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.