a good argument entails after a few class exercises and reading assignments. To fully engage these tasks, we’re essentially asking a student to engage his or her entire body of knowledge to articulate what topics are worthy of consideration, how they might be explored, and what constitutes a legitimate argument. In some ways an introductory writing course is a frightening place to be wrestling with these emerging skills, testing them in a situation where those prospective ideas can be rejected and result in embarrassment and a bad grade, a task that’s made even more complicated if you’re not exactly sure who you are or what you believe quite yet.

I think we take for granted just how sophisticated these tasks really are, especially for someone who has little or no prior experience working in such a milieu. This is a skill that they’ll be developing (hopefully) the rest of their lives, and it seems like a monumental task to be challenging a lifetime’s worth of superficial thinking and rebuilding a student’s analytical worldview over the course of two semesters. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try, but I think it’s reasonable to remain mindful of the difficulty inherent in this undertaking.

Similarly, I can understand students’ hesitance to fully engage writing assignments and class tasks where it is expected that they explore a controversial issue and potentially make enemies of their classmates, make a bad impression on their professor, and expose themselves as not understanding an important issue. As such, I’m puzzled by Durst’s surprise that students were reluctant to discuss teenage pregnancy with a student who was visibly troubled by the topic because of her intimate experience with it. In this setting, saying little and being quietly respectful seems to be a reasonable and understandable response. No doubt, some of this resistance to critical thinking and argumentative writing is due to simple indifference and disinterest, but I think Durst’s findings that students are often simply confused about what they are supposed to do is an interesting insight. It might seem obvious that students need to understand their assignments, but it’s easy to forget that they don’t speak our language and that we need to make our assignments as clear and explicit as possible. Since we're essentially teaching our students to communicate more effectively, the responsibility falls on us to model this behavior and make sure we're considering our audience, too.

Are we truly student-centered?

I appreciate that other people are actually thinking about my query last week. Kudos to Garth for extending the conversation. It's been vexing me for quite some time. I grappled briefly with this question for a few pages in the conclusion of my Masters thesis, but I can't say I've reached anything close to a definitive answer.

For starters, I agree that we shouldn't kowtow to the lazy and unmotivated, but, as Garth points out, this problem is bigger than that. The poetry example is apt. We may have to qualify our student-centeredness in such cases, because while our intention may be to empower the student, we aren't always doing what the writer actually wants.

I more or less embrace the holistic, contextual view of writing pedagogy we've been discussing in class, but student expectations are unlikely to reflect the same epistemelogical bases. Sometimes, student expectations may be at odds with our most fundamental pedadogical ideals. What if a student's primary concern is to improve his/her grammar or mechanics? When we (writing teachers) begin our exploration of writing at the macro-level, we are inevitably going against the desires of the student, who, ironically, is supposed to be at the very center of our practice.

There is a difference here - between what a student wants and what a student needs. We cater to the latter, as we probably should. It bears mentioning, though, that we are informed primarily by our conception of what that student needs. It's almost parental, a sort of "we know know what's best for you" mentality. And while I don't see our relationship with students as hegemonic, it's not unthinkable that our student-centered pedagogy could be interpreted as self-centered ideology. As Matt F astutely pointed out, (though I believe it was in the intro class): "Do we want our students to learn how to think, or do we want them to learn to think like us?"

For what it's worth, we probably do know what's best for our students. I'm not saying ours is a bad approach - but we should call it what it is.

Granted, some students don't know what they want. For many, grammar is all they know; not all students even have the vocabulary to explicate what they want out of a writing class. They just say "I need grammar help" because they don't know how else to characterize their writing problems. Still (and I refer directly to Garth's question):"is it in the students' best interest to teach them one vocally desired skill at the expense of another, though possibly unconsidered by them?"

I'm still not sure.

It's important for teachers of comp to acknowledge that a class grounded in sociocultural theory creates a fairly unique learning environment, essential and meaningful to us, but thoroughly baffling to those unfamiliar with it. Students are newcomers to this world, where we have determined the parameters, goals, and educational philosophy. Priorities they hold dear (external text characteristics, grades) cease to be the focal point of their learning. Throughout all this, we, the teachers, purport to be student-centered. Is it any wonder that students get confused?

