Final Post

For your final blog post, please articulate what you learned, how you plan to apply that learning, and what you plan to do to continue to study the subject you've gleaned on in this course.

Before I discuss the most important thing I learned in this course, I just want to provide a bit of background about how I came to this field. (For us social constructionists it's all about context!) When I started teaching composition and professional writing four years ago, my prior teaching experience consisted of one year as a middle-school substitute (I learned a lot, believe me!) and one semester as a TA teaching "remedial" freshman composition. Those experiences were in 1985 and 1986, respectively, so to say that my teaching skills were "rusty" in 2003 is an understatement. (In between 1986 and 2003, I spent most of my time working as a technical writer and manager, and some of my time studying anthropology, but more about that later...) When I was hired as an adjunct instructor, I figured they would give me a syllabus, a lesson plan, and a textbook and expect me to follow them. Instead, what I got was a boilerplate syllabus (everything EXCEPT the course content!) and a two-hour workshop discussing the learning outcomes of the course. It was up to me to figure out how to do this! Talk about being thrown in the deep end! To make a long story not quite so long, I spent the next four years learning how to teach composition by trial-and-error, by drawing on my experiences as a student, writer, and manager, by reading composition journals in what little spare time I have, by observing and talking to colleagues, and by learning from my students. Based on the positive reviews I have received from students and colleagues, I must have done something right! However, I still have not been able to get past the feeling that I am "faking it." That somehow I am not really qualified to teach composition, despite having done so for four years and having almost 20 years experience as a professional writer to draw on.

Which brings us back to this course and what I got out of it. As I mentioned, I studied anthropology as a graduate student in the early 90s, focusing on the anthropology of education. So I am quite familiar with post-modernism, social construction, and many of the topics we talked about this semester. I also received an MS in Tech Comm, so writing pedagogy, at least from the student's perspective, is not completely foreign to me. And my experience as a writer and manager has given me a pretty good idea of what "good writing" is. If I were missing any of those experiences, I don't think I would have been able to teach composition at all. However, this course has provided the missing element, the one thing that I hope will enable me to enter the classroom next semester and not think that I am faking it (at least not as much!). What this course has done, aside from filling in gaps (some rather large) in my knowledge, is provide a scaffolding on which to hang all the knowledge I had previously gained in other contexts and have been struggling to organize. Now I know how post-modernism, cognitivism, and social construction have influenced composition, and I know the historical development of the field. Some of my classroom practices have been affirmed, while others are marks of what Fulkerson what call a mismatch between epistemology and practice. I now realize that I have been operating from a social constructionist standpoint, but have been relying too often on incompatible pedagogical techniques just because "they were in the textbook" or "that's how Dr. Soandso teaches." Now that I have a scaffolding on which to hang my old knowledge, supplemented by the new knowledge gained in this course, I will be able to more confidently engage in pedagogy that reflects the values I described in my teaching philosophy.

Of course, it doesn't stop there. Learning never stops. But now, as I continue to assimilate new knowledge from scholarship, research, colleagues, life experiences, and students, I will do so more confidently, knowing how the newly discovered fits in with the already known.

Regarding my interest in social construction that I have explored in this course, I have no doubt that it will continue to inform my pedagogy. While I have no immediate plans to continue researching composition theory at this time, what I have learned about social construction will serve as a strong foundation as I begin my dissertation research focusing on how the rhetoric of science, specifically with regard to global warming, is socially constructed.

One final note about this class: While the course content has been invaluable, I have learned just as much from the community of scholars (that's you guys!) joining me on this journey. The opportunity to be exposed to such diverse viewpoints from composition "insiders" and those from diverse but related fields has been terrific. I have enjoyed reading all of your blog posts and have enjoyed our MOO discussions even more. Thanks and enjoy what's left of your summers!

Normal discourse

As Craig raised in class this week, what is 'normal' discourse? Should we be teaching that in composition classes? What are strategies to assess various discourses/genres, perhaps using a buffet style course redesign delivery, with some form of reliability and validity?

"Normal discourse" is an attempt to translate Kuhn's idea of "normal science" to the field of composition studies. According to Bruffee, normal discourse is "conversation within a community of knowledgeable peers. A community of knowledgeable peers is a group of people who accept, and whose work is guided by, the same paradigms and the same code of values and assumptions" (89). In other words, it is "business as usual" for a particular discourse community. Should we be teaching "normal discourse"? I don't think you can teach normal discourse. It's what happens naturally between members of a community. As students (or novices of any type) enter a discourse community, they gradually learn what normal discourse is and how to "participate in the conversation." Depending on the discourse community, the barriers to entry may be high (for example, the academic discourse community, assuming for a second that there is a monolithic community). Since it is unlikely that we can possibly teach (or even know) the norms of all the discourse communities a student will be a part of, then the task of attempting to teach normal discourse (even "normal" academic discourse) is hopeless.

So what should we do instead? Rather than offering a cafeteria-style approach (although I do believe that exposing students to a variety of types of discourse is useful), I think we should get students to become critics of the idea of normal discourse. Even as they attempt to define "normal discourse" for their own classroom community, they should begin to analyze and challenge the social structures, rules, habits, and power relationships that define normal discourse. Rather than seeking peaceful consensus as a goal to be achieved in the classroom (or in whatever other discourse communities students may belong to), getting students to see how consensus and dissent function dialectically may better prepare them for participating in knowledge making in the real world, rather than just accepting the status quo. In his criticism of Bruffee's view of collaboration and normal discourse, Trimbur (1989) offers this perspective:

Students' experience of non-domination in the collaborative classroom can offer
them a critical
measure to understand the distortions of communication and
the plays of power in normal discourse. Replacing the "real world" authority of
consensus with a rhetoric of dissensus can lead students to demystify the normal
workings of discourse communities. But just as important, a rhetoric of
dissensus can lead them to redefine consensus as a utopian project, a dream of
difference without domination. (p. 615)

Take 20

I just want to preface this response by saying that I love documentaries. The 7 Up series and Errol Morris’s films are among my favorites. So I was intrigued when I found out that Todd Taylor had put together an interview-style documentary about teaching composition. In particular, I was curious to discover if the documentary format had anything to offer to our understanding of teaching composition that could not be easily achieved in an essay or book. In the next few paragraphs, I will discuss my thoughts about the directorial and editorial decisions made by the filmmaker, the content of the interviewees’ comments, and my overall impression of the film.

THE FILM

In the Director’s Notes, Taylor tells us that each interview was shot in a single take. Taylor’s job, therefore, was to edit the film in such a way as to provide a coherent and compelling range of responses to each question. Obviously, only a few answers could be used for each question; otherwise the film would be several hours long. When I first started watching the film, the editorial style reminded me of Errol Morris’s documentaries: one-on-one interviews with individuals stitched together to create a story. Unlike in Morris’s films, however, the interviewer is completely absent from Take 20. Other than the editing the answers, the only intrusion of the filmmaker is in some cases, to display the question on the screen before a series of answers or to display the interviewees name; we never hear the interviewer’s voice. While this decision appropriately places the focus on the composition scholars, it detracts from the dialogic element, forcing the interviewees to provide all the details of the narrative. Taylor organizes the questions in such a way as to provide a sort of narrative structure—from the first day teaching to the future of composition. However, because the responses are theme-driven rather than plot-driven, this strategy only works to a limited extent.

Fortunately, by making each of the snippets so short, Taylor avoids making the impression that the viewer is being lectured to. Also, by carefully selecting the scenes, Taylor makes sure we get to know the interviewees as real people with personalities, not just talking heads. However, by omitting the interviewer’s interaction with the participants, and by deciding to do individual interviews rather than group interviews, the film fails to achieve a certain dialogic quality, about which I will have more to say in my reaction.

Another stylistic choice made by Taylor was to switch back and forth between black and white and color. At first I thought there might be some significance to whether a scene was shown in color or not (e.g., color scenes were somehow more insightful than those shown in black and white); however, ultimately I decided that these decisions were more or less random, probably provided just for the sake of visual variety. While I wasn’t particularly bothered by switching from one color scheme to the other, I don’t think the technique added to the film’s effectiveness. I also wondered why some questions were explicitly displayed while others were implied. Were the stated questions more important? Again, I don’t think any particular significance was intended by this decision; it seems to have been used to give the film a more “organic,” conversational feel. I think it achieved this goal to some extent, but I occasionally missed transitions from one question to another.

THE CONTENT

The questions asked fall into three broad but related categories: classroom practice, pedagogical theory, and teacher development/scholarship. The boundaries are somewhat fuzzy, though, and some of the questions easily fit into more than one category.

Teacher Development

The audience for this film consists of composition teachers, and the film is framed by questions spanning a teacher’s career: What was your first day in the classroom like? What does the future hold for composition? Interspersed throughout the film are other questions that focus on the teacher’s preparation, ongoing scholarship, and influences.

The answers to questions in this category revealed an emphasis on continual growth and, in general, a move from being rule-driven and rigid to being guided by shared experiences with students, colleagues, and fellow scholars.

What I found most interesting in the responses to the question about their first day as composition teachers was the combination of fear and idealism that these people displayed. I think that is true of just about all of us who choose this profession. Putting this question first really connects the audience with the interviewees, setting the stage for the shared journey to follow.

Classroom Practice

Most writing teachers are probably anxious to find out what respected composition teachers and scholars are doing in the classroom. Appropriately, Take 20 addresses most of these questions early in the film. Topics covered include developing a syllabus and lesson plan, creating assignments, and planning course content. The answers to questions in this category cover a fairly wide range, but one thing that is missing is the “sage on the stage.” None of the respondents mentioned that they spend much class time lecturing. Not surprisingly, Bartholomae’s syllabus emphasized measured growth of student writers over the course of the semester. Several respondents emphasized group work and balancing time between writing and reflection. Ideas such as sequencing, using non-traditional genres, and student choice were mentioned in response to the question about assignments.

Pedagogy

As the film progresses, the questions go from covering the basics of classroom practice to addressing more specific issues related to composition pedagogy. Many of the topics we have discussed this semester are addressed:

• What are the aims of teaching composition?
• How should composition teachers respond to student writing?
• How do you deal with process and product?
• What is the importance of peer groups?
• What impact does technology have on pedagogy?
• What is the role of difference in the composition classroom?

Many of the trends we have noted were reflected in the interviewees’ responses:

• The movement from focusing on error and mechanics to emphasizing rhetoric and socially situated writing.
• The delicate balance between preparing students to participate in academic discourse and preparing them to challenge fixed ideas about the academy and other social constructs
• The trend in response away from focusing on error and toward a more rhetorical approach
• The recognition that technology does not only serve pedagogical goals; it also shapes them.

MY REACTION

There are several themes that emerge over the course of Take 20. First, and to me most important, is that fact that all of these scholars’ ideas about teaching writing are intimately tied to their classroom experiences. While they are clearly informed by scholarship (and are in many cases responsible for creating extremely significant scholarship), they obviously listen to their students and continue to adapt their practices to the changing rhetorical situation represented by the composition classroom. Lunsford and others mentioned having to reinvent themselves several times over the course of their careers. Second, all of the interviewees come across as humble, service oriented, and willing to admit that they don’t have all the answers. In all cases, their primary concern is their students’ success, followed by their dedication to the advancement of the field. Even those who don’t explicitly refer to discourse communities or the social aspects of writing seem to recognize that their success and fulfillment is intimately rooted in the classroom and professional discourse communities in which they participate.

If I have any serious criticism of Take 20, it is that the way the film was constructed—from a series of individual interviews—reveals diversity of practices as well as common concerns, but doesn’t really show the dissent and disagreement that is essential to the growth of any field. The viewer is left to either believe that the composition community is characterized by polite salon conversation or (as is more likely the case) to imagine the disagreements and arguments that the film only indirectly alludes to. For example, I found myself imagining the conversation if Cheryl Glenn, John Schilb, Jacqueline Royster, and Malea Powell were sitting in a room together responding to these 20 questions. I am sure the same basic image of each scholar would emerge, but the viewer would get a better sense of the dissent, dialectic, and negotiation that are involved in the knowledge-making process.

So, to answer my original question, does Take 20 provide insights into teaching writing that an essay or book could not? I think it does. It succeeds in showing us that these prominent scholars and teachers are first and foremost human beings. Like us, they make mistakes, have successes and disappointments, and strive to make a difference in their students’ lives. No matter how brilliant the theory or effective the pedagogy, teaching is still a human (and, with a nod to Jacqueline Royster, humane) science. It is encouraging to see that the leading minds in the field have not lost sight of that. Despite the minor shortcomings of the film, Todd Taylor has done the composition community a great service by making Take 20. The only other way to get this kind of access would be to meet all of these people at a conference, convince each of them to talk to you about work for 30 minutes, and be smart enough to ask the right questions. Not very likely!

Annotated Bibliography Draft

After much agonizing, I decided to focus on social construction (a) because it peripherally relates to my dissertation topic in the rhetoric of science and (b) because the more I think about it, the more I realize that anti-foundationalist thinking has informed my thought and teaching since I was an anthropology grad student way back in the previous millennium.

Here are my first ten sources. Summaries and critiques should be complete by Monday.

Bizzell, Patricia. “Beyond Anti-Foundationalism to Rhetorical Authority: Problems Defining "Cultural Literacy".” College English. 52 (1990): 661-675.

Summary: Using the controversy surrounding Hirsch’s “cultural literacy” as a jumping-off point, Bizzell examines some shortcomings she finds in the anti-foundational approach to teaching composition. Specifically, she argues that most anti-foundationalists are stuck in what she calls the “philosophical” mode of thinking. They can point out the futility of seeking foundational truths, but beyond criticism, they can only recommend individual autonomy, or, at best, pluralism. Bizzell agrees that truths are socially constructed rather than foundational, but she thinks compositionists need not abandon their responsibility to help students learn how to participate consensually in building cultural literacy. As a more positive alternative, Bizzell suggests that composition instructors adopt a stance of “rhetorical authority” in which they take an ideological stand and force students to respond rhetorically in an attempt to build consensus around the proposed issues.

Critique: The strongest parts of this article are Bizzell’s rejection of the idea that there is a fixed notion of cultural literacy and her depiction of the shortcomings of the criticisms of Hirsch’s position posited by other anti-foundational critics. I found her proposed alternative thought-provoking, but she left me wanting more details. I agree that our ultimate goal is to help students be better citizens, but she needed to provide more information about how the consensus-building process would work, specifically dealing with issues of dissent, power, etc.

Bruffee, Kenneth A. “Social Construction, Language, and the Authority of Knowledge: A Bibliographical Essay.” College English. 48 (1986): 773-790.

Summary: In this article, Bruffee does a great job of tracing the roots of social construction, explaining its basic tenets, and then giving examples of how social construction has manifested itself in various disciplines. Bruffee focuses on the work of Kuhn and Rorty, who in turn were influenced by Dewey, Heidegger, and Wittgenstein. He offers reasons why compositionists should care about social construction: because they force us to examine our foundational presuppositions and beliefs, and consider the alternative explanation that all knowledge is socially constructed and provisional rather than cognitive and individual. He then explores various situational instances of social construction (he does not like pitting theory against practice): sociology, literary criticism, anthropology, and composition. In composition, the social constructionist views writing as primarily a social act. rejecting the notion that writing is primarily a cognitive process occurring in the individual mind.

Critique: As an overview and introduction, the article was easy to understand and thorough. I found the examples from disciplines other than composition especially helpful. Bruffee did a good job pointing out the kinds of problems that a non-foundationalist approach either solves or avoids (e.g., the “inner mirror” vs. the “real world”), but while he did acknowledge that social construction raises other types of problems, he avoided discussing them. I think the article would have been stronger if he had at least briefly considered a few of the principle criticisms of social construction. His Works Cited list is thorough and serves as an excellent starting point for a social construction reading list.

Cooper, Marilyn M. “The Ecology of Writing.” College English. 48 (1986): 364-375.

