That's a Wrap

As the semester comes to an end, as I write my papers both for this class and my other classes, I realize that I have learned many things. The funny thing is, that as I reflect on my first semester of graduate school, I feel like I have learned more about composition, freshman students, and grading more than anything else. This class has broadened my perspective about what is required both of us and students, and I think it might have knocked some of the idealism about teaching students right out of me. In a good way.
Both through the readings in Miller's book and the presentations/videos/Ryan's podcasts, I have found a synthesis that has begun to shape my philosophy of teaching and ideas about how I want my classroom to be. Before this class I would have been annoyed by things that could be categorized as "the underlife" but now I know how to use or channel those "disruptions" in a productive way. This is just one example of practical skills I have learned from this class this semester with many more I have filed away for future use.

Melissa's video as well comically but truthfully presented the struggle between students and graders, and caused us, especially me, to question the system and really think about my position on how to deal with students and RaiderWriter. Seeing the student's reactions was good, but like Dr. Kemp said, most of their complaints can be heard every semester and should be taken with a grain of salt. Grading has been a hard thing to get used to doing this semester, but it has been good to see that everyone else feels the same way! I have watched that first cartoon part of Melissa's video and laughed out loud every time. In the end however, I am excited to be in the classroom next year, and see how I can put all that I have learned to good use.

Another thing that wonderfully surprised me was writing my syllabus. I figured it would be a difficult process as I have never done something like that before on purpose or else I would be in the education department. However, once I sat down and started thinking about what I wanted my hypothetical class to do, the assignments and rationale behind them began to flow fast and easily. In fact, I actually enjoyed doing the syllabus and wading through the different theorists to give some legs to my assignments. I saw which theorists that I liked the most (Brooke and Shaughnessy) and how I could apply their theories coupled with my understanding in a cogent and constructive way.

For a class that I was not looking forward to too much because it was required and I felt it had not much significance to me since I was not teaching, but I was completely wrong. This class has given me much to put toward my future career in teaching and a lot of firepower to battle old codgerly been-there-for-twenty-five-years-doing-it-my-own-way high school teachers that I inevitably will be battling.

The Little One Room Schoolhouse that Could... #CompTheoryDebates

This week brought another batch of opposing ideas that seemed to all not sit well with me because of the desire for conflicting views and changing everything all at once through the miracle of technology. While I think that technology has been a useful, and helpful addition to the classroom, I do not think that writing would become infinitely better, create more productive students, and revolutionize composition classrooms if everything was conducted electronically. As for my personal experience, the MOO chats that we have done in class are nice and entertaining, but is there really a lot of learning happening? Not in my opinion. Rather, it seems that things always went off topic and became social jokes and jests instead of staying on task and discussing the actual ideas that were in the lesson plan. Sure, there was some assignment talk, some agreeing with each other between the students in our class, but can our MOOs really be classified as a knowledge growing, interactive, quality time spent on the theories of composition? Again, not in my opinion. I do not know if someone posting a tangential comment is any different than a kid yawning loudly in a regular classroom; they are both distracting and break the educational flow of the class, yet in an online chat, people say much more distracting things than they would without the computer barrier.

That brings me to my next point, which is about the conversation we had about the educational value of Facebook and Twitter. I think these are great for social interaction, but I can never see myself actually being able to use it in a valuable, purposeful academic kind of way. I firmly believe in the distinction between academic and "society talk" as I am calling it because without a distinction, what is the point of instruction at all? Furthermore, what is wrong with someone from the 1890s being able to come into a classroom today and have a vague idea of what is going on? The traveller would not understand several things in the class like an overhead, projector, whiteboard, etc, more just the general structure and physical observations of teacher-student spacial relationship.  I rather see this traveller's ability as one that maintains the dignity and core values of what teaching and education is - bringing information to students to expand their previous world of knowledge. 

To that effect, I also do not agree with letting students talk however they want as long as they are getting the content correct. While I do not think kids respond to grammar pushes and strict formulaic language/teaching anymore, they also need to shoulder some of the responsibility to apply themselves and meet writing halfway. While I cannot think of the best way to phrase how best to accomplish this at the moment, and perhaps I am a bit idealistic because I have not been the teacher in the classroom yet, I do think that our students' needs can respond to and work well with a contemporary tailored approach to writing that strikes a balance between Facebook, slang, short social/cultural shots of thought and the standard, reliable, tradition that has lasted for hundreds of years.

(Wow, this was not supposed sound so much like a rant. Guess I just have a strong opinion on this... Cheers!)

Sarah Palin? Greg Focker? Women scholars? Who's to say...

