15 Take-Aways From English 700

1. Good writing is flexible. Blocked writers are attached to rigid rules.

2. Writing is a form of thinking. We don't have to know what we think before we sit down to write.

3. The writing process is not linear.

4. Students should be explicitly taught about the writing process and all its recursive possibilities. Pre-write-->draft-->revise doesn't always get people very far.

5. What makes writing good? It depends. Are you evaluating the work based on formal, rhetorical, mimetic or expressive theories?

6. When assigning and then assessing student writing, be theoretically consistent. Don't give a prompt which calls for personal, expressive writing, and then mark the writing down for not being "memetic."

7. Personal, expressive writing can be a good first step toward academic discourse...

8. ...But, we don't need to decide if FYC should focus more on expressive or academic writing. A variety of factors unique to each situation should be taken into consideration before making that decision.

9. Many students entering college are also entering new discourse communities. We must be thoughtful about how we initiate students into into this new community.

10. For some students, the requirement to write academically in Standard American English raises issues of identity. This issue should also be handled thoughtfully.

11. English departments and Composition departments don't always get along.

12. Richard Raymond really seems to know how to teach students how to do literature-based research projects.

13. Nobody seems to agree on how FYC can actually prepare students to write in other areas of the university.

14. Maybe a writing studies course is the answer to the question above.

15. There are many conflicting theories to consider when designing a composition course.

Fulkerson Revised...

The Axiological Question

Using Fulkerson’s framwork:

Expressive writing is good when it reveals and represents the author’s authentic voice.  This voice includes thoughts, feelings, unique language, beliefs, values, experiences etc.  Both Donald Murray and (according to some) Peter Elbow are expressivists.  

Formal writing is good when it is accurate.  It is correct structurally and grammatically.  Five-paragraph essays with perfect introductions, thesis statements, topic sentences, body paragraphs, and conclusions are considered  “good writing” when read from a formalist’s perspective (so long as they are free of syntactic, spelling and all other errors).  

Mimetic writing is good when the writer’s thought process is revealed through careful consideration and analysis of facts.

Rhetorical writing is good when “writers shape their discourse to the demands of a particular audience.”  

The Process Question

The expressive writing process is very “processy,” recursive and supports the notion that a written work is never complete.  Formal writers follow a more liner process, with concern for producing “correct” writing.  The memetic writing process involves the gathering of facts, research, critical and analytical thought.  Rhetorical writers identify an audience, which is kept in mind throughout the process.  

The Pedagogical Question

I now think that, according to Fulkerson’s theory, one teaches writing effectively by first identifying the theories and philosophies one wishes to implement in a course, and then remaining consistent in the way such theories are actualized and explained in terms of expectations a teacher has of his/her students.  For example, if an assignment simply asks a student to write expressively, an instructor must not hold that student accountable for not having written memetically, rhetorically or formally.  

Discourse Communities and Identity Dilemmas

We know that majority of community college students in Composition/ESL/developmental writing classes are entering a new discourse community: "academic English," the language of political/economic power.

We know that "academic English" may be vastly different from some students' home/community discourse experiences.

And we know that discourse is so tightly bound to issues of identity, power, class, ethnicity, and gender, so entering a new discourse may raise all sorts of identity dilemma for students.

So how, as writing teachers, might we help students negotiate these identity dilemmas, while we teach them academic discourse?

I feel that I need to develop much deeper understandings of sociolinguistics, race, identity, critical pedagogy and composition theory in order to adequately answer this question. Sounds easy... :-/

Considering that the majority of students entering composition/ESL/developmental writing classes are entering a new discourse community, and since discourse is so tightly bound to issues of identity, power, class, ethnicity etc, I wonder if future composition teachers should now have to study sociolinguistics before entering this field. I don't know if this sounds ridiculous or practical, but I'm also not sure how a teacher can answer such a complex question without understanding how and why dialects and types of discourse are connected to a person's identity, race, gender etc. In his article, Young references code switching and pluralism as possible solutions (which he disagrees with) to the problems some speakers of AAVE face when entering academic discourse communities. I feel that a teacher would need to understand sociolinguistic concepts such as code switching and pluralism before deciding how to navigate this issue in a classroom, and then finally becoming capable of navigating it.

