English 5060

2008-10-09T12:01:00.001-05:00

Theory

I have yet to be in a class that involved theory where at least some of the students (myself included) didn't complain or grumble about the theory we were "forced" to consume. I think there is a simple reason for this: reading theory can be hard, understanding it can be very hard. This, of course, is not a good enough reason to exclude theory from our curriculum.

Hard things, I think, are seldom accomplished when the purpose for doing them is unclear or misunderstood. We are less likely, therefore, to read and understand and utilize the theory from our disciplines until we articulate the purposes for theory and understand their function in our own learning and teaching.

In his book Document Design: A Guide for Technical Communicators, Miles Kimball (from TTU) melds the theory of document design with its practical application. He writes: "Rather than relying on feelings, a master designer should be able to explain what works and why. Theory is an attempt to provide those explanations--ultimately, to discover and convey fundamental principles of the human experience that can be applied to new design situations" (38).

Theory, according to Kimball, is not only a way to justify the decisions we make (in design, in writing, in teaching), it is a way to discover new ideas, to build new knowledge. If a theory doesn't fulfill either of those roles--inform our decisions or lead to new discoveries--then maybe it should be revised, reviewed, or recycled for a theory that does.

Kimball also makes the case for studying multiple, conflicting theories even though we may have our favorites: "recognizing the breadth of competing theories about visuality will make you a more thoughtful designer [or writer or writing teacher] than simply choosing one theory and applying it formulaically" (39).

2008-09-30T17:14:00.004-05:00

Process

I'm not convinced that it's smart or practical to divorce product from process in the teaching of writing. We can focus on the process, practice it, analyze it, shake it up, and turn it on it's head, but it's still a process that we engage in with an end product in mind. Isn't that how we approach almost everything we do? We read a book (the process) so we can learn, or laugh, or escape (the product). We drive our cars (the process) so we can get somewhere or just get away from wherever we are (the product). We draw up plans and work on a project (the process) so that we'll have something to show for it in the end (the product). As we eliminate product from the process of writing, it seems to me that the meaning and purpose of the writing will decrease proportionally. When we lose our purpose for doing something, that thing is soon abandoned.

Instead of abandoning the product of student writing, as it seems Murray suggests, perhaps we can change the product to fill a need in our students' work. In an academic setting, it is assumed by teachers and students alike that the product of writing ought to be a finished paper, and the product of a finished paper must necessarily be a grade. But what if the product was something else? What if the product was something more "unfinished" than the work we are used to, or even something more abstract like improvement or growth or experimentation or critical thought or discovery or real learning? In this respect, as teachers we can all redefine what ought to be the product of our students' writing, and the product doesn't need to remain the same for every writing assignment.

I also found it helpful to put Murray's thoughts about process in context of the rhetorical canons from classical times: invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery (these last two--memory and delivery--aren't as relevant for our discussion). Even though Murray breaks his process into three categories--prewriting, writing, and rewriting--that take us from beginning to end, it appears to me that his approach to writing concerns mostly the stage of invention. During this stage a writer can discover new truths, make new connections, have new ideas. But as soon as a writer begins to concern himself with arrangement, style, and rewriting, hasn't his focus necessarily shifted from inventing and discovering to creating a product? (Of course, we know that these stages don't occur linearly, but rather manifest themselves recursively throughout the writing process.)

If the role of a teacher is to enable a student "to discover his own meaning" and "embark on a serious search for [his] own truth," I don't think we will achieve that by merely eliminating the product. Instead, we can redefine the product to conform with those goals and purposes and help students become aware of the process they are involved in.

2008-09-16T22:59:00.006-05:00

What is Voice?

Ever since I began hanging around in English departments, I've been hearing about voice in writing. But to be honest, I still don't know what voice really is. It seems like vague, hard-to-define English jargon akin to "flow"--another concept I haven't quite pinned down. Is voice learning to write what you really feel, without censure? Is it following the conventions of writing well enough to get your point across? Is it writing in a way that affects or influences the reader? I thought that I might get some straight answers from Peter Elbow, but I came away from his article even more confused.

Elbow devotes a significant amount of space in the article to explain exercises that have no audience: "For real voice, write a lot without an audience. Do freewritings and throw them away. Remove yourself from the expectation of an audience." Great. No audience--I don't have to worry about what other people think. It's a personal exploration. It turns out, however, that what other people think is really the whole point. The article ends this way: "Real voice is not necessarily personal or sincere. . . . Real voice is whatever yields resonance, whatever makes the words bore through." And I assume--correct me if I'm wrong--that the writing is supposed to have resonance (another hard one to define) with a person other than the author--in other words, an audience.

