I loved re-reading Mike Rose's Lives on the Boundary. Rose departs from "scholarly tradition" to recount his experiences as a struggling student in South LA. His aim is to examine the social conditions of teaching/education, as well as to critique the various ways in which the educational system -- and its arbitrary standards of literacy -- not only stereotypes the students, but has lasting effects on their ability to learn and teachers willingness to teach.
For me, what's most useful about this book is the way in which Rose doesn't explicitly theorize; if he does, it's based strictly on the experiences he has with individual students. This seems an answer to the theory/practice debate, in that it offers a model of theorizing not only based in material reality, but one that doesn't try to abstract the person from the situation. As Rose discusses various curriculums he had, he reveals his approval of academic discourse; that is, he believes in teaching students academic discourse because it will help them get to where they are going. For me, this is useful because it doesn't merely critique academic discourse as oppressive; instead, he understands that the methods by which it is purported and guarded are oppressive. In a word, Rose's book could be summarized as "access": he wants all to be able to access the standard of literacy that we've come to take as basic -- while understanding that there are different models of literacy to take into account.
In terms of the theory/practice debate, then, Rose is surely a practitioner. The self he constructs in the book suggests that he isn't interested in theory, except in how it can help him teach. However, I would argue, too, that what he discusses in the book advocates a blended model of "informed practice," where theory and practice blend so seamlessly into each other that it's impossible to tell which is which.
Monday, June 29, 2009
100th Post and Bruce Horner
Bruce Horner's Terms of Work for Composition: A Materialist Critique takes up a "cultural materialist critique of work" in composition studies, because the issue of work -- variously defined -- plays such a crucial role in composition. Horner thus advocates for a "material social critique" (of writing) that acknowledges, theorizes, and resists context/ labor conditions. Essentially, Horner wants the field to recognize the "materiality" of all the work we do, especially student work, which, in his courses, comprises the main text.
Key quotes:
"Rather than denigrating or praising what passes for intellectual work for its intellectuality, we need to insist on the material social conditions making that work possible and shaping it; we cannot use its 'intellectuality' as a basis for denying its materiality" (9). Crucial point in book; sums it up, I think.
On pp 14-18, Horner characterizes the theory/practice debate under the head "Work in Composition". He divides the field in two categories: those concerned with "professionalization", and those concerned with teaching. One reason for such polarity stems from the marginal status of composition in relation to English studies and in the academy as a whole. Thus, those interested in "professionalizing" adopt theory; they publish in journals, conduct research studies, and essentially "threaten to distance Composition from its material ties to and identification with teaching" (15).
But the practitioners aren't much better. According to Horner, "these faculty define their own knowledge in terms of their experience of what 'works' in the classroom, and pride themselves on their dedication to teaching and their students. In so doing, however, they increase the marginality of their position in the academy and subject themselves to ever more degrading working conditions"(15).
The solution is invariably to adopt a material social critique; however, Horner is cautious to advocate not for a "balance...but intervention at the point of their interrelations" (27). That is, he urges the field to ignore the distinction between theory and practice:
"...in order to address the material conditions of our labor, we must abandon such distinctions, in effect making it our work to articulate the interpenetration of all these as constitutive of our work. This will require initially foregrounding the ways in which contradictions embedded in distinctions between intellectual and non-intellectual labor and the commodification of intellectual labor play out at the site of composition" (29).
"The cultural materialist alternative for which I would argue would insist, instead, not only on the political, strategic nature of specific representations but on the necessity of their being so -- that is, it would insist on both recognizing the inevitably contingent character of representations and understanding one's choice of representation in terms of the specific material contingencies of one's teaching" (35).
"...I would argue for representing students as above all else as workers, working on themselves, Composition, the academy, and the social generally" (35).
"The alternative challenge Composition faces is how teachers and students can confront the ways in which each material act of writing and reading mediates, in the sense of actively re-forming and transforming, and is mediated by social identification, difference, and power, both responding to and reconstructing or revising these" (37).
"Here let me emphasize that it is within such oppositions that the term 'student work,' like the term 'women's work,' appears as an oxymoron, by definition less or other than real work -- than, say, the work of men. And of course, these conceptions are part of a chain, or nest, of binaries derogating teaching, the academic, the feminine, the personal, and so on which distinguish labor from work, feeling from thought, experience from intellect, the personal from the social, composition from academic disciplines, and the academic from the real" (53).
"...compris[ing] all the activities of its provocation, composition, distribution, and reception and the involvement of these with the other: work, in short, as material social practice, where agency meets structure" (66) --- possibly the definition of m-s-p?
"What I am suggesting, however, is that in addition to these curricula, we need to acknowledge as well a curriculum 'hidden' from or ignored or dismissed by the dominant, one that promotes alternative or oppositional interests" (117).
"The composition course identifies academic work as a material social practice. Even in its most debased, skills and drills forms, it takes as its primary focus the materiality of the writing that constitutes the bulk of academic work. In focusing on the materiality of academic 'discourse,' of whatever stripe, it threatens continually to reveal the location of academic disciplinary work in the material realm. That is to say, Composition reveals what most disciplines deny: the contradiction between the apparent stability of their disciplinary subject as an abstract, reified entity, and the necessity for its continual, material reproduction through pedagogy generally and writing in particular" (146).
"The discourse of academic professionalism limits how we think of the work of Composition, defining legitimate work as the acquisition, production, and distribution of print-codified knowledge about writing: the production and reception of scholarly texts. In this discourse, the 'work' associated with such activities as teaching is deemed 'labor,' the implementation of the work of professional knowledge, and thus susceptible to proletarianization" (173). ----> theory/practice
"But as the Amherst tradition and the work of Coles and Bartholomae illustrate, the material practice of tradition -- including writing and writing style -- is not to be so easily divorced from theory or any of its 'components'"( 200).
"This commodified view of scholarship provides a different perspective from which to understand the theory/practice debate. The work of theory, or, better, 'theorizing,' is not typically imagined as material practice but as commodity whose properties reside in the 'theory' itself, understood as existing outside the material realm" (226).
I have quite a bit to say about this book; mostly that I disagree with a lot of the readings of schools/ theories that Horner evinces as evidence (i.e. expressivist pedagogy, the Amherst school, etc). In addition, I believe that the project-- while useful and productive for us and our students -- still imposes a particular set of values on the students that I find problematic. Horner would have it that by taking the students seriously, by considering them workers, we value them and can overcome the marginalization that they and us have encountered. But I can speak from experience that this would not, and does not, work with all students... and not because they're apathetic, either. Finally, I think that this does not effectively theorize the theory/practice debate outside the position of, "well, we need both." In other words, Horner's approach, in accounting for the material social residue of theories and practices, suggests that we can transcend these binaries in favor of something more productive and resistant. But can it? I guess I was expecting much more from this book, since it's been touted to me as "canonical". And what's up with the fact that Horner denigrates the very curriculum he installed at UWM? Anyone?
Key quotes:
"Rather than denigrating or praising what passes for intellectual work for its intellectuality, we need to insist on the material social conditions making that work possible and shaping it; we cannot use its 'intellectuality' as a basis for denying its materiality" (9). Crucial point in book; sums it up, I think.
On pp 14-18, Horner characterizes the theory/practice debate under the head "Work in Composition". He divides the field in two categories: those concerned with "professionalization", and those concerned with teaching. One reason for such polarity stems from the marginal status of composition in relation to English studies and in the academy as a whole. Thus, those interested in "professionalizing" adopt theory; they publish in journals, conduct research studies, and essentially "threaten to distance Composition from its material ties to and identification with teaching" (15).
But the practitioners aren't much better. According to Horner, "these faculty define their own knowledge in terms of their experience of what 'works' in the classroom, and pride themselves on their dedication to teaching and their students. In so doing, however, they increase the marginality of their position in the academy and subject themselves to ever more degrading working conditions"(15).
The solution is invariably to adopt a material social critique; however, Horner is cautious to advocate not for a "balance...but intervention at the point of their interrelations" (27). That is, he urges the field to ignore the distinction between theory and practice:
"...in order to address the material conditions of our labor, we must abandon such distinctions, in effect making it our work to articulate the interpenetration of all these as constitutive of our work. This will require initially foregrounding the ways in which contradictions embedded in distinctions between intellectual and non-intellectual labor and the commodification of intellectual labor play out at the site of composition" (29).
"The cultural materialist alternative for which I would argue would insist, instead, not only on the political, strategic nature of specific representations but on the necessity of their being so -- that is, it would insist on both recognizing the inevitably contingent character of representations and understanding one's choice of representation in terms of the specific material contingencies of one's teaching" (35).
"...I would argue for representing students as above all else as workers, working on themselves, Composition, the academy, and the social generally" (35).
"The alternative challenge Composition faces is how teachers and students can confront the ways in which each material act of writing and reading mediates, in the sense of actively re-forming and transforming, and is mediated by social identification, difference, and power, both responding to and reconstructing or revising these" (37).
"Here let me emphasize that it is within such oppositions that the term 'student work,' like the term 'women's work,' appears as an oxymoron, by definition less or other than real work -- than, say, the work of men. And of course, these conceptions are part of a chain, or nest, of binaries derogating teaching, the academic, the feminine, the personal, and so on which distinguish labor from work, feeling from thought, experience from intellect, the personal from the social, composition from academic disciplines, and the academic from the real" (53).
"...compris[ing] all the activities of its provocation, composition, distribution, and reception and the involvement of these with the other: work, in short, as material social practice, where agency meets structure" (66) --- possibly the definition of m-s-p?
"What I am suggesting, however, is that in addition to these curricula, we need to acknowledge as well a curriculum 'hidden' from or ignored or dismissed by the dominant, one that promotes alternative or oppositional interests" (117).
"The composition course identifies academic work as a material social practice. Even in its most debased, skills and drills forms, it takes as its primary focus the materiality of the writing that constitutes the bulk of academic work. In focusing on the materiality of academic 'discourse,' of whatever stripe, it threatens continually to reveal the location of academic disciplinary work in the material realm. That is to say, Composition reveals what most disciplines deny: the contradiction between the apparent stability of their disciplinary subject as an abstract, reified entity, and the necessity for its continual, material reproduction through pedagogy generally and writing in particular" (146).
"The discourse of academic professionalism limits how we think of the work of Composition, defining legitimate work as the acquisition, production, and distribution of print-codified knowledge about writing: the production and reception of scholarly texts. In this discourse, the 'work' associated with such activities as teaching is deemed 'labor,' the implementation of the work of professional knowledge, and thus susceptible to proletarianization" (173). ----> theory/practice
"But as the Amherst tradition and the work of Coles and Bartholomae illustrate, the material practice of tradition -- including writing and writing style -- is not to be so easily divorced from theory or any of its 'components'"( 200).