Furthermore, I feel that it's important to recognize, be sensitive to, and deal with this issue, while also understanding my own limitations as a teacher and human being, who can't single-handedly solve students' identity dilemmas. I don't want this issue to completely dominate what I teach at the expense of anything else. However, I also don't wish for my pedagogical choices to contribute to the dilemma, or to cause further obstacles for students facing this issue.

I suppose awareness might be a good first step. First, as writing teachers we can deepen our own awareness of this issue, and raise awareness of it in our classrooms. Students can learn about the differences between dialects represented in each classroom (a knowledgeable teacher can help point these out, and students can share their own experiences). Standard English should also be discussed in relation to other dialects (we can't just expect students who speak other dialects to instantly adopt it, or to adopt it at all). There should be some explicit awareness raised about why Standard English became standard (not for any reasons related to linguistic superiority) and why it is favored in certain contexts. In a class where students struggle, expressivist approaches might be useful, as a start. I might consider implementing narrative writing and free writing, in which students are free to write in their own dialects to their own discourse communities, before moving towards writing for other types of audiences, such as academic audiences.

Like I said, I don't know the answer to this, but I look forward to participating in more discussions about it....

Bruffee

Our process of brainstorming, preparing, writing, and evaluating the mid-terms was very collaborative--as are all our class activities this semester. In what ways does this collaboration facilitate learning?

◦ In other words, by what mechanisms does collaboration lead to learning?  

Collaboration leads to learning through participation conversation.  Bruffee refers to “normal discourse” as a conversation “within a community of knowledgeable peers.”  In our class, collaboration facilitates learning, as we work and share ideas within a community of people “who accept, and whose work is guided by, the same paradigms and the same code of values and assumptions” (p. 423). At the same time, we all bring different backgrounds to the conversation, and pool our resources, to “make accessible the normal discourse of the new community [we] hope to enter.”  

◦ How would you explain the collabortive learning process from a cognitive and/or social perspective?

From a social perspective, collaborative learning initiates the learner into the discourse community s/he wishes to enter.  Cognitively, this process relates to how we re-externalize internalized knowledge, or conversation.  

◦ How would you explain the collaborative learning terms of the debate about personal growth as writers (e.g. Elbow) vs. and/or academic discourse (e.g. Bartholomae)?  

This is a less teacher-centered approach to a Bartholomaen belief in academic discourse apprenticeship.  The more student-centered Elbowian ideas fit into this as well, due to the fact that students in an expressivist inspired course will likely work in peer editing groups, and collaborate by using their own writing as texts for a course.  If personal growth is the emphasis, perhaps students take a different, more lenient route toward joining a specific conversation, or maybe they are not required to join it at all.  

◦ In what ways are we "inventing grad school" (in the Bartholomae sense of "Inventing the University")?

By collaborating, we are negotiating our way into new knowledge communities.  This is an active endeavor.  We stretch ourselves to use language which will be accepted by our knowlegable peers, and eventually by the “leaders” of the communities we wish to become part of.  

◦ And how is collaborative learning different from a Janet Emig "Writing as thinking" approach?  In other words,  would learning have been different if we just did lots of individual writing? How?

We are still participating in a conversation when we write individually, but maybe the cognitive and social processes are different than they would be in collaborative learning contexts.  I wonder if this has to do with the differences between generating written vs. spoken language, and how we write for ourselves as our own audience vs. how we write knowing that our peers are going to read our words...

Critical pedagogy, ideology, and pragmatism in the teaching of writing

When choosing topics and desiging teaching units and assignments, should composition teachers address controversial topics (e.g. immigration, racial profiling, sexism, homophobia, proverty, the occupy movement, the death penalty)? Or should composition teachers steer clear of such topics?

Contemplating this question in light of Hariston's article and the responses it provoked has me wondering more about how to address controversial topics than whether to do so.  I think this whole debate is really fascinating and a little bit shocking, and I'm surprised to find myself in agreement with some of Hairston's points (though I equally enjoyed and appreciated the responses).  There is a lot that I would like to say about Hairston and my impression of her opinions.  She very blatantly and subtly addresses many layers of this pedagogical issue.  The heart of her argument though, seems to be that teachers do not have the right to "use classrooms as platforms for their own political views."  Though I'm in favor of addressing controversial topics in a writing course, I can't say I disagree with her on this.  