Summary: Cooper begins her article with a brief recap and criticism of the process-oriented approach to teaching writing, specifically the dominant individualist and cognitivist version of that approach. In place of this model, citing Bruffee, Bleich, and others, Cooper suggests that the components of the writing process are “essentially social activities, dependent on social structures and processes not only in their interpretive but also in their constructive phases” (366). Specifically, Cooper offers an ecological model, which describes the writing process as “an activity through which a person is continually engaged with a variety of socially constituted systems” (367).As an integral part of these systems, Cooper focuses on “real readers,” rejecting the notion that the writer must choose between an “audience addressed” or an “audience invoked.” Rather, the writer must strive to engage the real audience in dialog rather than simply treating the audience as a cognitive construct. Cooper recognizes that the ecological model she offers is an ideal model, but she cites its strength in allowing teachers to focus on the social situation as the locus of problems and challenges, rather than being forced to address the cognitive processes of the individual writer.

Critique: I found Cooper’s ideas thought-provoking. I admire the way she proposes a specific model for enacting social construction in the classroom. She discusses the types of questions such a model could address and provides examples of how students and teachers might go about addressing those questions in the classroom. Her discussion of audience is insightful, and I think she is right that removing the discussion of audience from the “cognitivist trap” makes a lot of problems disappear. However, while Cooper acknowledges that the “real audience” will not always be accessible, she doesn’t offer enough advice about how to handle those situations. Her Works Cited list is strong with regard to social construction and composition, but a bit weak in the ecology and systems theory area. I think she needs more discussion and more sources providing an overview of ecological models applied to non-biological systems before describing her own model. I have a pretty strong background in these areas, but I suspect most of her “real audience” does not.

Elbow, Peter. “Reflections on Academic Discourse: How It Relates to Freshmen and Colleagues.” College English. 53 (1991): 135-155.

Summary: Always the expressionist (!), Elbow offers his musings on the necessity of teaching academic discourse in Freshman Comp. Going beyond the arguments for and against such activity, Elbow demonstrates what a slippery fish the term “academic discourse” can be, depending on who is doing the defining. He considers definitions addressing both substantive and stylistic features of academic discourse, and ultimately settles on the importance of teaching substantive features (good reasons, critical inquiry, problem solving, etc.) over stylistic features. He provides specific examples of classroom activities designed to “teach” these aspects of academic discourse.

Critique: How does this fit into social construction, you might ask? Well, Elbow’s attempt to define academic discourse highlights the important role that discourse communities play in defining terms. It turns out there is no “foundational” definition of academic discourse. The whole concept is a social construct. Although we only have Elbow’s individual version of this concept, it is pretty clear that his relationship with and reaction to various discourse communities (students, composition colleagues, colleagues in other disciplines, etc.) have “defined” his various conceptions of academic discourse. The article itself is an excellent “deconstruction” of academic discourse: it has some of the hallmarks of academic discourse (headings, appears in a journal, citations, etc.) but is written in an almost informal, conversational style. It also successfully blends theory with suggestions for classroom practice. While many of the activities focus on the individual writer, the overall strategy is an ethnographic one, recognizing the social nature of “defining” academic discourse for the Freshman Comp community.

Freed, Richard C. and Glenn J Broadhead. “Discourse Communities, Sacred Texts, and Institutional Norms.” College Composition and Communication. 38 (1987): 154-165.

Summary: Freed and Broadhead look at discourse communities as a means of addressing some things overlooked by the “process” focus of composition studies. The authors use a case study of two corporate discourse communities to draw some conclusions that can be applied to teaching composition. Of particular importance is the way rhetoric is shaped by and helps shape the discourse community. Both the writer and reader are parts of the community and are guided by cultural, institutional, generic, and situational norms, which are in turn further shaped by their discourse. The authors recommend that the students take an ethnographic approach to understanding the ways these norms affect (and are affected by) their discourse in the classroom and in other discourse communities. Further, they recommend that teachers look at the way norms have shaped their choice of texts, pedagogical models, etc.

Critique: I thought the corporate example used by the authors to show discourse communities in action was easy to understand and fairly effective. I think most readers would be able to draw parallels between what occurs in the workplace and what could occur in the classroom. Further, it certainly can’t hurt to provide teachers with a view of the types of discourse communities students might expect to encounter after college. The weakest part of the article was the literature review. While the works cited were adequate, the theoretical introduction to social construction was too brief, and there was no real theoretical precedent cited for the validity of applying a case study from the corporate world to an academic context.

Killingsworth, M. Jimmie. “Product and Process, Literacy and Orality: An Essay on Composition and Culture.” College Composition and Communication. 44 (1993): 26-39.

Summary: In this article, Killingsworth tries to relate four key terms in composition research—product, process, literacy, and orality—in a new and more productive way. Rather than simply pitting these seemingly opposing terms against each other, he suggests a ratio to describe their relationship: product is to literacy as process is to orality. Killingsworth then uses this ratio to describe the evolution of composition studies over the past 50 years. In short, he sees the move to process pedagogy as a response to the emergence of secondary orality, which was spurred by mass media and the cultural revolution of the 60s. He then examines several trends in process pedagogy, including group writing, talk-aloud protocol, etc. In his concluding section, he examines the relationships among the cognitivists, romantic individualists, and social constructionists. He claims that the romantics and social constructionists have much in common with each other, focusing primarily on secondary orality, while the cognitivists are largely attempting to restore focus to literacy while recognizing how secondary orality has altered the definition of literacy. For this reason, Killingsworth departs from other scholars who place social construction at the end of the evolutionary scale. For him, recent forms of cognitivism that respond to social changes resulting from secondary orality represent the most recently evolved developments in composition theory. In addition to focusing on social construction as subject matter, Killingsworth’s article is grounded in the view that composition research is socially constructed, as can be seen in his concluding sentence: “If our rhetorical theories and empirical evidence fail to account for this popular interest, then we should look to ideology and the cultural context, in which a wistful longing for community and trustful dialogue contends with the tough-minded preference for accountability, productivity, and technocratic management” (38).