"This commodified view of scholarship provides a different perspective from which to understand the theory/practice debate. The work of theory, or, better, 'theorizing,' is not typically imagined as material practice but as commodity whose properties reside in the 'theory' itself, understood as existing outside the material realm" (226).
I have quite a bit to say about this book; mostly that I disagree with a lot of the readings of schools/ theories that Horner evinces as evidence (i.e. expressivist pedagogy, the Amherst school, etc). In addition, I believe that the project-- while useful and productive for us and our students -- still imposes a particular set of values on the students that I find problematic. Horner would have it that by taking the students seriously, by considering them workers, we value them and can overcome the marginalization that they and us have encountered. But I can speak from experience that this would not, and does not, work with all students... and not because they're apathetic, either. Finally, I think that this does not effectively theorize the theory/practice debate outside the position of, "well, we need both." In other words, Horner's approach, in accounting for the material social residue of theories and practices, suggests that we can transcend these binaries in favor of something more productive and resistant. But can it? I guess I was expecting much more from this book, since it's been touted to me as "canonical". And what's up with the fact that Horner denigrates the very curriculum he installed at UWM? Anyone?
Saturday, June 20, 2009
More Slacking... and Keywords
I've been on a blogging (but not reading) hiatus, due to teaching and my stint reading AP exams in FL. Now that I have some time, the blogging resumes with a book I read about 3 weeks ago... and have yet to post about.
Since the last post, I've read:
Writing/Teaching Paul Kameen
Kitchen Cooks, Plate Twirlers, and Troubadours ed Diana George
The Making of Knowledge in Composition Stephen North
Sidney Dobrin's book
Balancing Acts eds Anderson, Buley-Meissner, Chappell
Now for the Keywords:
Heilker, Paul, and Peter Vandenberg, eds. Keywords in Composition Studies. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton-Cook. 1996.
This book is a collection of short essays on keywords in composition studies. However, as the editors declare, the essays explore the multiple valences and definitions of each word to resist consensus. In essence, the book tries simultaneously to record and resist meaning.
Instead of talking about important quotations/key terms as is my m.o, I'm going to list the key quotations under the word they describe. I have selected terms which I found most useful for my exams/projects; these selections do not represent the breadth of the book or the overall usefullness of the book in general.
Composing/Writing:
"This idea, that writing is not the transcribing of thought but rather the process of creating insight itself, sets the stage for the next major construction of writing and composing in composition studies, the one epitomized in the 1981 work of Linda Flower and John R. Hayes: writing as thinking, as a recursive cognitive activity, as problem-solving; composing as the goal-directed orchestration of a set of distinctive, hierarchical, highly-embedded thinking processes" (41).
"It should be noted that writing as learning is the strand of meaning from which the often-invoked images of writing as exploration and discovery arise" (41-2).
Essay:
"One thing many of the above have in common is their assumption that the essay-- whether interpreted as an aesthetic of the personal, a search for ontological truths, or a medium for social construction -- remains separate from poetry, fiction, drama, and so on. Others are more critical of such distinctions" (86).
"As we scan different readings (and thus, always, engenderings) of this word and its origins, it would appear that the essay can not signify any bona fide genre. Rather, the term might best be considered an 'open rubric' the intention of which can only be defined locally by the 'rule makers' of specific discourse communities: i.e., the teacher, the test maker, the editor, the publishing company. As paradigm shifts in our technology and culture continue to force us to revamp our definitions of literacy and writing, the debates over the appopriate meanings for the 'essay' will most likely become even more heated and, perhaps to those outside academic communities, increasingly irrelevant" (87).
Invention:
"It has been generally accepted that these 'sets of instructions' are equivalent to what are routinely caled 'heuristic procedures,' what Richard Young, in his 1976 bibliographic essay, refers to as any 'explicit plans for analyzing and searching which focus attention, guide reason, stimulate memory and encourage intuition.' That which is said to qualify as an inventional device or heuristic procedure, however, has been deliberated throughout the history of composition studies" (132).
"While each of [Young's] theories constitute heuristic procedures, their differing forms and functions are the result of differing approaches to the composing process" (133).
(According to LeFevre): "Invention thus 'becomes an act that may involve speaking and writing, that at times involves more than one person; it is furthermore an act initiated by writers and completed by readers, extending over time through a series of transactions and texts" (134; qtd in LeFevre 1).
"Expanded definitions of invention see it 'not just as a method of retrieving what we already know, but as a process that constitutes our inquiry" (134; LeFevre 123).
"Paul Kameen uses the term 'imagination' to describe these forms of 'modern invention' that are strategies 'for the methodical acquisition of new knowledge': classical invention is thus a 'fairly mechanical special case of creative thought that imagination absorbs into its broader systems'" (134; Kameen 85-6).
Young writes: "It is becoming increasingly apparent that as new and significant methods of invention emerge we need to develop a more adequate terminology which distinguishes various arts or methods of invention from the art of invention, that is, the members from the class" (134, Young 17).