Hairston argues that controversial topics should not be teacher generated, but instead, such topics should organically emerge (for lack of a better word) from the students.  Her take on a multicultural classroom seems a bit idealistically stereotypical however, and surely teachers can provide topics without forcing their own personal views upon students.  I like the suggestion of having my students write about controversial topics which I might not already have strong personal opinions about, and while I believe that there are appropriate times for students to generate their own topics, sometimes specific prompts can be provided as well.  In a writing class, students should learn to communicate clearly about realistic issues, and in the real and academic worlds, sometimes we benefit from knowing how to write about issues we did not choose to face.  

My experience with controversial topics in ESL and EFL classrooms has always been really positive, as long as students feel safe and respected the classroom.  Frequently, while teaching abroad in a certain location, my students expressed opinions I strongly disagreed with (and actually perceived to be blatantly racist).  I always struggled with this, and still don't really know the answer, but on some level felt that I was there to teach students how to communicate and not what to communicate.  A grammar lesson was not my opportunity force my beliefs on my students.  

Interestingly, since reading this article, I've noticed that quite few teachers around here do use their classrooms (particularly grammar classrooms) as spaces to express (to put it lightly) their own political views.  Just yesterday in a class we were given a political speech as an example of content which can teach the present perfect tense, and I seem to recall a lot of tree diagraming that revolved around politics.  In both cases, the professors' political opinions were not exactly a secret.  I can't say I'm usually bothered by this though, and I think Hariston's opinions of students in terms of how they might be affected is a little condescending towards them.  That said, I don't feel that it is appropriate for a composition or ESL instructor to put a personal political agenda into a lesson which is meant to teach students how to speak for themselves.  

My Audience

How do you conjure up an audience when you're doing your Blog postings?  Is your audience the teacher? Fellow students? Yourself? The blogosphere? The field of composition in general?  How do you know what kind of language to use? What kind of background knowledge to assume? In other words, how do you "invent" your audience?


This whole blogging thing sort of throws me for a loop. I think I struggle with it a little because I don't know who my audience is.  I'm not sure if the blogosphere existed during my undergraduate years, so writing class assignments with it in mind is pretty new to me. I don't actually think that random people on the internet read my composition theory blog.  However, a subtle awareness that this is going online does play into how I invent my audience, I think. (How strange and unnecessary is that, I wonder??)  


To my classmates, I feel that I am more of an anonymous, fellow composition theory blogger here, than I am when I see them in class. They are my audience, but in a very different way than they would be if we were exchanging hard paper copies of our writing.  


I think that most of the time, what I write here does not get read regularly or in detail, despite how public it is for all to see. This is a fun contradiction, but I still don't know who my audience is, or how I invent it in this space.  


I look forward to further exploring this topic so that I can gain a greater awareness of how I invent my own audience, and more clearly answer this question! 

The Cognitive Process Model

For me, this particular view of the writing process is too mechanistic, but I can see how it might be useful in certain contexts.  Honestly, trying to turn writing into science gives me a headache, but I feel like a lot of people would argue with me about the validity of this cognitivist model and how it can help us as teachers.  

What mainly struck and stuck with me about the Flower and Hayes view was that we often see writing as a linear, stage process model, and this isn’t realistic.  “Such models are typically silent on the inner processes of decision and choice.” Rather than pre-writing, writing and re-writing in three distinct stages, writers constantly plan, write and revise as they go; in no particular order.  In my experience, when process is taught so linearly, writers are held back from exploring freely, and are blocked.  A student might be inspired to start writing, begin a draft, and then feel stuck after realizing that they “broke a rule” and did not pre-write first.  This goes back to Rose’s and Sommner’s ideas of revising, and is also where integrating cognitive process theory into a composition course might really benefit students.

The theory has four main points: 1) writing is a set of distinctive thinking processes; writers organize when they compose; 2) the processes are hierarchical and can be embedded within each other; 3) composing is goal-directed; and 4) writers create goals by setting high-level and sub-goals; the goals change based on what the writer learns during the process.  

It seems that in a way, we’re taking Murray’s writing process idea and understanding it from a more cognitivist, scientific standpoint, which is sort of a paradox.  The cognitivist theory, however, does seem to incorporate both process theory and the idea of learning, exploring and discovering through writing, so perhaps there is a lot of usefulness in it.  I feel that I should spend a lot more time studying these ideas and discussing them before I can answer more questions, come to more conclusions, or understand how to design a writing course based on this theory.