To mitigate the inevitable confusion and help students become comfortable with this, I think it's our job to explain ourselves and goals/objectives, to sort of sell the very idea of what we're doing. The conception of us, at least outside the field of Writing Studies, is not always accurate. Despite our ongoing attempts to define ourselves and what we do, many still see us as form-focused grammarians. As such, we need to keep our means and ends in sight at all times...what do we really intend to do? Why is the path we've chosen the best one? What does it really mean to teach writing?

Geez...questions have only begat more questions here. But the sort of reflective knowledge gained in this class will serve us well. If we are ever to work through these differing expectations, we need to be clear with students about what to expect from us as teachers.

Group A: 9/23 response

I found this week’s articles akin to my teaching philosophy as I have developed it since beginning as a writing tutor last fall (and even further back as one in high school and early college in various subjects other than composition), and perhaps two of the key articles of our course. Although I have minor quibbles with certain aspects of these pieces, on the whole this week’s readings have most affected me out of all we have covered so far. (I am, by the way, finding it hard, yet am relieved, that I have to fit all of our readings for the week into a thousand words) It’s articles like these that make me breathe a sigh of relief that others share the same concerns and have developed answers that make sense with ideas that hinge on the cruxes of students’ attitudes towards our jobs and what we’re trying to do, not to mention what is required of them in our classes and society.
I’ll start with my problems with Hartwell’s article. At first glance, I grew tired of his name dropping, especially the condescending attitude he took towards some of his contemporaries. ‘Oh, so that’s the way it is?’ Thank God he had interesting things to say and what worked jived with my views, because I was seriously debating closing the book on this guy based on his overbearing, pompous intensity. Unfortunately, and this is no big shock for any of us, writing instruction and literacy are not atop the list of the world’s or our nation’s problems. Tone it down Hartwell. Take a pill.
That said, the rest of his article, now that we’ve discussed it in class, makes complete sense to me. Although I wouldn’t call his ‘dumb’ views of literacy one-hundred percent dumb (after all, as teachers we do have the job of giving our students some sort of knowledge we possess in which they do not, don’t we?), they are the stumbling blocks I’ve observed in classrooms throughout my schooling. As Hartwell states, everything comes down to our students’, and for that matter, our society’s attitudes towards literacy. I think we can achieve a little bit of that by seriously considering his Types of Interactions, whether they be controlling or empowering.
Now, we’re not going to strut into class and wink and say, ‘What’s up, guys?’, but we can lead our students to believe in themselves and us by setting everyone on the same playing field, by letting them realize we’re in this together, assessments and final grades aside. How do we do that? Here’s where the connection to Shuy’s piece rears its head. By knowing that the tip of the iceberg is there and will be used, we can focus instead on what’s under the surface of language and writing. Here’s a series of questions I pose: Why isn’t what’s under the surface of the iceberg the groundwork for instruction in our schools? Would that advance our students, making them more ready for college? Only in college classes from my junior year to the present have I felt that my instructors and I were equals in terms of respect, inquisition, and the willingness to hope for one another’s continued success. Why did it take me that long to feel that, or to put it another way, to see that change in instruction? Do students have to earn that? Are they too immature in elementary and high school to handle that kind of give-and-take responsibility? Personally, I don’t think so. Perhaps if our educational system treated students as equals, some of our collegiate problems would be solved. But I’m not Hartwell, nor do I have the breadth of theoretical knowledge and gumption of Shuy. I can’t solve these problems. What I propose, however, is that as a group with the youth and energy to call for a change, maybe even something as small as a tweak, we can.
Now on to Collision Course. I’m sorry, but I found Chapter 2 excruciatingly boring and tedious. I didn’t care about his methods (although, yes, I know they reveal the intricacies of his subject, their testing, and subsequent results), I wanted to know his results. I wanted to know what he had to say and what he found and how, if at all, can it relate to our forthcoming teaching experience. Chapter 5 was much more relative. I knew the group sex-education activity would be a failure. I put myself in my former classrooms, especially freshman year, and knew as a group mostly fresh out of high school, we couldn’t handle that. Now, yes. Two years ago, yes. Not freshmen though, not ever, especially given the subject matter there will more silence at that age than active, positive participation.
What I found most helpful is the students’ attitudes towards analytical composition and Sherry’s methodology. I agree that students should first be immersed in topics of deep personal interest. If the subject doesn’t present itself as such, we at least have to provide as much information and viewpoints as we can so that there’s a greater chance that something will get its hooks into our students. My strategy would be to always question students’ motives, not in an effort to prove them wrong, but in one to let them expunge their ideas and see them in an environment outside their own minds. That’s a learned skill these days. I didn’t pick it up until junior year and, like our articles say, it’s something that once there can never be taken away.
Daniell’s article will only be mentioned a little bit here. I thought it covered Hartwell’s ground, albeit in a slightly different manner. What I appreciated most about Daniell, was her constant positive communal attitude. She falls in line with those who believe in little narratives (I use ‘believe’ because nothing so far in what we’ve read has proved that writing theory and instruction is set in stone or has been ultimately proved as what works), in that there are many truths about literacy, not one overarching one encompassing all others. I think this reflects subtly on both our jobs as teachers and to the recipients of our instruction. No matter on what side of the student/teacher line we stand, we must realize first and foremost that our classrooms are comprised of individuals. What may work for some will not work for others. Our style will not be that of our peers. In that, there are little truths in each of us. We’ll never touch that big truth. It is in this that we must take our satisfaction.