And for much of the space in between the audience-no audience debate, it felt a little like a counseling session. In the left hand column on page 64 he uses the word "anger" or "angry" five times and tosses in a "confusion" for good measure. But what if I'm not angry when I write? What if it makes more sense to speak to the person I'm angry at instead of tossing my "angry words" into a trash can? Well, enough Elbow bashing; maybe I'm just a little confused and a little angry.

I do, however, think there are some important ideas brought up in the article, I just don't seem to follow Elbow's line of thinking. When we talk about voice, what I really think we are talking about is something more like honesty, sincerity, identity, and writing ability all jumbled into one. How is it that a writer can get his or her unique experience and unique perspective onto the page in a way that is not only intelligible, but is powerful? As we get closer to answering that question, I think we get closer to defining voice. Voice can take many different forms: it can be unapologetic and unabashed, it can be reasonable and logical, it can be personal and touching, it can be direct or downright shocking. But I think there might be a common characteristic of the author who has a voice.

The writer who has found his voice, I think, is the writer who has found his identity (perhaps only his identity as a writer). He knows what he wants to say and how he wants it to affect a reader and he has enough control of the written word to say it with power. When an author doesn't really know what he wants to say (hasn't found his identity), he ends up saying nothing at all and taking much too long to do it. On the other hand, when an author has something to say, but doesn't know how to say it, the message is lost or muddied. The combination of the two--identity and writing ability--create in a writer voice and in his writing power.

2008-09-10T13:46:00.005-05:00

A Student-Centered Approach

A common thread running through Take 20 and the first readings in Composition for the Twenty-First Century is a call for the instruction in composition classes to revolve more around the students and their own writing.

David Bartholomae, in What Is Composition and (if you know what it is) Why Do We Teach It?, voices his concern about the direction composition programs are heading. Composition programs have produced, he says, “a kind of career [he] once could never have imagined. And that is the career of the composition specialist who never teachers composition.” In other words, the one who should know the most and be the best at teaching composition has been taken out of the classroom, away from the novice writer.

Sylvia A. Holladay states even more bluntly that students are at (or should be at) the center of the composition teacher’s world: “Yes, we who teach composition in community colleges do so because we care—about our language, about education, about our world, but most of all about our students.”

I think we can consider making composition more student-centered on at least two levels. The first level is the point of contact: the classroom. In Take 20 some interesting ideas were discussed about how to help students become invested in the class and in the work they are producing. Here are some of those ideas:

Let the students help produce the rubric for assignment
Give the students ownership of the assignment by allowing them to choose the topic
Help them to understand how this class will help with their other classes and even with their professional work later on
Teach them practical writing skills (cover letters, memos, resumes, etc.)
Make the students’ writing the subject of “practical criticism”

The second level where change can take place is that of program development. Policies, procedures, and decisions made at the director’s level reveal the foundational philosophies that are a part of every program. Even though I can’t even imagine the complexities that must exist in developing and maintaining a composition program on the university level, maybe the best place to start is with a few simple questions: Do the policies and processes we endorse have the students as their focus? Are the students prepared for the writing they will do throughout their college careers? Is our program student centered, and is it working?

2008-09-06T18:45:00.011-05:00

FYC: Creating and Sharing Knowledge

As a starting point, the Course Overview at the beginning of the textbook for English 1301 explains the outcomes and purposes that were articulated during the development of that course. The Overview states: "English 1301 helps build the foundation for each student's academic writing career. It is designed to help all students develop their writing ability at the college level. . . . Finally, they will develop a greater understanding of the role of writing in various university courses."

Since First Year Composition (FYC) is supposed to be part of the foundation upon which other university courses are built, it seems reasonable to suggest that FYC and all other courses have something in common, a shared outcome or purpose. Taking my lead from the articles we read this week by Fulkerson (Four Philosophies of Composition) and Berlin (Contemporary Composition: The Major Pedagogical Theories), I would suggest that at least two shared purposes of FYC and nearly all other university courses are creating knowledge and sharing knowledge.

Although we have a tendency to want to separate creating knowledge and sharing knowledge into two distinct and separate categories, when we do so we often find the line between them blurry if not totally nonexistent. Instead of trying to draw a line between these two important elements of the learning process, we would be better served to explore how they relate to writing, and further, to the teaching of writing. Berlin opens his article along similar lines: "To teach writing is to argue for a version of reality and the best way of knowing and communicating it" (emphasis added).

Both authors, in their efforts to explain composition, break it into four categories or elements. Fulkerson's article revolves around what or whom is the focus of the writing, while Berlin's examines the theory-based approaches that drive the teaching of writing today. Both, in their efforts to containerize how we create knowledge and share it through writing, run into at least two problems. First, because of the overlap that naturally occurs, it is extremely difficult to clearly categorize something as complex as writing. Second, and even more important, both have failed to acknowledge that there may be more than one type of "knowledge" that we are trying to create and share. And if there are different types of knowledge to be created and shared, there are probably different ways to create and share it. By limiting ourselves to one theory or method to teaching composition, it seems to me that we may also be limiting ourselves to the pursuit of one kind of knowledge--the kind that comes from that particular theory or method being used.

My theory: There are different kinds of knowledge, and different kinds of knowledge have different requirements for being discovered, created, and shared. Some examples of types of knowledge may include scientific knowledge, social knowledge, relative knowledge, universal knowledge, probable knowledge, spiritual knowledge. I would also theorize that the methods used to obtain scientific knowledge, for example, may not be adequate in our pursuit of, say, social knowledge or spiritual knowledge. And the ways we share that knowledge may not be the same either.

My point: As we look at the different ways to create and share knowledge--especially as that relates to FYC--we would also benefit from taking a step back and defining what type of knowledge we are pursuing.

2008-09-02T01:34:00.010-05:00

Three Important Principles in Composition and Teaching

Of the many important principles that contribute to effective writing, I have chosen three that I think have at least equal influence in effective teaching and instruction.

Organization

In writing as well as in teaching, when there is a lack of clear and purposeful organization everything else of import seems to get lost in the confusion. In writing, a lack of organization weakens the strength of an argument, detracts from the cohesion of a work, and can even alienate a reader. In mathematics there is a clearly defined "order of operations" that governs the way problems are solved. If this order is not followed properly, the correct answer is rarely discovered. Although I wouldn't go too far with this comparison between math and composition, I think there is a sort of "order of operations" for composition, and I would place organization near the top of that order. For example, if the organization of a piece of writing goes wrong, no amount of proper punctuation can set it straight.

In teaching this principle is equally true. I still remember with a shudder a few of my undergraduate professors who seemed incapable of planning anything more than 35 minutes into the future. Their classes were ineffective and hard to put up with. On the flip side, a course that initially seemed uninteresting could be transformed into a fantastic experience by an organized and purposeful professor.

Confidence

This may seem like a strange choice, but I think confidence permeates the process of writing as well as teaching. In teaching, I would define confidence as a command of the subject matter and the ability to demonstrate that to the students. A teacher who "knows his stuff" but lacks any sense of presence or command in front of students will quickly lose their attention and possibly their respect. Likewise, a professor who only has a strong presence in the classroom and lacks the knowledge of the subject matter will sooner or later be exposed or will at least fail in teaching the students all they need to know.

In the writing process a lack of confidence might be more appropriately defined as a lack a decisiveness or a lack of clear purpose. A writer who isn't confident with the argument she is making will sometimes shift her stance throughout the work and in the process destroy any chance of persuading the reader. And since nearly all writing is persuasive in nature, this can be an especially grievous mistake. At other times, a lack of confidence and clear purpose will result in writing that is vague and meaningless. A confident writer, on the other hand, makes a decision and sticks to her purpose in an attempt to bring the reader to her side.

Individuality

One thing that teaching and writing have in common is their ability to form knowledge in the practitioner. The writer, by organizing his thoughts, transferring them to paper, and then revising them, solidifies his learning and creates new knowledge along the way. Similarly, something happens during the teaching process that can bring the teacher to a more complete knowledge of the material he is transferring to his students. In both cases, learning and the acquisition of knowledge take place on a personal, individual level. Of course, there can be great power and value in collaboration and cooperation, but learning at it's core takes place in the individual. Learning is something you can't do for me and I can't do for you, no matter how much we may want to. I think this concept has strong implications for teachers and writers alike: it changes the way we approach the transfer of knowledge, and helps us prepare our writing or our classroom lesson in a way that will foster individual learning and growth.