Pedagogy: (Karen Fitts)
"Pedagogy -- with no adjective -- became (retrospectively at least) current-traditional pedagogy, then process pedagogy (composed of diverse forms of teaching undergirded by broadly ranging assumptions) and finally critical pedagogy. That pedagogy entered composition studies not routinely linked with an adjective suggests it was then assumed to be self-evident, separable from theory" (168).
"Richard Fulkerson argues that, as a general rule, theory and practice began to be conflated in pedagogy only in the 1980s; before that, it was accepted teacherly practice to discuss the characteristics of good writing without also imagining how writers might write or how teachers might enable writers" (168).
"Woods writes that the discipline-centered see pedagogy as a civilizing influence; it offers values, skills, and precepts to primitive beings, whereas proponents of a student-centered pedagogy perceive themselves as giving voice to (inherently good) humanity" (169).
"Divergent as these perspectives are, they hold in common at least one trait: their localized focus on individual teachers and individual students" (169).
"Freire's primary contribution was in revealing the interactions between education and society, thus elevating pedagogy to its prominent contemporary position as an agent for social change" (169).
Practice/Praxis:
"In composition studies, practice is often joined with theory in a hierarchal binary in which theory informs practice but practice doesn't inform theory" (187).
"Recognizing practice as a mode of inquiry contributes to new understandings of knowledge making" (187).
"A decisive contribution to the contemporary age of politics was Paulo Freire's introduction of praxis to composition studies in the early 1980s. For while practice almost inevitably is set off against theory, praxis erases this polarity through the means of dialectics. Raymond Williams contends that in its modern sense, developed in Hegelian and Marxist thought, 'praxis is practice informed by theory and...less emphatically, theory informed by practice'" (188).
"Praxis thus restores theory and practice to one another..." (188-9).
"In any case, the commitment to greater social and political equity through classroom practices is especially characteristic of feminists, marxists, multiculturalists, and other oppositional pedagogues" (189).
Rhetoric:
"Rhetoric is buffeted by storms of signification coming from two directions. From one direction comes the general public's perception, reinforced by the popular media, of rhetoric as bombast, figurative language designed to cover up either deception or shallow substance" (213).
"From another direction comes the implied meaning, embraced within most academic circles, of rhetoric as the subject matter that gets taught in composition courses" (213).
"For most of this century, rhetoric, supported by a tradition of philosophical/theoretical scholarship, has been invoked to rescue composition from its seemingly anti-intellectual baggage of word-, sentence-, and paragraph-level pedantry" (213).
"The only characteristic these [three] theories share is that their proponents seem to envision their rhetoric as being able either to explain how speakers and writers behave in certain situations or to direct speakers and writers to generate language that has certain, presumably effective, characteristics" (214).
Since the last post, I've read:
Writing/Teaching Paul Kameen
Kitchen Cooks, Plate Twirlers, and Troubadours ed Diana George
The Making of Knowledge in Composition Stephen North
Sidney Dobrin's book
Balancing Acts eds Anderson, Buley-Meissner, Chappell
Now for the Keywords:
Heilker, Paul, and Peter Vandenberg, eds. Keywords in Composition Studies. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton-Cook. 1996.
This book is a collection of short essays on keywords in composition studies. However, as the editors declare, the essays explore the multiple valences and definitions of each word to resist consensus. In essence, the book tries simultaneously to record and resist meaning.
Instead of talking about important quotations/key terms as is my m.o, I'm going to list the key quotations under the word they describe. I have selected terms which I found most useful for my exams/projects; these selections do not represent the breadth of the book or the overall usefullness of the book in general.
Composing/Writing:
"This idea, that writing is not the transcribing of thought but rather the process of creating insight itself, sets the stage for the next major construction of writing and composing in composition studies, the one epitomized in the 1981 work of Linda Flower and John R. Hayes: writing as thinking, as a recursive cognitive activity, as problem-solving; composing as the goal-directed orchestration of a set of distinctive, hierarchical, highly-embedded thinking processes" (41).
"It should be noted that writing as learning is the strand of meaning from which the often-invoked images of writing as exploration and discovery arise" (41-2).
Essay:
"One thing many of the above have in common is their assumption that the essay-- whether interpreted as an aesthetic of the personal, a search for ontological truths, or a medium for social construction -- remains separate from poetry, fiction, drama, and so on. Others are more critical of such distinctions" (86).
"As we scan different readings (and thus, always, engenderings) of this word and its origins, it would appear that the essay can not signify any bona fide genre. Rather, the term might best be considered an 'open rubric' the intention of which can only be defined locally by the 'rule makers' of specific discourse communities: i.e., the teacher, the test maker, the editor, the publishing company. As paradigm shifts in our technology and culture continue to force us to revamp our definitions of literacy and writing, the debates over the appopriate meanings for the 'essay' will most likely become even more heated and, perhaps to those outside academic communities, increasingly irrelevant" (87).
Invention:
"It has been generally accepted that these 'sets of instructions' are equivalent to what are routinely caled 'heuristic procedures,' what Richard Young, in his 1976 bibliographic essay, refers to as any 'explicit plans for analyzing and searching which focus attention, guide reason, stimulate memory and encourage intuition.' That which is said to qualify as an inventional device or heuristic procedure, however, has been deliberated throughout the history of composition studies" (132).
"While each of [Young's] theories constitute heuristic procedures, their differing forms and functions are the result of differing approaches to the composing process" (133).