As always in academics, the gender question deserves attention, and our class certainly spent some time talking about women and their place or role in composition (as well as ownership of a room of her own). While we did not really apply much of our conversation to Reynolds' essay specifically, I think we did hit on some good points of the value of then different perspective women bring to the classroom, and  how many different perspectives in turn can be utilized in the classroom to create an affect or dialogue.
Coupling with the discussion of discourse communities from last week, different cultures or different people groups deserve a voice, and it seems to me a platfrom like first-year composition would be a great place to experiment or merge groups together. Since there could be such an emphasis on different kinds of writing assigned in class (think Winsor), students might be more compelled to speak on these different topics and thereby putting their underlives aside. I know Dr. Kemp says talking about the seven "hot topics" is a death sentence in the classroom, but does this apply to cultural topics like a woman president or male nurses? While Reynold was speaking more about feminism as a pathway to agency and change in the classroom that defeats the normal parameters of a patriarchal society, I cannot help wonder if inclusion of "feminist ideas" could be a good way to stir up the students and garner interested responses from them.

Let's Give 'em Something to Talk About...

This week's readings, although they were both somewhat different than the previous readings we have done in the semester, brought up some interesting ideas that I had not exactly thought about before. First, the idea of discourse communities is an excellent way to describe the different ideas that come between teacher and student. Getting students to talk about how they talk in different atmospheres would allow them to begin thinking how academia is different that their normal everyday, but that they also can be a part of a new community of education. I will admit that this sounds very idealistic, but I do think that it is something that modern students will understand because society is so much about interacting with lots of kinds of people simultaneously these days. Furthermore, it would be helpful to see this as not trying to change the kids or have them morph into a “nerdy” student when they walk into class, but just switching gears to a different part of themselves when they are in this setting. The emphasis would not be to change them, but to add to their discourses they already have like Harris says.

            Windsor also offers good ideas on how text can be used in different ways to accomplish different goals. I myself have always made list after list and notes in the sides of margins, to prompt myself either to look something up later for my own interest, or a thought that occurs from what I am hearing that I want to think more about later, or just something that pops into my brain that is not related at all. This texts, or “idea bombs” can be very important for my own benefit, but they also can result as value for a bigger group or stimulus for later to jog people’s memory.  While Windsor did mean notes and lists as more helpful for a group function, I think this version or type of text could be utilized well in a classroom to get the students thinking in a different (and easier) way. Perhaps instead of asking them to write a paragraph on what they did this summer, ask them to write a bullet point list of what they did instead. I would bet bottom dollar that a teacher would receive more than two or three lines and more information/details from every student because of the different format.

Does anyone disagree with what I am saying?

I really enjoyed both articles this week. Both Brooke and Trimbur brought up ideas that were very relatable to me as a student, but also were ideas that I could see myself identifying and using in my own classroom someday. To that affect, I find myself wanting to make a mixture of Bruffee, Berlin, Brooke, and Trimbur to store away until I have students of my own that I can give this magic potion of learning and social discovery to. In a successful classroom, there needs to be a healthy balance of student interaction and self-sponsored learning, but there also needs to be time where the teacher can bring in his/her expertise and help grow the students' knowledge base to something greater and beyond the scope of their academic/cultural milieu. This is where Trimbur comes in, with his idea of stirring the pot, and seeing how the students react to new and different information. I like the idea of encouraging disagreement, and then trying to understand why and how the disagreement came about because I was definitely never told to (never mind rewarded for) disagreeing with most of my high school and college professors. Dissensus, which would somewhat leveling the power in the classroom, would also allow students to feel more comfortable, and combat their "underlife" of both attempting to just please the teacher or not being engaged.
I guess it comes down to the question Dr. Kemp asked on Tuesday of "Who owns students' learning?" The identity of the students need to change in order to find success in a writing class, and the teacher needs to let go of the reins of power long enough for a student to venture out and find a foothold.  Supporting a "rhetoric of dissensus" would allow the students to be interested in the topic, and snag students in a way beyond what they would expect out of a classroom and from a teacher. After dissensus was establish, I really do think that students would be able to carry it from there and spin off into other discussions they originate and are interested in talking about with their fellow classmates.

A Mixed Bag Post...Nuggets of Pedagogical Gold

Many things in Berlin's post challenged my thinking, or was something I feel has been swimming around in my head to which he gave words. First, his quote "rhetoric can never be innocent, can never be a disinterested arbiter of the ideological claims of others because it is always already serving certain ideological claims" is completely true. Teachers especially have heavy influences either by other teachers, thinkers, or writers that they adore, and these ideas that inspired them to be where they are definitely finds a way into their syllabuses and classroom. Essentially, the ideology that the teacher was taught in influences their rhetoric for better or worse.

