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.  

Writing as Thinking

I’m finding it difficult to really wrap my head around Janet Emig’s arguments, but not because I disagree with them.  I’ve experienced and believe in writing as a mode of learning, but perhaps became too bogged down with, as she puts it, the “over-elaborate, under specific...off-putting jargon” involved in describing writing as a learning strategy.  I suppose this particular blog will serve as a test to see if I can make sense of what I would like to say about this topic through the process of writing about it.

Emig starts by making some interesting points to distinguish writing from talking as two very different language processes.  I was struck by her claim that “ because there is a product involved, writing tends to be a more responsible and committed act than talking.”  I wonder if this contradicts Sommer’s statement that the “spoken word cannot be revised,” in her descriptions of writing versus speaking and the revision process.  While I agree with aspects of both arguments, I feel that writing as a committed act applies to the blogging we do here, in a way.  Perhaps this is because of the public nature of blogging, and the fact that once a blog is published, it’s sort of out there in the universe for anyone to read.  Although it can be deleted, changed, etc, posting on the internet is much different than writing on paper.  Emig also says, however, that the audience is absent in writing, and present in talking.  I actually feel that the audience is very present in our blog writing, in both a virtual and very real (in front of your face in a classroom) sort of way.  

This all must connect with the characteristics of writing as a learning process, which include aspects of writing that are integrative, connective, active, engaged, personal and representative of self-provided feedback and most means of language, according to Emig.  The blogging that we do in this course provides opportunity for self and peer provided feedback, through blog comments, discussion of what we write in class and also the production of the product itself, which might be “a record of evolution of thought.”  Blogging also (probably) possesses all of the other attributes described.  It’s definitely personal, integrative and connective.   

I wonder how the added, internet-related dimensions of blogging, as opposed to writing on paper, might impact how we view writing as thinking.  Is writing on a piece of paper which won’t ever be posted on the internet a different way of thinking, compared to blogging?  Maybe experienced bloggers who are more accustomed to posting their words online feel differently about this.  

I can see how we would also be able to learn in this course through more formal written essays, tests, and writing that isn’t blogged.  However, as a very new blogger, I am curious to experience more of the “important things” blogging does, and to see how it impacts my learning.