(According to LeFevre): "Invention thus 'becomes an act that may involve speaking and writing, that at times involves more than one person; it is furthermore an act initiated by writers and completed by readers, extending over time through a series of transactions and texts" (134; qtd in LeFevre 1).
"Expanded definitions of invention see it 'not just as a method of retrieving what we already know, but as a process that constitutes our inquiry" (134; LeFevre 123).
"Paul Kameen uses the term 'imagination' to describe these forms of 'modern invention' that are strategies 'for the methodical acquisition of new knowledge': classical invention is thus a 'fairly mechanical special case of creative thought that imagination absorbs into its broader systems'" (134; Kameen 85-6).
Young writes: "It is becoming increasingly apparent that as new and significant methods of invention emerge we need to develop a more adequate terminology which distinguishes various arts or methods of invention from the art of invention, that is, the members from the class" (134, Young 17).
Pedagogy: (Karen Fitts)
"Pedagogy -- with no adjective -- became (retrospectively at least) current-traditional pedagogy, then process pedagogy (composed of diverse forms of teaching undergirded by broadly ranging assumptions) and finally critical pedagogy. That pedagogy entered composition studies not routinely linked with an adjective suggests it was then assumed to be self-evident, separable from theory" (168).
"Richard Fulkerson argues that, as a general rule, theory and practice began to be conflated in pedagogy only in the 1980s; before that, it was accepted teacherly practice to discuss the characteristics of good writing without also imagining how writers might write or how teachers might enable writers" (168).
"Woods writes that the discipline-centered see pedagogy as a civilizing influence; it offers values, skills, and precepts to primitive beings, whereas proponents of a student-centered pedagogy perceive themselves as giving voice to (inherently good) humanity" (169).
"Divergent as these perspectives are, they hold in common at least one trait: their localized focus on individual teachers and individual students" (169).
"Freire's primary contribution was in revealing the interactions between education and society, thus elevating pedagogy to its prominent contemporary position as an agent for social change" (169).
Practice/Praxis:
"In composition studies, practice is often joined with theory in a hierarchal binary in which theory informs practice but practice doesn't inform theory" (187).
"Recognizing practice as a mode of inquiry contributes to new understandings of knowledge making" (187).
"A decisive contribution to the contemporary age of politics was Paulo Freire's introduction of praxis to composition studies in the early 1980s. For while practice almost inevitably is set off against theory, praxis erases this polarity through the means of dialectics. Raymond Williams contends that in its modern sense, developed in Hegelian and Marxist thought, 'praxis is practice informed by theory and...less emphatically, theory informed by practice'" (188).
"Praxis thus restores theory and practice to one another..." (188-9).
"In any case, the commitment to greater social and political equity through classroom practices is especially characteristic of feminists, marxists, multiculturalists, and other oppositional pedagogues" (189).
Rhetoric:
"Rhetoric is buffeted by storms of signification coming from two directions. From one direction comes the general public's perception, reinforced by the popular media, of rhetoric as bombast, figurative language designed to cover up either deception or shallow substance" (213).
"From another direction comes the implied meaning, embraced within most academic circles, of rhetoric as the subject matter that gets taught in composition courses" (213).
"For most of this century, rhetoric, supported by a tradition of philosophical/theoretical scholarship, has been invoked to rescue composition from its seemingly anti-intellectual baggage of word-, sentence-, and paragraph-level pedantry" (213).
"The only characteristic these [three] theories share is that their proponents seem to envision their rhetoric as being able either to explain how speakers and writers behave in certain situations or to direct speakers and writers to generate language that has certain, presumably effective, characteristics" (214).
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Shaughnessy
In Errors and Expectations, Mina Shaughnessy offers "a guide to the teacher of basic writing" by suggesting that the "errors" students make do, in fact, have a logic and an explanation. Teachers of basic writing need to be able to understand these errors as part of a process, and help the student determine why he or she is making these errors. Shaughnessy emphasizes process over product, and while she advocates practice with grammar/mechanics, at the same time she places great importance on proofreading as the final stage of writing.
Important Quotes:
For me, what's most useful are the several sections where she discusses -- indirectly -- invention.
But there are some gems about learning and writing, too.
What I liked the most about this book is that Shaughnessy advocates meeting students "where they are;" her approach is definitely a student-centered one where what the students know is brought into contact with what they do not know, or do not know they know.
As I read, I kept being struck by how much Shaughnessy emphasizes the social nature of language and writing. While one might argue that she uncritically presents academic discourse as the ideal for BW students to master (and I would agree with this critique); Shaughnessy does promote reflective practice and place students at the forefront of teaching writing. It's interesting to see how James Berlin has critiqued Shaughnessy for espousing a cognitive (process) approach, which, for him, means that she ignores the socially constructed nature of language/writing. There are, however, several occasions where Shaughnessy directly discusses the social aspects of language.
Aside from the privileging of academic discourse: it would seem that Shaughnessy is a tad prescriptive (though I do believe in prescriptive teaching if it's reflected upon and it works). My major critique: the implicit assumption that the oral discourse students bring with them to the writing classroom is a hindrance. While Shaughnessy takes careful pains to equate BEV, for example, with SWE, oral dialects/discourses show up throughout her book as problematic and a hindrance to the process of learning to write academic discourse.
Important Quotes:
For me, what's most useful are the several sections where she discusses -- indirectly -- invention.
