Wysocki and Selfe

I liked Wysocki's essay and the way she described New Media. What she says seems to go with the idea that knowlege is socially constructed. She says that "writing, like all literate practices, only exists because it functions, circulates, shifts, and has varying value and weight within complexly articulated social, cultural, ...religious, ...ecological, political, artistic, ...and technological webs." (In the actual text she repeats "political" which i think is interesting, but beside the point.) This is something to think about when we see how the curriculum changes to integrate technology.

What really interested me, though, was Selfe's case study about David. His story is a really good illustration of the diversity of literacies, and how literacy is equated with intelligence. In our Education classes we have learned a bunch of stuff about the different kind of intelligences: mathematical, musical, linguistic, etc. But we haven't really discussed literacies as something that vary from person to person or even that there might be more than one kind to begin with. When instructing students who will all have different backgrounds and histories with writing, these multiple definitions of literacy are importnat to keep in mind. It can be easy to discourage someone who doesn't have a firm grasp on Standard English from pursuing writing. But, when we look at David's story, we can see that this could be a huge mistake.

I recently read an essay by Amy Tan, author of The Joy Luck Club, in which she talks about how Asian-Americans are often encouraged to study mathematics and engineering, because they just don't seem to have as much of a grasp on the subtleties of the English langauge. Amy Tan herself was almost put into this category, stereotyped as good at math and bad at English. Fortunatley, she recognized her gift and kept on writing. Her writing style is simple, but there is depth in its simplicity. If she had listened to her professors and stopped writing, we would have missed out on the beautiful stories she tells.

Amy Tan's story doesn't quite have to do with technology, but it does show that literacy is something that changes from person to person. It seems that almost anyone can find their own way to play with language, if they are properly encouraged.

Williams and Geisler

Williams makes the statment that "literacy is in flux." He also refers to the "social construction of knowlege," saying that many people are unaware of or choose to ignore these facts. However, I think that any good teacher worth her salt should make it her business to realize just how much things have changed over time. Schools are not what they were two hundred years ago, when students were simply expected to regurgitate whatever information was handed to them. There are reasons for this and there are reasons why what it means to be literate is changing. With technology expanding and evolving so quickly, and being implemented in classrooms, "literacy" now means being able to navigate that technology. Literacy also refers to being able to read something other than print media. The technology usually includes all kinds of visuals that people are constantly bombarded with. Literacy means being able to find the meaning and the purpose behind those kinds of media too.

Geisler talks about the kind of writing that is done by students. She seems to place importance in the role of the teacher. It is the teacher who is usually the main audience of the student's writing. I thought some of the research discussed in this essay was interesting. It makes it seem like writing isn't as effective for learning as we might hope for it to be. Simply restating something we read is not enough.

Mutnick

The essay on basic writing was interesting in that it seemed to draw on all sorts of people. It seemed like a collection of opinions on basic writing pedagogy. I wasn't sure how to define "basic writing" based on the text. What they described sounded mainly like remedial writing. Basic things like grammar. It also seemed like, underlying the debate over whether or not to teach basic writing, there is a bigger social problem represented. The question arises of just who needs this "basic writing" course. Who are the "low achievers" who need this extra help, who don't understand the basic skills? Generally, it looks like it is the minorities who need help with Standard English. They are the ones who grew up speaking Spanish, AAVE, or some language other than the Standard English that they are expected to write in when they get to college. The way that they write can make it seem like they don't understand the material or that they cannot draw their own conclusions and then write about it. This is why they need to be taught the basic writing skills. I once knew someone whose first language was Indonesian. He had some good ideas in his papers, but he didn't quite get the proper English structure down. I sometimes think it's a shame that one kind of English is better than another. But, it probably is better to have some kind of standard that we all follow.

WAC

Writing across the curriculum.... Until I read this essay, I took it for granted that the way I was learning how to write was "the right way." In all my years of school, I never got any complaints from my English teachers (except about my handwriting, and my papers running short, and the occasional lack of direction, but i'm not counting those). Even in college, I found writing to still be pretty easy to do, and faced few roadblocks. And when I read this essay, I realized why. I'm an English major. All we do is write, and we all write a certain way. I've never had to write a lab report, or anything scienc-y. When I've had the option of choosing between APA and MLA citation format, I've gone with MLA almost every time, in spite of the fact that I hear APA is actually simpler. The one writing class I had a hard time with was English 324, a class in which we had to write reports on computers and media and internet stuff. I struggled to make my papers flow as well as they did in my fiction and literature classes. Even my argument class was easier, because I could put some passion into those papers. But the research papers were a huge obstacle for me. I struggled in that class, even though I'm usually good at "English."