Critique: I found Killingsworth’s article useful in that it forces us to look at the ideological divides within composition from a different perspective. In terms of response to secondary orality, I think his alignment of romantics and social constructionists is probably accurate. Although I don’t think he intends to imply this, his article makes it seem like social constructionists have stopped evolving and that cognitivists have been forced to pick up the ball. This is similar to the criticism Bizzell levies against many social constructivists. However, I think some “radical” social constructivists (Myers, for example, as well as Bizzell, herself) have refocused on literacy. I think the article is a good starting point; what is needed now is a model that addresses the product/process, foundationalist/anti-foundationalist, and orality/literacy axes in a more thorough way, also providing real-life examples showing how these theoretical stances affect classroom practice.

McLeod, Susan H. “Cultural Literacy, Curricular Reform, and Freshman Composition.” Rhetoric Review. 8 (1990): 270-278.

Summary: Like Bizzell, McLeod uses the controversy surrounding Hirsch’s “cultural literacy” as a starting point for her examination of how composition teachers should teach literacy and what they should teach. In her consideration of Hirsch’s critics, she raises the issue of the function of education. What is the purpose of education in a free society? In one camp are those who hold to the liberal arts ideal of transmitting cultural values in order to create responsible citizens. In the other camp are those who advocate a “search for truth.” McLeod claims we need to combine the best of the philosophical and rhetorical traditions. She cites examples from Bruffee, Brazerman and others in the social construction and intertextuality camps to show the importance not only of teaching writing skills, but of teaching writing within a particular knowledge context: in relation to other texts, other people, etc. She ends her article with a few examples of how such learning could take place, either within the composition classroom or in conjunction with other classes and other departments. By immersing students in real writing experiences, in which they both receive and create knowledge, McLeod hopes that cultural literacy that goes beyond Hirsch’s “list” might be achievable.

Critique: Like several of the articles I have examined, this article places the act of teaching composition within a specific social, political, and historical context. In my opinion, this strengthens the argument for social construction, demonstrating that not only what and how we teach our students, but the very notion of what education is for (and how composition fits within that conception) is socially constructed. While not privileging any particular “brand” of social construction, intertextuality, or interdisciplinarity, McLeod illustrates how we can combine some of the best practices already in use to achieve a post-modern (in a good sense) form of literacy. What is missing from McLeod’s analysis (perhaps intentionally) is any sense of the radical criticism of cultural and educational institutions that social construction implies. She clearly want to use these methods to maintain structures and bring students into the established order rather than prepare students to tear down outworn structures and build new ones. As such, McLeod’s source list is somewhat over-selective, handpicked to prove her point that compositionists working from different theoretical and philosophical perspectives can live and work together to achieve cultural literacy. The dissenting voices are eerily absent.

Myers, Greg. “Reality, Consensus, and Reform in the Rhetoric of Composition Teaching.” College English. 48 (1986): 154-174.

Summary: Myers grounds his discussion in two types of assignments he uses in his composition classes: small group collaboration and critique and case studies based on actual writing situations. Although his current interest in the questions raised by these types of assignments can be traced to Elbow and Bruffee, Myers revisits a long-forgotten Dewey-inspired scholar, Sterling Leonard. His point in going back to Leonard’s work is to show that disputes over ideas such as consensus and reality are not new to composition; rather they can be traced back at least to Dewey. Although many of Leonard’s ideas seem progressive even today, Myers characterizes Leonard as a conformist-consensualist, an individualist, a foundationalist, and a top-down reformer. Myers then jumps ahead to Elbow and Bruffee to see how they stack up with Leonard. Myers claims that Elbow is like Leonard in his emphasis on the individual as the unit of analysis. Even though Elbow admits that the individual exists in a social world, the power of writing lies in the expressive power of the individual to reveal and define the real world. Myers’s chief criticism of Elbow is that Elbow, while recognizing the existence of different conceptions of reality, ignores the importance that all writing occurs within and is shaped by social discourse; it is the group, not the individual, that defines reality. In contrast to Leonard and Elbow, Bruffee recognizes that writing is essentially a social act. Where Bruffee falls short is in his inability or unwillingness to provide a means to criticize the consensus reached by the discourse community. To Myers, the power of social construction lies in its ability to criticize and ultimately change the status quo, to not only allow room for dissent, but to keep consensus and dissent in constant dialectic tension. His advice for composition teachers is summed up in the following quote: “...what I have to suggest is not a method but a stance towards one's teaching. This stance requires a sort of doubleness: an awareness that one's course is part of an ideological structure that keeps people from thinking about their situation, but also a belief that one can resist this structure and help students to criticize it” (169).

Critique: I liked Myers’s technique of connecting the past with the present. Like McLeod, Bizzell and others, he demonstrates how the social and political environment can affect practice and theory within a discipline. His unpacking of the term “progressive” also shows that conceptions of progress can actually serve to preserve the status quo rather than challenge it. I think his overall characterization of Elbow and Bruffee is fair, and he is quick to recognize the valuable contributions they have made to pedagogy. Regarding his own advice to composition teachers, I am reminded of a line from the song “Where’s Me Jumper?” from the Irish band Sultans of Ping FC: “I like your manifesto; put it to the test-o.”

Trimbur, John. “Consensus and Difference in Collaborative Learning.” College English. 51 (1989), pp. 602-616.