This goes along nicely with his notion that a rhetoric is also influenced by the culture and time in which is is taught because "for social-spistemic rhetoric, the subject is itself a social construct." This too supports the idea of a "liberal pedagogy" because we can allow students to think outside the box, and in new ways that they are unaccustomed to within the walls of a classroom which is what the are faced with constantly in the new world of college. Also, by switching up the order of things and letting go of the authoritarian, dictator-like, teacher dominated classroom, it might just be the thing to get students engaged, and let them think they have the power. I think that might be the key to accomplish what we are reading about and talking about in class to really affect change: to find a way to make the students think they are running the show while we stay two steps ahead of them setting up props and traffic signs.

My ideas have been all over the board in regards to this post, but I think it is because Berlin has a real point, and I am somewhat buying into his idea. Not all the way of course because I was taught through weekly grammar quizzes and predominately lecture based college classes, but I am beginning to really see the difference between a writing class and a literature class and how one should definitely be more activity and student based. Like Dr. Kemp said at the end of class on Thursday, writing should be an attempt, feed-back, reattempt, more feed-back etc. and feel more like an ongoing conversation than a professional explaining words to a child.

Socialization...

It is hard for me to be completely against grammar and the hammering away of students' souls by the eight parts of speech and so on because I was taught grammar all the way through school. Along with the classic seventh grade diagramming, my high school English education was very strict on form and parts of speech, sentence variety, and using proper rules to write well. We became masters of the funneled introduction and de-funneled conclusion, topic sentence, two pieces of evidence and two commentaries on that evidence, and a concluding sentence to make up a paragraph. Yes, sounds very strict and somewhat like that example Dr. Kemp gave of his son bringing home the directions and instructions for all thirty-two sentences, but my experience was kinda like that. To explain further, we also received extra points in papers if we began a sentence with an infinitive.
From all this indoctrination, I do credit some of my style and ability to manipulate language from this teaching. However, I do agree with what Dr. Kemp said in class this week, that writing and rules should be more about uncovering the actual potential in a student, rather than making the point about catching errors. Yes I struggled with comma usage until the eleventh grade (I was the student that put at least four commas in every sentence) but that was also just because I was attempting thirty word sentences full of flowers and fluff because that is what I thought they wanted, and what had worked to get me the grade I wanted. But, over the years my writing has changed and evolved, getting better with age and without the constant grammar lessons. Regardless, while I do believe a strong understanding of grammar makes a writer better, I also believe that harping on the rules too much, or pushing Hartwell's 5 Grammars can be too much, or too damaging to a fledgeling writer.

Contemporary Noble Savages?

One thing I liked initially about Mina Shaughnessy's article was her honesty that came out through her writing about the students in BW and what they were able to accomplish. The perfect label she gives for "basic writing" as "a frontier, unmapped, except for a scattering of impressionistic articles and a few blazed trails"creates a perfect mental picture for how she felt, and I think we all have felt to some degree when handling freshman papers (389).* As critics of these students, sometimes we get trapped in the more abstract ideas of how to deal with these students and their lack of preparation with reading and writing skills. Yet, when we think of them in this way as almost native, wild, untrained people needing our helping to guide them towards better writing, we can see more of what's happening on the ground level and therefore be more effecting in using their terms to get results.

Also, I liked how in class on Thursday most people seemed to understand that teachers really should know more than just commas and spelling to be effective. The more theories I read and we discuss in class, the more I view teaching as a whole and that it is not just what the teacher is teaching or just about the students learning; teaching should be about the multifaceted, complex, and intricate process of the class fluidly moving from beginning to end.

Another thought that occurred to me from this article applies to more than just BW students. First Year Composition papers are hard to handle especially when deciding if content and following instructions is more important than grammar and punctuation. But, is all this theory of "the more you push it, the more they back off" we discussed this week just for students who are in freshman composition classes? It would seem that all students would fall into this category to some degree, but are ones who were able to AP credit their way out better at taking criticism because they are better writers? Is error identification more acceptable at the higher levels?

*Shaughnessy, Mina P."Introduction to Errors and Expectations: A Guide for a Teacher of Basic Writing." The Norton Book of Compositions Studies. New York: Norton, 2009. 387-396.

Yo boy this is where its at. check it... Now please read the following.

Engfish.