Thinking about this essay in light of my experience helps me understand just how different one type of writing can be from another. McLeod pointed out the difference between writing for literature and writing for history. I'm not sure that it should be the first-year composition instructor's job to teach all of these forms. Maybe the thing to do is to have a writing unit in whatever subject area the student is studying. If there really are that many different kinds of writing, requiring different rhetorical strategies, then there is no way they can all be covered in one class. If the students are allowed to investigate writing in their own field, then it might be worth it. But then it would be up to the writing professor to grade all of those different writing styles, and if he doesn't know what the standards are, that makes it all the more difficult to give accurate feedback.

Feminist Pedagogy

The essay about feminist pedagogy reminded me of the essay we had to read that mentioned womens' versus men's writing processes. I think that the feminist perspective, like the cultural perspective, is something that the reader of any text needs to keep in mind. It is important to realize what the context of a piece of writing is. In terms of composition, it is interesting to see what forces influence our writing. For example, it took me a while to realize that my writing was extremly passive and unassertive and that I hardly ever took a firm stance on anything. This was partially because no one thought to point out to me that that was a problem. Not that "female writing" is necessarily problematic. Just for me, personally, I had to find a way to be more assertive in my writing. This eventually led to me learning how to come and say something outright instead of dancing around the subject-- and made my papers tend to run even shorter.

A lot of the time, I'm not sure what to think about feminism, and I'm not sure that drawing attention to the differences between males and females is necessarily all that, for lack of a better term, progressive. In fact, I thought it was interesting that Jarrat pointed out how having a male teacher teaching feminist literature sometimes makes it better, because the teacher cannot be accused of being biased. No matter what we do, I think the dichotomy between masculine and feminine is so engrained in us that we will continue to consciously as well as unconsciously label things that way. Just using the term "feminist pedagogy" implies that there is something "other" or opposite to be studied.

So, if feminist pedagogy is simply a call to include more women writers and influences in the curriculum, then I'm all for it. But if it's struggling to become its own branch of composition, or indicates a different attitude altogether, like the assertive writing style I was talking about earlier, then I don't know how I feel about that. Maybe I just don't like sterotyping "passive" as "feminine" and "asserive" as "masculine."

Ann George

Ann George's essay took me a while to get into and to make sense out of. It may have been the name-dropping. But once I did get into it, some things jumped out at me. I thought it was intersting how she talked about liberalism versus practicality. It's a nice idea, in theory, to let students have their own take on their assignments, or to make out of the curriculum what they will. But, in the end it should be up to the teacher to decide how they should do their assignments, because it is the teacher's job to prepare them for the real world. As much as college can seem like a bubble sometimes, it is in fact there to train students to go into jobs where they will be expected to follow certain rules. Because they still have the status of students, the want to rebel against the system. But they are slowly learning to be responsible adults, at the same time. Someone has to be in charge, and that person is the teacher. That's what she's there for. I thought it was interesting that she referred to this as a paradox. That having someone in control actually opens up the classroom to democracy.

collaborative pedagogy

When I hear "collaboration" I can't help think of group work. Two or more people physically occupying the same space and working together on a project. But, if some definitions of collaboration seem to imply plagarism, then my idea is probably a little off. After reading Howard's essay, I can't help but think of collaboration as a kind of collective of every person who has ever contributed to the field. In the end, as I've said in some of my other posts, I don't really believe that there's any such thing as a completley original idea. Historically, almost every person who came up with some brilliant breakthrough was helped along the way by others who completed the steps it took to get there. Isaac Newton discovered gravity as a force, but this wouldn't have made any practical sense for our universe until after we knew that the earth orbits the sun, and not the other way around. Knowlege is constantly building on itself, and although authorship and ownership is very important to us all right now, we can't deny that we've all had some help along the way.
Collaborative learning and collaborative discussion, in classrooms, seem like a good way to implement collaboration. I like the idea of working together to bounce ideas around and hearing what everyone else has to say on a subject. I have a problem with the collaborative writing, though. This may be because I immediately think of situations in which one student does all of the actual work, and everyone else takes the credit even though they didn't do anything. The way Howard described it, and the guidelines she had make it seem feasible, as long as the assignment is something that lends itself well to collaboration.

The Sticky Embrace

Let me start off by saying, I had a lot of trouble following this article, as well as the previous ones from Writing New Media. I'm not sure if it's the terminology, or the word order, the name dropping... or maybe it's me and I just need to read more, and am a prime example of the failure of the education system. Either way, I had issues with the text, and so I may not be getting out of these what I should be. But here goes.
When Wysocki started to talk about her confusion at the contradiction of her reaction to the Peek ad, I felt I could relate. Only, I broke my reactions down into a simpler analysis, and eventually decided that I was more impressed than appalled at the ad. While Wysocki analzyed the artistic aspects and decided that this way her emotions could remain mixed, I felt like I had to pick a side. And I decided that I was more impressed than appalled. I read the ad as more artistic than pornographic. Yes, the woman is portrayed as an object, something pretty to look at, but to me this adds to the "artsy-ness" of the ad. Her proportions, the shape of her body, are too unrealistic for me to take seriously.
Of course, Wysocki found her pleasure easier to explain than her anger. Her research on visual composition told her what it was about the ad that made it pleasant to look at. And then she points out the flaw with that analysis, saying that "we are not encouraged to ask about the woman in the ad as a woman, only as a shape." A simply structural analysis of the ad takes it out of time and place and history and takes away any social consequences. This is the comfortable world I want to stay in when I look at this ad. I don't want to think about what this ad could potentially be saying about the objectification of women. Or what that says about the society I'm living in. But if I am forced to look at this composition from all angles, take into consideration every meaning, it is so obvious just how important visual literacy is.

I used to refer to myself as "a feminist's worst nightmare" because my life's ambition is to be a housewife. But the more I read and the more ads like this I look at, the more I feel that, as a woman living in the 21st century, feminism is not optional.

Box Logic

Boxes. I see lots of boxes. Are these actual boxes? Boxes full of stuff that means something to the person who put it in the box. Some of the boxes Sirc refers to are actual boxes. The boxes of collected items, or the puzzle-like box mentioned at the beginning of the chapter. But for the second half of the essay I'm not sure if he's referring to real or metaphorical boxes.
The assignments themselves don't ask students to construct literal boxes, so this leads me to define a box as simply something that houses several images, pieces, of writing, or items that are unconnected but have a theme running through them. It can be any theme. And then it is the reader's job to make their own meaning of what they have been presented with.
The 'box logic' seems best to be applied to specific assignments, like the kinds provided in the book. I can't see it as the basis for an entire course. Unless, by the end of the course, every piece of work a student has completed is put together in a box.
Then again, Sirc says he would rather "err on the side of [teaching] life" as opposed to whatever formula is needed to pass college requirements. Ideally, these two ideas would fall hand in hand, but in reality that doesn't always happen. What I'm still not sure of is how a box structure is any more like life than the linear formats we have gotten used to. Perhaps it's that life doesn't come at us in neat, linear forms. It comes in jumbles and chaos and it is up to us to make meaning out of it. Still, even as I begin to see how this could make sense, I can't help feeling like I'm missing something.

writer's memo

I loved Sommers' piece about the Writer's Memo. I can think of times when I would have liked to explain things about my paper to my teacher, but there was no such opportunity. With the memo, everything is included. Not only can students clarify to the teacher what they mean, and then get some good, useful feedback, but they also have a chance to really examine what they are doing with their work. It becomes a lot easier to put a paper together if you have a plan for it and know what it is you are trying to argue. The memo helps teachers "become collaborators rather than judges" because they are in on what is going on in the student's head. If the student is stuck somwhere, the writer's memo can help indicate where exactly the problem is.
Not only does the memo guide the teacher in what to look for in the student's essay, it also helps guide the student when it asks for audience and purpose. These questions are important to keep in mind and will help drive the student's writing. A lot of the time papers can seem pointless, but if students are reminded of a purpose, they are more motivated to write. And if they keep their audience in mind this helps with the style that they will write in. Also, audience determines how a topic will be approached. If the audience is well versed on the paper topic, then the writer won't need to establish a lot of background. Having an audience in mind accounts for a lot of the choices one makes in writing, and it's important to keep students aware of this. When they know why they've made certain choices, they can more easily remedy a problem. It's a lot of extra work to think about one's rhetorical choices if one has never done it before, but I think it would be worth it, especially in long, in-depth papers.

Selfe

Up until I read Selfe's essay, I didn't really think about the visual as requiring a separate kind of literacy, but if you think about it, it kind of makes sense. We are constantly bombareded with images that are designd to sway us a certain way about a product or a political view, and sometimes they work without us even realizing why. Selfe says we tend to introduce "visual texts as the less-important and less-intellectual sidekicks of alphabetic texts." It's true. Usually, in a classroom, the picture is secondary to the written text. It supplements it, but never makes its own statement.
I thought it was interesting that she refers to this as a "verbal bias," although I suppose that's basically what it is. Because visuals are becoming so prominent, I think it's helpful for students to aquire some knowlege on how to read, compose, and analyze those kinds of texts the same way they've been analyzing purely written texts for generations. However, we do have to acknowlege that it would be a difficult transition process. Most of the visual texts out there do have some written component. And when they don't, we become really confused.
While I think it's important to become comfortable with visual texts, and I think the activities on composing visuals are very good, we should also think about how difficult it is to interpret written materials, sometimes. Poetry, for example, can often be interpreted in many different ways, and we will never know for sure if we've gotten it "right." I think the same can be said for many visual texts. Some visual texts are more difficult to read than others, often depending on how linear they are. In the case of both visual and written texts, we can never be sure that we've understood everything the author wanted us to, and we often find meanings which the author didn't intend outright.

Student text

When I read the first few paragraphs of Bannon and Knoblauch's essay, I couldn't help nodding in agreement, remembering some of the texts I've had to read in English class over the years. When they say that "we will tolerate writing from an author which appears to be unusually difficult, even obscure or downright confusing" I thought about Faulkner and some of the other writers I've had trouble reading. Of course, writers like that have their reputations established, so of course I can't really compare them to a first-year comp student. But it's something to think about. What, except practice and some life experience, makes Faulkner's writing any better than Jimmy Doe's?
I like where this essay goes, showing teachers how to help students with their writing. It's so true that we all have our own ideal texts for what we think an assignment or piece of writing should look like. And because 18-year-olds have little or no authority, we can be very quick to dismiss some of the choices they make. I think the methods described strike a good balance between giving both students and teachers authority over the text. Teachers should be a guide to help students write better, and in the end it's up to the students how they are going to say what they want to say. No matter what the assignment is, it's the student who is producing the work. Therefore, it makes a lot of sense to work with what the student is producing, instead of what we think he should be producing. This would also help the student become more confident in his writing, which will make it better.

the moment I've been waiting for

Here we go, some answers to that age-old question of assessment. What are we assessing? Beach and Probst have a brilliant suggestion: ask the students! Talk to them. Reading and writing is a dialogue. I love it. I wish I had looked at revising this way in my first year composition class.
Probst gives a general overview of the attitude that a teacher should have while evaluating student writing. He compares it to reading literature. The only difference is, with a student paper the reader has the opportunity to directly converse with the writer. Together, they can figure out what the meaning is, and even find a way to make that meaning more clear during revision.
Beach breaks down what exactly it is teachers should be looking for in students' essays. He classifies parts of the paper, not into intro/body/conclusion, but rather by characteristics that contribute to the writing style. The questions that really need to be answered involve the goal of the paper, the audience, and rhetorical strategies. If the opening paragraph seems "weak," the student is urged to figure out why and come up with a specific solution. This requires the writer to really look at what her goal is in writing the paper the way she did. I think that using the outline provided in Beach's essay is helpful for student essay revisions.
While reading these essays, I realized that both authors talk about the way that students are used to revising, and that the new revision strategies will need to be talked. That students will need to be "weaned" off the ways that they were accustomed to. My reaction to that is a simple, "duh!" This is life. As we develop skills and learn more about the theory behind them, it makes perfect sense that we will have to approach them in new, better ways. In math, we start out learning that you can't subtract 4 from 2. Or that you can't divide 7 by 8. And then we learn about negative numbers and fractions. But only once we've learned the basics. College writing is different from high school writing. I dont' know if that's good or bad, but that's the way it is. And there's nothing wrong with learning a new way to do things, if it makes our writing better.

I just realized something

So, I was shamefully reflecting on how dissappointed Shipka was in the way the writing activity from last class turned out...
when I remembered what was going through my mind as I was writing, and it turns out that my little story about having the teenage boy back into the mailbox was my attempt at humor.