On Durst

I'm beginning to wonder if the initial expectations of the profiled students in this sample entry-level composition class were shaped most strongly by the name of the class. (And, furthermore, if there is anything problematic with their assumptions...). Supposing that no syllabi were distributed prior to the first day of class, and that these students don't have in-depth conversations with older individuals about the course goals of college composition at this particular university, isn't the name of the course the only clue as to what the course contents will be?

As an undergraduate, I enrolled in a course titled "Art History I: 1700-Present" simply to fulfill a humanities credit. It was a 100-level course. I knew no one interested in this field. I had ignored the visual arts since being forced to fabricate cottonball snowmen in elementary school because I quite plainly do not understand the visual arts. My experience with high school history course was taught by the football coach and focused on regurgitation of dry facts. So, my estimation of the course was that I'd be regurgitating names and dates of visual artifacts ascribed value for reasons unbeknownst to me. Now, the class was (thankfully) massively different than this initial guess of mine: we discussed the impact of art on society and vice-versa. Certainly there was memorization involved, but the point is that this class broke very strongly with what I knew about these fields (art + history) from my secondary education.

As a student it took a whole two class periods to adapt to this new idea of "art history."

Furthermore: my expectations for a variety of college classes were much different than the actual course content. My American Modernism seminar all but skipped the Hemingway, Faulkner, and Fitzgerald I expected would dominate and instead focused quite heavily on Stein, H.D., and Djuna Barnes. I took a San Francisco Renaissance Poets seminar thinking that was another name for "Beat Poetry"-- but soon learned of Snyder, Rexroth, Ferlinghetti, and maybe a half-dozen other poets I had never paid attention to. I don't think that these (to use Durst's word) "divergent" expectations negatively affected my classroom experience. Maybe I bitched briefly about the lack of Ginsberg over lunch once or twice, but ultimately I'm glad these courses were different than my first impressions during registration.

Okay now I've drifted too far...

What I mean to say is, Durst dedicates an entire chapter here to dissecting these first-day essays by composition students. I am unsure as to what he notes as the lasting consequence of these "divergent" expectations. The course is a "composition" course, and so students approach it with the definition they have of "composition": putting things together, arranging, creating. The colloquial definition, I would argue, focuses on structure (and this mirrors the concerns of the students in these essays).

Perhaps it is useful to think of the purpose of the course as reworking the students' definitions. They come in thinking of composition, writing, and college itself as simple, one-dimensional concepts. They (hopefully) leave with a new understanding. Broader, even open-ended definitions.

Regrading the above examples I give of my impressions with various undergraduate courses: Clearly I did not know very much about art history or modernist authors or postwar avant-garde poetry. Had I left these classes having learned nothing about the subject, then the tuition would have been a waste.

Somewhere in this post I was making a point. All apologies.

Reaction to Durst. And Phil.

Alright Phil, I give up. You win. Question asked, answers fled, Phil triumphant. I'm finished now and it's only three weeks in.

If you consider yourself a student-oriented teacher, but your goals for the students do not match their own goals for themselves, are you still student-oriented?

I've been thinking this over off and on since the end of class yesterday, and so when I sat down to write out my blog response to Collision Course, it was inevitable that I would comment on it. (Which isn't to say that I expect any sort of definitive answer in the next 400 or so words, as I happen to agree that this question has the markings of "thesis" written all over it.)