But there are some gems about learning and writing, too.
What I liked the most about this book is that Shaughnessy advocates meeting students "where they are;" her approach is definitely a student-centered one where what the students know is brought into contact with what they do not know, or do not know they know.
As I read, I kept being struck by how much Shaughnessy emphasizes the social nature of language and writing. While one might argue that she uncritically presents academic discourse as the ideal for BW students to master (and I would agree with this critique); Shaughnessy does promote reflective practice and place students at the forefront of teaching writing. It's interesting to see how James Berlin has critiqued Shaughnessy for espousing a cognitive (process) approach, which, for him, means that she ignores the socially constructed nature of language/writing. There are, however, several occasions where Shaughnessy directly discusses the social aspects of language.
Aside from the privileging of academic discourse: it would seem that Shaughnessy is a tad prescriptive (though I do believe in prescriptive teaching if it's reflected upon and it works). My major critique: the implicit assumption that the oral discourse students bring with them to the writing classroom is a hindrance. While Shaughnessy takes careful pains to equate BEV, for example, with SWE, oral dialects/discourses show up throughout her book as problematic and a hindrance to the process of learning to write academic discourse.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Elbow
Peter Elbow's Writing Without Teachers offers a guide to establishing a "teacherless classroom" based on the idea that the best way to learn to write is to get feedback from a familiar and diverse group of people who have no stakes in the outcomes.
Elbow bases his model on his own experiences as a writer/student. teacher of writing, and member of a therapy group. His main contribution here is the notion of freewriting and the ways that the teacherless classroom can help overcome people's fears about writing. It's certainly a member of the "process movement," and many scholars have critiqued Elbow for his "expressivist" notions of writing. These "expressivist" notions of writing privilege a solitary author, writing in isolation (in fact, several scenes are presented where Elbow discusses his own --solitary -- struggles to write), and that truth emanates from the individual's experience. The main goal of expressive writing is to find your authentic voice, and transmit that voice onto paper, as accurately as you see it.
While there are a great deal of these elements in Elbow's book (seen even if you only counted the number of times "organic" emerges), I'd like to argue two things about it: 1) Even if it is expressivist, it doesn't mean it can't be critical; and furthermore, first-year students, especially, often need to hone their "voice" and reflect on their experiences, as their voice has been squashed; and 2) that Elbow's book isn't entirely based on this model. His emphasis on the communal, social nature of the teacherless class --where no one's status is more privileged than the other -- is crucial for learning to write. That is, you cannot just send signals in the dark. You need feedback from an array of individuals.
Another key component of Elbow's book is the appendix essay on the "believing game," which offers a new route to critical (academic) thinking by way of acceptance, believing, instead of "doubting." For Elbow, in order to see contradictions, fallacies, or problems, we should really listen to others' viewpoints -- believe them -- and then we can see where they're beneficial, and for whom. I've always loved this idea, and want to try it out.
Finally, the major draw of Elbow's book for me is its practicality. He focuses on the practice -- the work -- of writing, without glamorizing it at all. In addition, he links theory with practice by theorizing from practice, and then doing it-- in other words, there's little, if any, distinction between the two for him.
Elbow's book helped me to understand Berlin's Rhetoric and Reality and vice versa. I have found that I disagree with Berlin's reading of Elbow (and some other expressivists, since Berlin categorizes them without much explication of their differences). However, I have also come to see how Elbow's book is great on paper, but what do we do in institutional contexts where, all too often, there's neither time nor sanction for this kind of work? What do we do when there is, in fact, a teacher?
Elbow bases his model on his own experiences as a writer/student. teacher of writing, and member of a therapy group. His main contribution here is the notion of freewriting and the ways that the teacherless classroom can help overcome people's fears about writing. It's certainly a member of the "process movement," and many scholars have critiqued Elbow for his "expressivist" notions of writing. These "expressivist" notions of writing privilege a solitary author, writing in isolation (in fact, several scenes are presented where Elbow discusses his own --solitary -- struggles to write), and that truth emanates from the individual's experience. The main goal of expressive writing is to find your authentic voice, and transmit that voice onto paper, as accurately as you see it.
While there are a great deal of these elements in Elbow's book (seen even if you only counted the number of times "organic" emerges), I'd like to argue two things about it: 1) Even if it is expressivist, it doesn't mean it can't be critical; and furthermore, first-year students, especially, often need to hone their "voice" and reflect on their experiences, as their voice has been squashed; and 2) that Elbow's book isn't entirely based on this model. His emphasis on the communal, social nature of the teacherless class --where no one's status is more privileged than the other -- is crucial for learning to write. That is, you cannot just send signals in the dark. You need feedback from an array of individuals.
Another key component of Elbow's book is the appendix essay on the "believing game," which offers a new route to critical (academic) thinking by way of acceptance, believing, instead of "doubting." For Elbow, in order to see contradictions, fallacies, or problems, we should really listen to others' viewpoints -- believe them -- and then we can see where they're beneficial, and for whom. I've always loved this idea, and want to try it out.
Finally, the major draw of Elbow's book for me is its practicality. He focuses on the practice -- the work -- of writing, without glamorizing it at all. In addition, he links theory with practice by theorizing from practice, and then doing it-- in other words, there's little, if any, distinction between the two for him.