This is why I don't try to be the class clown.

formula

Honestly, I'm still not quite sure what to make of these readings. Two of the same essay, only viewed differently. Clearly the essay itself is fabricated, a caricature of itself. The real critique, then, seems to be on how the essay is graded.
I'm having trouble taking this seriously, mainly because I'm still trying to get past how fabricated the essay is. Somehow, the A-graded comments are almost too gushy. They exaggerate how well the formula was followed, and completly ignore content. The more critical comments on the other version of the essay much better reflect what is actually happening in this "essay."
I thought it was interesting that the title of the "essay" was "how schools suppress creativity in students." I was trying to figure out if maybe the two ways the essay was graded are there to demonstrate the suppression of creativity. Following a formula of writing doesn't always allow room for creativity, if the writer isn't confident in her abilities to begin with. The "essay" doesn't really say much at all, and what is said is repeated over and over again. And yet, it follows the formula. The grammar and punctuation are good. So, one "teacher" gives it an A and actually compares this writer to John Grisham and Danielle Steele (I cringed when I saw those names dropped in this context). The other "teacher," I think, gave the "essay" a much more realistic reading.
But, that might just be because I'm looking at content, and so maybe that's what my standards are. So, I'm still not sure what I was supposed to learn from reading these texts, but I can certainly say I was made aware of what I value in an essay.

PoMo Blues

Carroll's essay discusses the roles that students and teachers have come to define themselves in over the years, and they way the post modern movement attempts to deconstruct these roles. She says the student is traditionally seen as "infantilized" and that this is just a social construction. The "staff" that teaches this student is also socially constructed. I was reminded of the Bartholomae/Elbow debate, because both of them as well as Carroll seem driven to help validate student texts. But Carroll points out this obstacle: if the roles of student and teacher have been socially constructed and engrained in the classroom environment, then it is no surprise that the student essays themselves will follow the same patterns, the same social constructions. Every story has to have a happy ending, or some character building reason for turning out bad.
I recognized my own college essay in the categories that Carroll listed. These are what we think will get us into college, and what is reinforced for us when we read books and magazines on getting into college. We are told to play the game and follow those rules. Sticking with the mainstream and doing what our high school teacher said got us into college, so it feels a little strange to now be told to think for ourselves. Or, at least, when I read this essay, that's how I felt. It's a little unsettling to see someone else write about why I write what I write about.
I think Carroll is dead-on when she says that "the stories we tell are the stories that are culturally available to us to tell." And it's not just what we tell in our stories, but how we tell them. They are told in politically correct language and always have to have some degree of humility. Even a story of being raped is culturally acceptable at this point in time, as long as it follows the rules. With these constructions in mind, I think Carroll's problematizing assignment is a good one, and expanding on it further will help many writers realize where their voice ends and the culture's voice begins. If there is any distinction at all.

academic

Bartholomae says that "there is no writing done in the academy that is not academic writing" but then Elbow raises the point that the attitude behind the writing can change depending on who the writer is. An academic writer, according to Elbow, sends the message that his writing has something important to say. On the other hand, the unseasoned first-year comp student often says with his writing, "is this what you want me to say?" I think there is a good reason for this. The fact is, most first year comp students are just 18 years old. They aren't experts or authorities on anything, so of course they're going to turn to the professor to make sure they're doing their assignments the "right way."
I thought it was interesting to read about the argument that Bartholomae and Elbow are having, since in the end they are just finding different means to the same end. Both want students to become more confident in their writing. They just approach this diffrently. Elbow seems to place a lot of confidence in student writing, wheras Bartolomae feels a need to guide their writing more. While reading Elbow's side, when he discussed turning his students into writers, I thought of the activity of journal writing. This allows students to practice writing, but can be separate from the formal papers that would be required in the writing course.
There is one comment that Elbow makes that made me wonder about the whole argument. He says that he hopes that he is "helping students achieve their goals" in the long run and to "gradually relinquish their conditioned assumption that their job is to accomplish our goals." I wondered about what makes one of these goals better than the other. In a way, I think, there is absolutely nothing wrong with having a teacher be the one to determine the goals. Not all students want to be writers, but for a semester of their first year of college, they have to be. Perhaps the teacher can help guide students with their goal-making; few first year students really have any set goals. And what kind of goals are we talking about here, anyway? Writing goals? Goals as students, in general? Straight A's? Doing a minimum amount of work to pass a course? College is the place where young adults start to figure things out for themselves, but they still do need some guidance.

