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.