Summary: Beginning where Myers leaves off, Trimbur further unpacks the idea of consensus as expressed by Bruffee, Wiener, and other social constructivists. He analyzes two criticisms of the politics of collaborative learning: those who think that collaborative learning is “dangerous” in its totalitarian repression of individual expression; and those, like Myers, who think that Bruffee’s constructivist pedagogy, while recognizing the importance of discourse communities, does not go far enough. After dismissing the fears expressed by the first group of critics, Trimbur begins to extend the criticism started by Myers and other left-wing constructivists. Focusing on Rorty’s metaphor of “continual conversation” as the goal of non-foundationalist consensus building, Trimbur rejects Rorty’s (and Bruffee’s) view of abnormal discourse as a homeostatic mechanism that allows consensus to be maintained. Rather, he sees abnormal discourse as the necessary voice of dissent that must be held in dialectic relationship with the voices of consensus. Working with Habermas’s idea of consensus as a type of utopian “ideal speech situation,” Trimbur sees consensus not as a normal or desirable state, but as an unreachable goal that writers should nonetheless struggle for: “Replacing the "real world" authority of consensus with a rhetoric of dissensus can lead students to demystify the normal workings of discourse communities” (615).

Critique: Well, I think Trimbur’s ideas would certainly frighten foundationalists, especially those who believe it is the job of compositionists to prepare students to first join the academic discourse community and then the “real world.” His ideas would probably not sit well with many social constructivists either, especially those who view consensus in terms of agreement rather than struggle and tension between agreement and dissent. Trimbur’s ideas go right to the heart of the question, “What is education for?” His answer is not hard to ascertain: to enable students to demystify discourse communities (including the classroom), challenge the status quo, and struggle to change unjust power relationships. I think his depiction of the view of consensus held by Bruffee and Rorty is accurate (as of 1989, anyway), and I found his notion that consensus should remain “utopian” intriguing. He gives a couple of examples of how this type of pedagogy might work in the classroom, but I would like to see some case studies.

Trimbur, John. “Review: Taking the Social Turn: Teaching Writing Post-Process.” College Composition and Communication. 45 (1994): 108-118.

Summary: Trimbur reviews three recent (as of 1994) composition theory books by Bizzell, Knoblauch and Brannon, and Spellmeyer, in an effort to depict the “crisis” in composition and offer some insights into which of the three paths has the most to offer. While all three books purportedly respond to the “literacy crisis” brought to the forefront by Hirsch and others, all three actually arise from internal inadequacies of the “process” paradigm then-current in composition studies. Of the three, Knoblauch and Brannon remain most beholden to process pedagogy. Although they recognize that writing (and pedagogy) are in many ways socially determined, they want to retain the process model, for example, by making expressivist pedagogy serve the goals of critical teaching. Like Trimbur, Spellmeyer defines the problem faced by the student writer as a social problem rather than an individual problem. Trimbur is less enthusiastic about Spellmeyer’s proposed solution: having students focus on the essay, a form which Spellmeyer claims transcends boundaries defined by specific discourse communities. Trimbur sees this is as a copout: He insists on the need for students to negotiate discourse “where they live” rather than in some rhetorical safe haven. Trimbur seems most impressed with Bizzell’s almost confessional collection of essays in which she explains how she came to realize that process methodologies had failed her and that she could not be rescued by focusing on any particular type of discourse or even anti-foundationalist theory itself. Rather, Bizzell realizes that she must face the pedagogical crisis head on, claiming that a “teacher committed to social justice and democratic values is a rhetor attempting to persuade her students to a vision of social reconstruction” (118). Not surprisingly, these sentiments in many ways echo Trimbur’s own sentiments as well as those expressed by Myers.

Critique: Not having read the books in question, I am in no position to criticize Trimbur’s interpretation of them. However, I like the way he uses the opportunity of a book review to explore larger issues in composition. Having read Bizzell’s 1990 article, I think Trimbur characterizes her “jeremiad zeal” fairly accurately.

Week 4

What exactly should be taught in composition. In your opinion, how should it be taught, and what should you do in order to know if what was taught was learned?

OK. I am going to go for a rather idealistic answer here. I will assume that students come into the class with a reasonable command of grammar and usage. And that they know how to use basic tools like a word processor, email, etc.

By the end of a composition class, students should understand the elements of the rhetorical situation and how rhetoric creates meaning, and they should be able to demonstrate this understanding in their own writing. I usually start by focusing on the writer, assigning a narrative piece. Even then, students should begin to get an idea of how the purpose and audience should inform the organization of the message. Other assignments may involve purposes such as description, comparison, or argumentation, in each case focusing on how the elements of the rhetorical situation interact. I really like Corbett's diagram as a model of dynamic balance.

A major goal is to help students understand what counts as evidence (or, to put it in an ethical context, "good reasons") in a particular rhetorical situation. To me, this is what critical thinking boils down to: evaluating evidence in a particular context. The best way I have found to teach this is to choose a particular theme for the course and have students read a variety of texts related to the theme: narratives, arguments, and expository pieces. In each case, students will respond to these pieces with respect to how well the evidence fits the rhetorical situation. In class, students usually share their observations in small-group discussions and then present their findings to the class. In such a way, students begin to understand what counts as "good reasons"; ideally, by the end of the semester, they will be able to choose evidence carefully and present it effectively in their own writing.

As far as assessment, I have been evaluating individual assignments. I have been shifting away from focusing on surface errors and moving toward holistic grading based on rhetorical effectiveness. In some assignments, I may focus on specific aspects of the rhetorical situation: audience awareness, writer's voice, evidence, etc. I like the idea of moving to a portfolio assignment, which would represent the culmination of the student's understanding of the rhetorical situation. By choosing appropriate evidence (specific assignments), students would demonstrate to the audience (me) that the purpose of the class (understanding the rhetorical situation) had been achieved.