personal writing

The piece by Conners on personal writing pulled me in surprisingly quickly. I got absorbed in the talk about days gone by when students were disciplined enough to read text after text and use those texts to describe abstract concepts. Then we get to the nineteenth century, and something changes. There is pressure to let students "express themselves." Individualism begins to overshadow imitation. According to the article, the Romantic movement had a lot to do with this. And then, all of a sudden, Conners keeps on talking about what kinds of topics students write about now, compared to what they wrote before. "Mountains" versus "A Tramp to the Mountains." This is the beginning of the modern composition course. So, I was reading this and then it occured to me, who decided that writing about one's own life experiences was better than basing one's writing on previous authors? I'm not saying it was a bad move, I just like to know who came up with this stuff. I really wondered, why was there a change in the first place? Was it the student's idea or the teacher's?
I can't help thinking about how cultural changes affect education. At one time the typical American family ran a farm and produced their own food and clothing. It was a lifestyle similar to the Amish way. In fact, now that I think about it, the Amish still pretty much learn in the way of the classical tradition. They are given text that they are told to imitate when writing up their reports. Personal writing is discouraged and runs counter to the values of the society. But now, with individualism being the big thing, and everyone seeking personal fulfillment, it makes perfect sense that writing should become egocentric also.
But while we're all out there, exploring ourselves and describing our life experiences and learning what makes us tick, I think it's important to remember that in some way, shape, or form, these stories have been told before. I love to write, I love to tell stories, and I like to think I will eventually find a new way to tell an old story. But I've read Shakespeare and Austin, among others, and I know that there's nothing that I can think of that those two probably haven't already written about. This isn't a bad thing. I'm all for personal writing, and journaling, and what-not, but I also think it's important to read the works of those who came before us. That way, when we, and our students, are writing about that day when we lost our first tooth, or when we finally got that A in Math we struggled for, we can see that we are not the only ones this has ever happened to. And this should unite us, and remind us that in spite of what our individualistic culture likes us to believe, we are not alone.

I get to write THIS!!!

So, yeah, don't even get me started on what I get to write.

The title isn't sarcasm, it's more like the conclusion to the thoughts running around in my head right now. As has been established in class, and somewhat in this blog, my favorite writing is fiction. I look forward to time that I can spend with my notebook and a pen or my laptop and just write until my hand cramps up or my eyes water from the bright screen. This rarely happens, though. For several reasons, most of them having to do with other obligations, and an RPG (video game) addiction. These days, my marble composition notebook has been spending a lot of time at the bottom of my desk drawer. As I'm writing this, I'm considering carrying it around with me again. But anyways, when I do have the time to write for fun now, I pull up the Word document of whatever story I'm in the mood for, and write whatever pops into my head.
And the point of the title of this post is that, in addition to the writing itself, I absolutely love to tell people about what I'm working on. Especially when I have a new idea. The history of my fiction writing is long and sometimes personally distressing and I won't go into it now, but the last few years have been dedicated to overcoming writer's block. These days, my plan is to just pretend there is no writer's block. It has resulted in the occasional really boring scene, in which my heroine just sits around in the kitchen, drinking coffee and reading a magazine. I embrace the writer's block and try to write through it. Because another thing I love to do is re-read some of the things I've written and see if there's anything in there that actually might be universal and true to all. The truth within the constructed story... that's why I love fiction. I'm not quite there yet, but I can't stop writing, so I'm sure I'll get to it eventually.

individual process

Something that's been bothering me about this whole "process" question is, as most of you know by now, how to grade the product.

I've been taking in all the readings, trying to learn from them and see what makes sense and what's realistic. And I realize, I still am not sure what the final product should look like. We've talked about process, and today in class I tried to speculate on which parts of the process are productive and which are not. "Composition" doesn't always have to equal writing, I get that. But, I mean... the eventual point is writing, right? Maybe I just need to be a little more patient. This is all still relatively new to me.
What jumped out at me about the readings was just how much process can differ between individuals. For example, I already knew that there were differences in the way that men and women approach situations in life, but for some reason it didn't occur to me that they might approach writing differently, as demonstrated in Flynn's essay.
Murray's essay about writing as autobiography was also rather intriguing. My favorite writing that I do is my fiction writing, but among my friends I often refer to it, half-jokingly, as, "my life with all the names changed." In that case, I could absolutely agree that writing is autobiography. But that's a very particular kind of writing. When the writing is personal in any way, whether it be poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, or anything where the author gets to choose the course of the piece, I can see an argument for autobiography. This could even happen in research papers, to a certain extent, but in that case I feel like what Murray is describing sounds a lot like the way that we've been defining "voice." It's like the author's personal way of phrasing, or the lens through which they see the world and then describe it in their writing.