At some obvious initial point, I think student-orientation can exclude itself from student expectations. The students whose goals include avoidance of work and minimizing effort will clearly have their hopes dashed, and rightly so. This relates to the basic assumption of mature self-consideration in the development of relevant and achievable student intentions. It would be impossible to be a student-oriented teacher if you kowtowed to student demands against rigor, since on some level, it seems to me, this seems counter-intuitive to the very notion of "teacher."

Nevertheless, I think we can all see that I'm stalling some, and that's because I'm starting to realize how much larger the bite I've bitten off is than the normal stuff I chew (ugh, that was the most awkward way to reword that particular cliche I could imagine). Take, for example, Durst's student "Jay" (pg. 60), who mentions that he "would like to improve [his] poetry writing skills, because it is a necessary part of any English class." This seems to fit the criteria for a reasonable expectation for a composition course; Jay has adequately reasoned out a deficiency in his own ability, and identified that improving himself in that field will have some concrete benefits for him in his ensuing English education. We'll even, for the sake of argument, suppose that Jay's hope for the class is not just his own, but it shared by close to half the other students. Now then, where do our responsibilities, as conscientious teachers who have nevertheless already written a semester-long syllabus, lie?

On the one hand, I can see merit in this idea of out and out altering the syllabus; recognizing a sizeable, though not majority, opinion the students, it would make sense to reevaluate the course load in order to fit in even a small poetry writing theme. And yet, the syllabus, if we've been diligent up to this point, already represents the material that we consider beneficial to our students' success. This is not to say that we will ever be infallible, but is it in the students' best interest to teach them one vocally desired skill at the expense of another, though possibly unconsidered by them? It seems to me that the syllabus, when given to the students, should be accompanied with some sort of understanding that "None of this is here just to fill a void in your time" (whether or not that's an accurate statement is a discussion for another day). So then how reasonable is it to remove that material? You satisfy the stated needs of the students, but run the risk of under-preparing them for requirements they may not have foreseen.

Hmm. This is clearly more of a response to class-discussion than it is to the readings that shaped it. I hope that's okay. I just wanted to say "hats off" to Phil on really posing a head-scratcher there.

Reaction To Durst

The first thing that caught my attention in Collision Course was that students try to avoid critical thinking at all costs. I wonder whether this avoidance is due to a general fear or dislike for thinking critically or if it is rather that the students simply have not been introduced to the skill and therefore are uncomfortable with its practice. I assume, as much of the book argues, that the reasons vary from student to student.

He spends a good deal of time going over the various responses to students’ views on their skills as writers. I found his statement interesting that “many of these...students sound so negative about their writing…the prompt did not actually ask them to assess their own abilities, only to describe themselves as writers” (41). He then goes on to explain the mind games students may be playing in these expository essays in order to make the teacher think they are skillful, or even the opposite. I intend to have my students write such an essay, yet I am beginning to struggle with the validity of such an assignment. From what Durst has exampled, I may be inclined to distrust the students’ self-evaluations, thereby defeating the purpose of the exercise. I suppose I could preface the assignment with a discussion about being honest and explaining that the exercise is for their own growth, but I remain skeptical that students will be candid under any circumstances knowing that I will be reading their response.

I found many of Durst’s assumptions of what the first year course should be both applicable and problematic. I agree that we should teach the students “to convey…ideas persuasively and eloquently, to develop a greater appreciation for and understanding of the best that has been though and said, to live the examined life” (51). I think being an effective writer gives a better appreciation for what others have said and written, which is crucial to literary criticism and criticism in any field. To live the examined life sounds a little romantic, but I think we as teachers need to maintain a bit of romanticism about what we are endeavoring. His discussion on ground rules was an area of difficulty for me. Durst believes that it is an essential task of the first year course to teach students the ground rules of academic living. Why is that our job? We are teaching students to think critically and to push them to the demands of college workload, which I feel is an enormous task in itself. I am still having trouble understanding why it seems that our job entails preparing students for everything that their professors in other courses will be expecting of them. I understand some students come for backgrounds where they are not introduced to the rules of the classroom and the expectations of professors, but if a student is that far behind then there should be a remedial “Intro to College” course that could focus on these issues. I think that expecting writing instructors to teach students so many things that are not part of writing clouds the purpose of the course and is counterproductive in our attempt to help students mold their academic voices.

