My working pedagogy 3.0.

I have really been stretched this semester to rethink the objectives of the English language arts field and even just my teaching pedagogy in general.

I really think that the English language arts field is at a crossroads. Should we still be basing our curriculum around literature if 97% of students are not going on to pursue degrees in English/literature? I still believe literature has a place in the classroom, but might it be more important to teach students skills that are applicable to their lives, that will better help become life-long learners? This younger generation communicates, learns, and thinks fundamentally different than previous generations. Students today need a new set of skills to be successful in the twenty-first century.

The starting point for a redirection of the field is technology. I don’t believe that computers are a panacea for all of our educational woes; however, technology provides many great learning opportunities that most schools and educators are wasting. Too often technology is feared or thoughtlessly discarded, creating a barrier between students and teachers. One essential key is that teachers need more professional development regarding new technologies. More intra and interdisciplinary collaboration should also be taking place.

A twenty-first century classroom means giving students more responsibilities and freedom, though teachers still have an essential role in guiding students, creating meaningful projects, and challenging students to think critically about the tools they are using. Teachers should realize that they need not be technology gurus and that they can learn from their students. Though students may be more familiar with new technologies, they still need to learn the skills that allow them to use these tools more effectively and prudently.

Finally, the most important conclusion that I’ve come to this semester goes beyond issues of technology, curriculum, and pedagogies. The most essential quality of good teachers is that they care about their students. Truly effective teachers are those who take an interest in their students and foster healthy relationships. I believe in the importance of encouraging, challenging, and guiding students regardless of the tools being used and the skills being taught.

Midterm

When thinking about teaching a first-year composition course, I believe it is important to first consider some fundamental questions about the purpose of education. I believe that students need a solid foundation in composition and rhetoric, especially in tertiary education; however, the meaning of both composition and rhetoric are in a state of volatility. Students need to question themselves, their culture, and various texts with which they are interacting in order to form personal opinions and develop new ideas. This means students need to efficiently access information, to think critically about that information, and to creatively and effectively communicate this information in a variety of genres using multiple modalities. Students should be learning a variety of tools that help them research, think critically, and express their ideas, in order to become contributors to the academic community.

Rhetoric plays a vital role in this process because composition is concerned with the dialectic. The traditional five canons of rhetoric: invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery, offer students a valuable lens to view argumentation. Because arguments are being communicated in a growing number of diverse genres, the basic definition of composition needs to be expanded. Basically, first-year courses need to teach students two things: how to think critically and form personal opinions; and how to communicate these ideas in a variety of modes and genres.

I like a lot of Peter Elbow’s ideas for several reasons. For example, his advocacy for freedom and exploration in writing and his emphasis on voice are important in student discovery (Elbow, 15). However, I think that too much freedom leaves students without a vision, and therefore, encumbers students from expressing their voices. Elbow’s expressivist pedagogy succeeds in helping students to explore their personal ideas, but unfortunately falls short in setting students’ individual ideas in the context of a larger academic conversation. Expressive writing has its place, but in first-year composition courses there needs to be a greater focus on situating oneself in a greater academic discourse.

As Patricia Bizzell claims, Elbow and fellow theorist David Bartholomae are not quite as different as they would like to think (Bizzell, 174). Bartholomae also believes in acknowledging students as important contributors to academic discourse; however, he differs in that his focus seems to be more geared towards content rather than the student. Gerald Graff takes this notion one step further in explicitly declaring the main focus of composition to be argumentation (Graff and Birkenstein, ix). The college environment is a place where ideas should be continually posited and challenged which necessitates a group of scholars (students included) that think critically about these ideas and formulate new ones. Graff’s work has helped to restore the role of rhetoric in the academy which, in turn, has also had major implications in composition courses. The claim that we should focus on the conflict itself and the realization that no solution will be resolved perpetuates an open culture of diverse ideas. This is the type of culture we should preparing first-year student to participate in.

Furthermore, Bartholomae notes the necessity of students positioning themselves individually within their larger cultures. Patricia Bizzell comes in perfectly here because her holistic approach not only bridges the gap between Elbow and Bartholomae (Bizzell, 174), but also focuses on students understanding their specific social and cultural positions, so that they might better comprehend their place in the larger academic discourse. This self awareness allows students to better contextualize their arguments and to appreciate the diverse multiplicity of perspectives in this increasingly globalized world. I also like Bizzell because she discusses the importance of teaching students the writing structures and styles that will be effective in expressing these ideas. This ideally combines critical thinking and communication.

Finally, Walter Ong supports my pedagogical vision of first-year composition courses in that he acknowledges the momentous affects that shifting modes of communication have on education. Ong is known for his consideration of oral culture and the paradigmatic changes that took place with the advent of the alphabet and furthermore with the printing press. In addition, Ong posits an idea of secondary orality in which, due to the influence of technology, our society is transforming into one that foregrounds the digital word (Ong, 134). This idea has helped me understand that the very nature of communication is transforming, namely due to the internet and the various tools available through the net. Therefore, education should be changing too, otherwise it will be left in the dust (which is already beginning to happen, at least in secondary education). It is essential not just to use technology as a tool, but to use inquiry to explore the outcomes of utilizing various modes and genres in communication. The bottom line is that students should have many opportunities to use technology in first-year composition courses; however, students must also spend time thinking critically about the various social, political, and cultural implication of using technology as a tool.

In short, first-year composition courses should be about learning to formulate and articulate ideas in the academic community. This means taking into account one’s social, cultural, and political situation when forming ideas as a part of the wider discourse. Students should be able to articulate their ideas in a number of modes and should be especially adept in doing so digitally.

Works Cited

Bartholomae, David. “Writing with Teachers: A Conversation with Peter Elbow.” College Composition and Communication. 46 (1995): 62-71.

Bizzell, