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.