With all of that in mind, I come back to the question of grading. I suppose this is why I like the idea of grading steps within the process. It helps to know where the product came from, and it helps the student to see at which point he or she went wrong.

paradigm shift

Hairston's essay raises some interesting questions that I had never really considered before. I liked the way she basically came right out and stated what was wrong with the system of teaching writing. For example, she very bluntly says, "they believe that teaching editing is teaching writing." I usually operate under a policy of, if it's not broken, don't fix it. Until I read Hairston's essay, I didn't think there way anything wrong with the way that composition is taught. Maybe it wasn't perfect, but certainly not worth completley overhauling.
Then again, I don't really know that much about either the process or the product model. Until a few weeks ago I didn't realize that they even had names. The main question that I like to think educators are trying to answer is, how exactly does a person learn to write well? This evokes some preconceived notions about what "good" writing is. I think we usually think of classic literature by Austen or Dickenson. While I don't think that reading these kinds of authors automatically makes a person a better writer through osmosis, I do think that reading, in general, helps give a person a better sense of what "sounds" right when they are writing. Familiarizing oneself with good grammar and structure is a good way to go.
Ever since hearing about it, I have become a huge fan of the process model. I think that in order to become a better writer, people should take a look at their process and figure out what is serving them and what is hindering them. And composition teachers should serve as a guide for helping students understand how to write better. I think that this goes hand in hand with learning how to edit well.

writing for pleasure

The set of readings for today seemed to focus on the intuition and the subjective feelings that a person experiences while writing. This seems like the perfect subject on which to be "self-indulgent." When reading the Runciman essay, I couldn't help nodding in agreement every now and then. There is a tendency for teachers and students to focus on the difficulties of the writing process and end up downplaying any rewards, especially the intrinsic rewards of "finding the right words" and such.
I think, sometimes, we are living in a culture that celebrates suffering. Sure, we are told to find whatever makes us feel good and fulfills us. But, there is also something wrong with being too happy, too perfect. No pain, no gain, and those lovely things. Anything worth having is going to require hard work. We all know the cliches. So, I think part of the problem with telling people that writing is fun makes it seem like that makes it sound easy. And, if it's easy, then we must not be learning anything. We forget sometimes that something can be fun but still require effort. Every time a person writes, that experience contributes to their knowlege. It's all about practice.
So, on this "self-indulgent" vein, I will say with joy, writing fiction is one of my favorite pastimes. Yes, it's hard work and I've been faced with writer's block many, many times, but some of my greatest personal rewards have come from telling my stories. I'm sure not everyone else feels this way about writing, but maybe that's because no one ever told them that they could write about how much they hate writing. Just a thought.

the importance of the peer evaluation

We've spent a lot of time talking about writing in terms that we ourselves can't always define, such as "voice" and "flow." We also talked about process versus product, and the importance of each of those. I was beginning to feel like we were making circular arguments that wouldn't really go anywhere, because maybe there is no right answer. So, when I read the essay by Flower and Hayes on "defining a rhetorical problem" I started to see a light at the end of the tunnel. Finally, something concrete to say "this is what makes a good writer." The essay doesn't address every single problem, of course, but I was happy when I read it anyway. It states, very clearly that one of the problems unskilled writers have is choosing the right questions to answer when they write. It also says that "the ability to explore a rhetorical problem is eminently teachable." Lo and behold, writers can become better after all! It's a skill that can be taught and refined.
This is where, I believe, peer editing and workshopping are so important. In the essay by Perl, we learn about what kind of editing works and what kind doesn't. When Tony, the student being studied, edited his essay according to his process, he still managed to miss many errors and had "unresolved stylistic and syntactic problems." This shows that a person can have all the knowlege of grammar in the world, but still simply not write well. To truly improve, all the evidence seems to suggest that having outside eyes look at the writer's work is the way to go. Until way too recently, I had a strangely stubborn pride that kept me from sharing my drafts with anyone unless it was required as part of the grade. I insisted on doing it all myself, even when those mandatory peer review sessions and meetings with professors proved to be effective. Sometimes teachers are viewed as scary and jugemental. This causes them to miss out on good, constructive criticism.
The last of the articles, by Sommers, was by far the most eye-opening for me. I realized, this is what we need to be teaching. Students need to learn how to see their writing as something more than just words and sentences. A revision doesn't just mean finding a "better" word. Sometimes an entire idea needs to be reworked. This is one of my problems with my writing, actually, and so I am wondering how exactly one would go about "fixing" a paper by rewriting entire passages. Even the idea that "something bigger" is "off" is rather subjective. I suppose this is where peer reviewing comes in again. The way the experienced writers were describing their process shows the importance of beginning writing weeks before the deadline. Writing something and then leaving it alone for a day or two seems like an effective way to get some good perspective on the piece. It also seems that a writer shouldn't "fall in love with" the first way something has been said. As someone who has fallen into a lot of the traps described in this essay, I feel especially close to the topic and hope to hear everyone's thoughts on the proper way to revise a paper.