Elbow's book helped me to understand Berlin's Rhetoric and Reality and vice versa. I have found that I disagree with Berlin's reading of Elbow (and some other expressivists, since Berlin categorizes them without much explication of their differences). However, I have also come to see how Elbow's book is great on paper, but what do we do in institutional contexts where, all too often, there's neither time nor sanction for this kind of work? What do we do when there is, in fact, a teacher?
Faigley
Lester Faigley's Fragments of Rationality: Postmodernity and the Subject of Composition is structured around the central question: Why hasn't composition studies responded to postmodernity in the academy? (I'm paraphrasing). Faigley argues that composition studies as a whole has ignored or neglected to significantly import elements from postmodern theory into its teaching/theorizing. He attributes this to the staying power of process pedagogy, which codified Comp. as a discipline but rendered postmodern theory obsolete. He makes this argument by exploring renditions of the subject/subjectivity that textbooks, process pedagogy, and student writing has produced.
Now, before I continue, I want to mention that Faigley's book is dated 1992, so some of his claims are dated and thus no longer true. I'm sure that there have been significant changes in the field since then, where claims of the subject's discursive construction have become commonplace and even contested -- in favor of other, more groundbreaking theories that critique the postmodern subjectivity as problematic. Similarly, Faigley's claims about electronic writing/networking/ computers have been retheorized, if only because it's been almost 20 years since his book has come out.
Key quotations:
"But while composition studies is concurrent with some characterizations of an era of postmodernity, it has by and large resisted the fragmentary and chaotic currents of postmodernity, and it has remained in many respects a modernist discipline, especially in its prevailing conceptions of the subject" (xi).
"The argument that runs through this book is that many of the fault lines in composition studies are disagreements over the subjectivities that teachers of writing want students to occupy" (17).
"This turn [the turn toward pomo theory] in composition studies is a recognition of the mutuality of theory and practice -- a recognition that, as Foucault argues....'Theory does not express, translate, or serve to apply practice, it is practice'(208). This revised notion of theory situates the practices of composition textbooks that encourage the orderly application of reason in a long theoretical tradition of the advancement of reason dating from the Enlightenment" (38-9). (* see also p. 44 for a longer discussion of theory/practice).
"The classroom successes of process pedagogy have drawn attention away from how judgments of writing quality reflect larger cultural assumptions about the purposes of literary education. Such was not the case throughout much of the history of writing instruction in America. Literacy instruction was closely associated with larger cultural goals, and writing teachers were as much or more interested in whom they want their students to be as in what they want their students to write" (113).
"I argue that shared assumptions about subjectives [sic] -- the selves we want our students to be -- still shape judgments of writing quality" (114).
"...what might happen if we were to disrupt standard classroom practice and introduce new forms of written discourse? Would it be more difficult to preserve the rational, autonomous subject? We can now ask this 'what if' question because different groups of writing researchers have brought new forms of writing to the classroom through the use of electronic written discussions on networked computers and the use of nonsequential writing known as hypertext" (165).
"The utopian dream of an equitable sharing of classroom authority, at least during the duration of a class discussion, has been achieved" (167).
"The dispersal of the subject in electronic communications technologies suggests that we need new ways of talking about subjectivity and raises the issue of what metaphor of the subject might be most useful for articulating a postmodern ethics" (227).
"The multiplicity of subjectivity is not necessarily a thing to fear because in classrooms it fosters discursive richness and creativity. But it does require theorizing and, if teaching practices are to be involved, new metaphors for the subject" (230).
This last quotation, for me, speaks to Faigley's larger project in the book: that theory is divided from practice. That is, composition studies has theorized a great deal, but this theorizing about postmodernity has not trickled down into new teaching practices that move away from a modernist subject. Faigley does suggest that the discussions of process theory have trickled down, but that these theories aren't quite enough; they still, according to Faigley, privilege certain kinds of subjectivities that harken to current-traditional rhetoric or worse.
There's a lot that's useful here, though the dated-ness is something to keep in mind. I'm not totally enamored with the book, because I think Faigley himself fails to see how his own beliefs (esp. regarding personal writing) are not theorized; I also think that more examples are needed to demonstrate his points. When he discusses textbooks, he talks about two; in discussions of his own students' writing, there's ONE. Makes me question his research practices. There is also a LOT of theory here, in ways that doesn't always connect with composition studies. At times I feel the connection is forced or overlooked. Faigley doesn't cite people like Karen Burke LeFevre, much feminist scholarship, or sophistic rhetoric that takes up the questions of postmodern theory before his book came out (Vitanza, for ex)...
Overall, though, his book is helping me see the disconnects between theory/practice and the ways in which composition has dealt with it, both in its own scholarship and in relation to other disciplines (ie linguistics, literary studies, cultural studies).
44,
Now, before I continue, I want to mention that Faigley's book is dated 1992, so some of his claims are dated and thus no longer true. I'm sure that there have been significant changes in the field since then, where claims of the subject's discursive construction have become commonplace and even contested -- in favor of other, more groundbreaking theories that critique the postmodern subjectivity as problematic. Similarly, Faigley's claims about electronic writing/networking/ computers have been retheorized, if only because it's been almost 20 years since his book has come out.
Key quotations:
"But while composition studies is concurrent with some characterizations of an era of postmodernity, it has by and large resisted the fragmentary and chaotic currents of postmodernity, and it has remained in many respects a modernist discipline, especially in its prevailing conceptions of the subject" (xi).