          Something about that term just gets me, and it is not because it is a misspelled word. Ken Macrorie's article pushed my buttons a little because the idea of not supporting the writing of the academy and the unavoidable formalism that accompanies it, is almost attempting to undermine the whole system of what we do. Writing about a subject that someone is passionate about and is really interested in is done from the heart, but there is a protocol for how to get that heartfelt subject across to other people. Being a journaler myself, I completely get the idea of writing be cathartic, but I would never attempt to publish a page of my journal (with its obvious great academic value) just because it is full of my truth.
            Macrorie's whole push back against formalism and the discipline of 'drill and kill' night have been good for his moment in time (I was not there so it it just a guess) but to apply "free writing" to today's classrooms would be very dangerous. I think that if we were to employ writing that is written freely and expressively from the heart, the "English" that our students would deem acceptable would be text language, nonsensical abbreviations, slang, curse words, and the like that we teachers would cringe over while we read their papers. I don't know about you, but I do not want to have to go to urbandictionary.com or google for every other word in a paper and have to reward that paper regardless of errors with a good grade because of where it hit on the truth-o-meter. Now while this might be taking Macrorie's ideas too far, the more we do not enforce the standards of academic writing, the more and more we will stay frustrated at what students are producing and thus what they are capable of creating. There is a growing process in learning the craft of writing; while it may be painful at times when we are stretched beyond what is comfortable and secure, the benefit to the writing after being challenge to write in a new way, the way of published writers, is worth the momentary suffering. From what I read and what we talked about him in class, it seems like Macrorie would be a great place to begin with to originate good ideas as a jumping off point, but then leaving him behind when the real, analytical writing begins.

Raise your hand if you know what I'm talking about...

        In Brereton's artlcle, Fred Newton Scott gives three "essentials" he practiced in his class that are not only good in and of themselves, but also would be good for present teachers of composition to borrow (106).* Furthermore, I completely agree with his assessment that children would be better writers with more specialized attention. Not enough attention to students is the main complaint I have with the public school systems and most education leading up to the college level. It is a monumental burden on one teacher to have 150+ students and expect the teacher to effectively teach them how to read and write well. From this foundation of these children not learning much at that level, and not receiving attention from the teacher, it seems a natural transition to flow into a big university state school and melt into the crowd without ever receiving individual or personal help on the essentials of writing. Interesting though that Scott sheds light on this problem in the beginning decades of the 20th century, yet we have still not found a way to correct the problem 80+ years later. What does that say about our system? Many people in our discipline lament the lack of writing ability, but no one has initiated change to make all the good suggestions a reality. True, there are private schools which allow a more personalized education because they have smaller classrooms and more time for professors and students to interact, but private schools are not available for many. It seems to me that if student would learn better by smaller classes, and there are a surplus of teachers desiring to teach in disciplines, why do we not just create more schools?

On another note, I love the point he makes at the end about how the composition teacher has variables just like a science lab teacher does, and how useful it would be to have a room of materials right  "at his elbow" (107). What a utopian image!

I also have enjoyed the group work we have done this week in class about the different aspects of being a classroom teacher, and what is most important to keep in mind when running a classroom. However, we talked a lot today about how people reading about writing doesn't transfer to writing well or how the "drill and kill" style of learning does not work either. Dr. Kemp brought up the who/whom fill-in-the-blank, do ten examples of grammar and parts of speech identification approach to learning and said it is not effective. I somewhat tend to disagree because isn't that how we learn different languages? And weren't we as a class last time discussing the challenges of trying to re-teach native English speakers to appreciate the nuances and pieces of English? It seems to me that although this way of teacher might not be the most effective, it does work on some, and at least gives students exposure and a foundation for understanding the intricacies of their native language. 

* Brereton's article and all quotes can be found on the link from Dr. Kemp's class website.

Change is a Good Thing

Both of the articles we have read for class so far have been eye-opening for me because I have never stopped to think about how the study of English has evolved over the centuries or how contemporary English departments (of literature) came to be in their present form. In both articles I found aspects I enjoyed, and some that I did not. That being said, one of the main points where I disagreed with Parker was his notion that departments today "grew to maturity, over-reached itself" and thus disintegrated into a "catchall for the work of teachers of extremely diverse interests and training"* (13). Basically, Parker greatly laments the idea of how English departments have stretched themselves forcefully to include other dimensions of writing such as "journalism, business writing, creative writing, writing for engineers, play-writing, drama and theater…'English for foreigners'" (13). However, I do not see this expansion as a bad thing because it allows all types of students to come under the wing of English for at least a class or two, and sets them up to be able to perform well in different disciplines because of the English foundation. 

In all that English departments are able to offer, classes can provide a sort of "applied English skills" to be morphed and taken into other subjects with ease. Just like how in a Biology department there is a "college biology for non-majors," non-traditional English classes give exposure to students and potentially draw them in to want more. The beauty of where English departments are now is partly in how English teachers have the freedom to include little related aspects of English instead of just oratory or just literature. While I may be a little biased because I had to take a speech class and four years of Latin in my middle/high school curriculum, I do think the expansion from the rigid, classical education has helped bring in students that might have else been turned off of our subject. Essentially, it seems like Parker believes the areas he identifies somehow dilutes the purity of our beloved field, but I think they rather enhance English as a more encompassing, more welcoming area of study.

* All of the quotes come out of William Riley Parker's article "Where do English Departments Come From?" linked on Dr. Kemp's class website.