process

I had some issues with the readings on happenings. But with the readings on process, everything is starting to come together. I can remember charts in fifth grade describing how I should be writing my essays: brainstorm--> cluster--> outline--> first draft--> revise. So simple, so sweet, so stuck in my mind all these years. Granted, it's not a format I actually used all that much over the years, but I have always considered a variation of that process to be the ideal way to write a paper.
While reading the chapter by Tobin, it occurred to me that there might not be a completely wrong or right way to write. Everything has a process, a series of steps towards an end product. So, if the writing process is a means to and end, what, then is our end? A grade? The requirements and constraints of the college writing course, and even more so, high school English course, demand tangible evidence that students are learning.
But, setting that aside for a moment, it is clear that some kind of process for writing should continue to be taught. From the research, it seems that a writing process is innate. People have to think about the subject before they can write about it. And they have to go through a few revisions before the written piece is what they want it to be. The thing about writing is that, in a way, the project is never really completed. Most writers will always find a better way to say something even after the "final" draft. I can think of several stories and essays that I've written that I wish I could have continued to revise. But because of deadlines, the process has to end at some point.
There may be certain steps that have to be taken to produce the final written product, but I can also see how those steps don't necessarily need to be in any particular order. It is in the early "prewriting" part of the process that I can now see a better justification for the Happenings that we discussed earlier. If there is no fixed curriculum for a first-year comp course then the teacher should do whatever is necessary for her students to be inspired. I still think that grammar and structure should be addressed, as a foundation for the kinds of writing that will be done throughout the rest of the student's college career and his/her life. But it is becoming increasingly clear that personal writing is just as vital to students and shouldn't be put on the back burner just because it may not seem "academic."
The remaining question that I have now is, what to grade students on?

define "composition"

While reading the selections for tomorrow, I experienced moments of elation and confusion, back and forth, as I thought about what was really being said.

~stand in a corner and don't look at anyone.

~stand in front of the class and say "if i had the wings of an angel.

~go around the room and pat everyone on the back and say "it's all right"

And this mimics the chaos of our everyday lives?

I can see how some of the activities described make for a nice change of pace. But I can't help feeling that first-year composition should focus on actual writing and communication. Those who love to write in the first place will eat up whatever we throw at them. Maybe I'm being old fashioned-- or closed-minded?-- but the fact is that there are some first years who still have trouble with basic grammar, sentence structure, and organization in papers. And the informal writing used in texting and IMs and such doesn't help. Students need a place to learn and practice "formal" writing. We need to keep some kind of standard.

That being said, I thought that some of the activities described in the readings, such as the day of Silence were absolutley wonderful and brilliant for brainstorming and getting one's thoughts focused on writing. The reading on "freshman masks" was also good to think about. It kind of relates back to the idea of voice, although the more I think about that word, the more it seems that voice is something inevitable after all. "Developing" a "unique" voice might then just be removing the mask and writing whatever the writer feels, in words that he/she chooses.

voice

I sometimes say that, for a writer, I am rather bad at expressing myself. At least, out loud. So I am hoping that using this blog for 486 will help me to get those thoughts out that are hovering beneath the surface but that, for some reason, my mind insists on organzing into intro-body-conclusion format.
We were speaking of voice, and what some of you seem to agree on is that we maybe can't define voice, but we recognize the absence of it. When I look back on the readings, they don't really have much to do with voice. And that made me think that, maybe voice isn't as important as we all want it to be. I'm not out to define "good" writing, but the fact is, in terms of composition and writing papers for practical reasons, there has to be substance to the writing. I do not believe that voice can be taught. It is something that emerges in creative writing or maybe even just writing frequently. But a person can be taught how to organize information in a way that the reader will understand what that person is trying to say. And so, we (ENGL 486) as present and future teachers may talk about cultivating in students a love of writing and helping them develop their unique voice, but I think we all know that it will be the minority of students who actually get to that point. All we can do is give them a foundation, give them some concrete rules for producing solid papers and reports.
Maybe I'm being a little cynical. I've always enjoyed writing, but I have to admit that if my teachers hadn't encouraged me over the years, I probably wouldn't spend as much time on it as I do.

sample 1

*Sample Post*

Tell me a story
Tell me about being the last family on the block to get cable TV
Tell me about your first roller coaster ride
Tell me about that embarrassing middle name that you don't want people to know you have
Tell me a story
Tell me about your first week of college, which made you realize that you actually liked your mother's cooking
Tell me about drinking so much that you threw up, vowed never to do it again, and then proceeded to drink again the next night
Tell me about the best years of your life
Tell me a story.

*sample post*