"The argument that runs through this book is that many of the fault lines in composition studies are disagreements over the subjectivities that teachers of writing want students to occupy" (17).
"This turn [the turn toward pomo theory] in composition studies is a recognition of the mutuality of theory and practice -- a recognition that, as Foucault argues....'Theory does not express, translate, or serve to apply practice, it is practice'(208). This revised notion of theory situates the practices of composition textbooks that encourage the orderly application of reason in a long theoretical tradition of the advancement of reason dating from the Enlightenment" (38-9). (* see also p. 44 for a longer discussion of theory/practice).
"The classroom successes of process pedagogy have drawn attention away from how judgments of writing quality reflect larger cultural assumptions about the purposes of literary education. Such was not the case throughout much of the history of writing instruction in America. Literacy instruction was closely associated with larger cultural goals, and writing teachers were as much or more interested in whom they want their students to be as in what they want their students to write" (113).
"I argue that shared assumptions about subjectives [sic] -- the selves we want our students to be -- still shape judgments of writing quality" (114).
"...what might happen if we were to disrupt standard classroom practice and introduce new forms of written discourse? Would it be more difficult to preserve the rational, autonomous subject? We can now ask this 'what if' question because different groups of writing researchers have brought new forms of writing to the classroom through the use of electronic written discussions on networked computers and the use of nonsequential writing known as hypertext" (165).
"The utopian dream of an equitable sharing of classroom authority, at least during the duration of a class discussion, has been achieved" (167).
"The dispersal of the subject in electronic communications technologies suggests that we need new ways of talking about subjectivity and raises the issue of what metaphor of the subject might be most useful for articulating a postmodern ethics" (227).
"The multiplicity of subjectivity is not necessarily a thing to fear because in classrooms it fosters discursive richness and creativity. But it does require theorizing and, if teaching practices are to be involved, new metaphors for the subject" (230).
This last quotation, for me, speaks to Faigley's larger project in the book: that theory is divided from practice. That is, composition studies has theorized a great deal, but this theorizing about postmodernity has not trickled down into new teaching practices that move away from a modernist subject. Faigley does suggest that the discussions of process theory have trickled down, but that these theories aren't quite enough; they still, according to Faigley, privilege certain kinds of subjectivities that harken to current-traditional rhetoric or worse.
There's a lot that's useful here, though the dated-ness is something to keep in mind. I'm not totally enamored with the book, because I think Faigley himself fails to see how his own beliefs (esp. regarding personal writing) are not theorized; I also think that more examples are needed to demonstrate his points. When he discusses textbooks, he talks about two; in discussions of his own students' writing, there's ONE. Makes me question his research practices. There is also a LOT of theory here, in ways that doesn't always connect with composition studies. At times I feel the connection is forced or overlooked. Faigley doesn't cite people like Karen Burke LeFevre, much feminist scholarship, or sophistic rhetoric that takes up the questions of postmodern theory before his book came out (Vitanza, for ex)...
Overall, though, his book is helping me see the disconnects between theory/practice and the ways in which composition has dealt with it, both in its own scholarship and in relation to other disciplines (ie linguistics, literary studies, cultural studies).
44,
Slacking on the posting...
In my attempts to be productive in all areas of my life, I've been seriously slacking on posting. Since the last post, I've read:
Rhetoric and Reality by James Berlin
Keywords in Composition Studies ed by Paul Heilker and Peter Vanderburg
Fragments of Rationality by Lester Faigley
Writing Without Teachers by Peter Elbow
A Teaching Subject by Joseph Harris
Rhetoric and Composition as Intellectual Work ed Gary Olson.
Whew!
For now, suffice it to say that I've been reading.. a LOT. But I'm actually enjoying it. The library, however, probably hates it, since I now have the PE/PN section of almost every library in WI collected in my apartment. Good times.
Good news: I'm really starting to see how the texts "talk to" each other, how they are responding to similar concerns in different ways, and different concerns altogether. I've decided that the major issue I want to focus on (for the prelim exam, perhaps) is how composition studies has conceived, and treated, the split between theory and practice. Additionally, how has the split (and subsequent calls for joining the two) affected the discipline of composition studies as a: field/discipline, subject, practice, and epistemology? Can there be a reconciliation of theory and practice, and what would that mean for the teaching of composition/rhetoric?
Rhetoric and Reality by James Berlin
Keywords in Composition Studies ed by Paul Heilker and Peter Vanderburg
Fragments of Rationality by Lester Faigley
Writing Without Teachers by Peter Elbow
A Teaching Subject by Joseph Harris
Rhetoric and Composition as Intellectual Work ed Gary Olson.
Whew!
For now, suffice it to say that I've been reading.. a LOT. But I'm actually enjoying it. The library, however, probably hates it, since I now have the PE/PN section of almost every library in WI collected in my apartment. Good times.
Good news: I'm really starting to see how the texts "talk to" each other, how they are responding to similar concerns in different ways, and different concerns altogether. I've decided that the major issue I want to focus on (for the prelim exam, perhaps) is how composition studies has conceived, and treated, the split between theory and practice. Additionally, how has the split (and subsequent calls for joining the two) affected the discipline of composition studies as a: field/discipline, subject, practice, and epistemology? Can there be a reconciliation of theory and practice, and what would that mean for the teaching of composition/rhetoric?
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