Response to Hillocks and Durst

Response to Hillocks

I really admired Hillocks attempt to define the steps that make up the frame study. We talked in class about how intuitive the practice seems, but I agree with what was said: that it is often a good idea to clearly define and thoroughly investigate what the majority of us would call an “intuitive” practice so its steps can become more accessible to those for whom it is not intuitive. I think there is value in explanations of this sort, provided the explanations are concise.

I do understand the value of the argument that was made in class on Monday against the sort of positive reinforcement that Hillocks argues in favor of. This kind of practice would, as it did in McCampbell’s case, encourage students to simply write more, and not necessarily of a higher quality. As graduate students, we have all become so used to the notion that considerations about the quality of writing should always trump a drive for quantity, but if we are being honest, I think we can all agree that we have not always operated on these assumptions. I think McCampbell’s example is meant to give us insight into the early stages of the writing process, at the very beginning of students’ lives as writers. If we are to teach students composition at the postsecondary level, I think it is important that we understand what came before, before our instruction, before this stage of our students’ writing.

Hillocks’ article raises what (in my limited experience) I believe to be a very important issue in teaching: claiming that students are not learning because there are incapable of learning, and not because the instruction is not conducive to the learning process. Learning is a mutual process, one through which teachers and students can learn from each other. When, as a teacher, you begin to assume that your students will never learn what you are trying to teach them, and that this inability is due to some sort of incapacity of theirs, it is probably time for you to stop teaching, take a break, and reevaluate the direction of your professional life. It is not our job as teachers to attach moral judgments to a student’s capability to learn, it is our job to find a way to reach them with the knowledge we wish to impart to them. I believe it is for us, as teachers, to adapt our teaching practices to suit the particular learning tendencies of our students. The day we stop believing that we can somehow reach our students is the day we lose the right to call ourselves teachers.

Response to Durst

My response to the Durst reading began with negative feelings about the socially oriented goals of the composition curriculum, and really only went on from there. I think in many cases, education should be thought of as an end in itself, a pursuit of knowledge for the improvement of one’s own mind. So call me crazy, but I really cannot help bristling when I read about a curriculum that includes in its list of goals a wish to turn out students who are more active participants in a democratic society. This sentiment reeks of western ethnocentrism in such a way that I think can be problematic, especially in light of the fact that not all of the students pursuing study in this, or any other, program are necessarily from the United States.

Moving on… I agree with Jessica’s assessment of Durst’s abysmal findings concerning the attitudes of incoming freshman writing students. I think the firmness of their self-doubt and the negativity of their self-assessments is a very wide chasm to cross, but I think, if the appropriate tools and teaching methods are used, teachers can build a bridge between these negative attitudes and more positive ones.

Also, the following line of reason occurred to me while reading Durst’s reflection on students’ feelings concerning their abilities in math versus their feelings concerning their abilities as writers: Math is a subject in which one is either right or wrong, there is no middle ground, but where effort does count. Composition, not even of the sort that takes place in public high schools, has never been assessed in such a “black or white” way. People associate writing with self-expression, the ability to mentally organize, and inherent intelligence. Writing is almost always judged on a sliding scale (good grasp of the promt, straying from the prompt, where is the prompt?, etc.), and so there is a full range of assessments from which students can draw opinions of themselves as writers. If a student does not do well at math, it is shrugged off as not being their “thing” and they are patted on the back for trying. But people expect students to be able to write simply because they can speak, and this unfair expectation is what makes student writers feel pressured and unconfident. As teachers, I think it is important that we understand that this is the sort of emotional baggage students will bring to our composition classes.

I agree with Durst’s assessment that, in order to make the most of the learning opportunities afforded by the first-year composition class, teachers must first assess the particular attitudes held by their students toward the subject of the writing process. It is not enough for us to have humanist beliefs about teaching and students’ abilities to learn. We must also take their attitudes into account, lest we run the risk of being blocked by their prejudices and baggage.

I think it is very revealing that Durst found that most of the students he observed desired “correctness, clarity, and conciseness” in their writing, and seemingly nothing else (59). This desire to follow the lead of canonized literature, to write without a personality, is depressing in the extreme. Where are the mavericks who seek to buck the system and write expository essays on topics that oppose the agenda of the administration? Where are the writers who want to blaze a path through the English department? It is my belief that there is a writing maverick inside of each of those dismal case-study students, and it is only for want of a more personally demanding curriculum that they are not to be seen.