Beyond the composition classroom, transfer of knowledge is a big concern. The goal is for students to be able to transfer the rhetorical skills learned to other classes and to life experiences. Personally, I find it somewhat mysterious that some students seem to "get it" and others don't. That is, some students seem to be able to take what is learned in one situation and, recognizing the similarities and differences, apply it to a novel situation. I think part of this ability comes with life experience. But part of it comes with explicit practice in recognizing patterns and responding appropriately. I think Smit's advice of choosing a specific context that students can relate to and care about, and having them write to achieve specific purposes within that context, is likely to result in accelerated pattern recognition ability and better transfer of rhetorical skills.

What are the core movements in the history of composition (as summarized by Berlin and Fulkerson), and which elements of each can you relate to in your own teaching philosophy?

Reading Berlin and Fulkerson has really forced me to take a more systematic look at where my teaching is coming from. Perhaps like many of us, I had no formal training in pedagogy or composition before I started teaching Freshman Comp and Business Writing four years ago. On the writing side, I had 13 years experience as a tech writer, manager, and trainer, so I had a pretty clear idea about what post-academic writing entailed. On the academic side, I had a pretty strong background in literary criticism, philosophy, anthropology, and technical communication; the epistemological concepts that Berlin and Fulkerson address were certainly not foreign, though I hadn't encountered them with regard to composition theory before. To think that I approached designing my writing classes with a clear eye to both theory and practice would be giving me way more credit than I deserve, however. Working within constraints imposed by the department and the Georgia Board of Regents, I cobbled together a syllabus based on sample syllabi and my own ideas regarding what a student should learn in Freshman Comp. And while I have tweaked the syllabus a bit over the semesters, my approach has not changed all that much. I tend to focus on critical thinking (or at least a start in that direction), an understanding of the rhetorical situation, and, more recently, community and collaboration. I don't tend to take up a lot of class time focusing on error, although I do spend at least one class focusing on the errors most likely to destroy the academic writer's credibility. (Of course, I spend as much time as I can working with individual students on "correctness" issues when they ask for my help.) It's tempting to rely on formalist criteria in grading student writing, but over time, my evaluation has taken a strongly rhetorical turn. As far as expressivism goes, I don't specifically assign any freewriting, although I do mention it as a means to overcome resistance (to assigments, authority, the idea that "writing sucks!", etc.). I often assign journals or reading responses, but I do so in service of "mimetic" goals--to ensure that students are engaging the texts in a critical, reflective way--rather than out of any belief in expressivism as a higher good. The predominant focus of my classes is rhetoric--helping students understand the rhetorical situation and helping them shape their writing to meet the demands of the rhetorical situation. While Fulkerson characterizes the rhetorical stance as focusing on the reader, I tend to emphasize the dynamic balance among all the elements of the situation: writer, purpose, message and audience. So I guess I fit fairly strongly in the rhetorical camp, but I do recognize the value of each of Fulkerson's positions to meet certain goals. I hope I am not sending "mixed signals" to my students, but I know that some of my assignments have either not been specified precisely or not been evaluated as "cleanly" as they could have been. If nothing else, Fulkerson's article has made me even more aware of the need to carefully consider my means and my ends, and to be able to justify both.

Moving on to Berlin's examination of epistemology, I fit fairly firmly within the New Rhetoric school. This passage pretty much sums up my philosophy: "... the message arises out of the interaction of the writer, language, reality, and the audience. Truths are operative only within a given universe of discourse, and this universe is shaped by all of these elements, including the audience" (563). Looking back on my teaching experience, I find that I have too often tried to use the tools of Current-Traditional rhetoric to achieve the ends of New Rhetoric. I have already started to move more toward a community-defined model of making meaning through rhetoric, and articles like Berlin's can help me shore up the theoretical underpinnings of my pedagogical choices. The question remains as to whether basing my teaching philosophy on a epistemology that denies the existence of objective "truths" is fair to students who may feel quite differently, who might hold very absolutist beliefs about the nature of truth. I maintain that to do otherwise, to pretend to positivist, or Aristotelian, or Platonic notions of truth, would not only be intellectually dishonest; it would also disadvantage students by denying them exposure to the habits of thinking and communicating necessary in a post post-modern world.

Push and Pull

The cost of technology can be daunting, but the value in savings over the long run can be staggering. Teachers are perhaps better as facilitators rather than sage on the stage (in my words; Anson might disagree with this). DE offers inter-institutional opportunities.

Let's tackle the "sage on the stage" metaphor first. I am probably a bit naive, but I find it hard to believe that anyone teaching Freshman Comp uses the pure lecture model anymore. So I have been wondering what the current equivalent to the "sage on the stage" model is for Freshman Comp. I really liked Lennie's "push vs. pull" terminology that we started talking about at the end of class. In these terms, I think the equivalent to the "sage on the stage" is the instructor who is all "push." Even if the instructor is enlightened in terms of pedagogy (for example, lots of freewriting, workshopping, peer review, etc.), if the instructor is deciding unilaterally what (and how) the students need to be taught, then many of the students will have less than an ideal learning experience. To learn to be better writers (and I am not arguing that Freshman Comp is only about that), students need to be able to "pull" the information they are lacking from whatever resource is most useful. It may be the instructor, or it may be a writing center, Web site, other students, or just about any other source. Effective instructors need to set up an environment in which the "pushing" is limited to the things that all students absolutely must know (learning outcomes translated into specific measurement criteria, shared terminology, theory, specific technical skills, etc.) or respond to (model artifacts, etc.) and "pulling" is facilitated in ways that serve all students regardless of learning style. I think setting up such a learning environment is probably easier now than ever before. One is not limited by the parameters of the physical classroom, the class meeting time, or even office hours. As to whether or not (or to what extent) Comp instructors should be teaching technology, I think it will vary depending on the environment in which the learning will take place. Certainly, training in required skills (blogging, using WebCT, or whatever) must be made easily available, either in class or through some other channel. However, unless the learning outcomes are specifically tied to learning particular "tools", then I don't think such instruction should make up a significant portion of the "pushed" material.

This may be a bit off topic, but I wonder a lot about who should determine the learning outcomes for Freshman Comp. Ideally, these outcomes should be a negotiated contract between administrators, teachers, and students. Most of us don't live in that world yet, so we are forced to balance system/university/college/department requirements with our own teaching philosophies (hopefully informed by a reasonable understanding of our students' needs). Most of us are part of English departments (either currently or historically), so I suspect that most of us consider writing an important skill. Also, Freshman Comp is a service course, which means we must meet the requirements of other departments: to produce students capable of writing coherent papers in other disciplines. With respect to our students' needs, we recognize that they will need to be able to communication effectively in whatever endeavors they choose to pursue after college. But will they all need to be able to write, at least in the ways that we traditionally conceive of writing in Freshman Comp? That is, will they need to write arguments, expository prose, and narratives? Or will they be more likely to express themselves in multimedia: video, podcasts, Websites, and the like? What is the common ground among all those modes of communication? Isn't that what we should be teaching instead of focusing on specific writing genres? I think the ability to develop and apply critical thinking skills is the foundation for being able to communicate thoughtfully and effectively. As to whether one can directly "teach" critical thinking, I am not sure. However, I think much of the content we "push" to our students should be things that promote critical thinking: writing, video, audio and multimedia "models" (supplanted with theory, when necessary) that force students to grapple with logic, evidence, rhetoric, bias, etc. In turn, we should ask them to demonstrate their ability to communication their engagement with these ideas in whatever form fits the rhetorical situation, with an eye to as much variety possible given the external constraints listed above. As to "training" the students to perform these communicative acts, I think we should rely on the "pull" model as much as possible. As to the economic part of the equation, I imagine the actual ROI is beyond my ability to calculate, but any investment in technology that will facilitate a balance between push and pull that will likely result in significantly improved learning outcomes (and, hopefully, increased student and faculty satisfaction) is money well spent.

Three Key Concepts

Topic: What are the three most important concepts in composition would you say? These concepts might play a role in your teaching philosophy, so you might think of this question as what are the three most important beliefs about your own teaching do you have?

I've been struggling with this question all week, and it's not getting any easier to answer. I've been teaching Freshman Comp for four years now, which is just long enough for me to realize that I have many more questions than answers regarding what works and what doesn't. That said, regardless of what experiments I have tried (for example, focusing more on grammar or more on style, incorporating more peer reviewing or more freewriting), I find that certain things remain constant: critical reading/critical thinking, the rhetorical situation, and community. I believe these three things are related, but for the sake of convenience, I will try to discuss them separately.

I am not even sure if we can teach critical thinking, and if we can, I am even more skeptical about our ability to measure success. However, I am fairly certain that we can't expect our students to be critical thinkers unless we can help them become critical readers (and here I include critical viewers, listeners, etc.). I think that by the time we reach college age, we have all developed critical skills, but in many cases we haven't learned to apply them in a wide variety of contexts, and perhaps we haven't learned to apply them self-reflexively and systematically. I spend some time in almost every class helping students develop these skills. These activities provide the opportunity to consider topics such as organization, coherence, evidence, and logic, which I hope (though success is certainly not guaranteed!) that students will begin to model in their own writing. Assuming critical reading can ultimately lead to critical thinking, why do I think it's important? Just take a look at the level of public discourse surrounding any number of topics (global warming, Iraq, abortion, the PATRIOT act, just to name a few). I have to believe (Yes, I am still an idealist.) that if more people had better critical thinking skills, we would demand and receive a higher level of public discourse and would be better able to participate in democratic decision-making.

I can't privilege any one component of the rhetorical situation. The writer, purpose, message, and audience form a dynamic system that must be considered as a whole. In conjunction with the critical reading assignments described above, I help students learn how to identify the components of the rhetorical situation. The emphasis here is to help them see the dynamic nature of this balance of forces, so they are not tempted to rely solely on formulas (like the five-paragraph essay) when faced with a particular writing situation.

Before I discuss community, I have to confess that I consider writing a very private act. This may have something to do with my personality, but I have always found the idea of the writer holed up in a garret hammering away at a typewriter very appealing. I certainly have never felt comfortable in "writer's circles" or other peer reviewing sessions. Nonetheless, I believe that emphasizing community and collaboration is very important. Years of working on collaborative technical writing teams have helped dispel my romantic notion of the "lone writer" somewhat. I recognize that much of the writing that my students will do will be as part of some sort of community. And in spite of the resistance I often get from students when I assign collaborative work or peer reviewing, I think that most of my students are actually ahead of me in this area. Partially because of new communication technology (text messaging, cell phones, etc.) they are often much more comfortable sharing their work at all phases of the writing process. In addition to emphasizing community discussion of critical reading assignments, I am working to incorporate more (and more meaningful) peer review into my syllabus.

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Welcome to Marc's blog for ENGL 5060 at TTU.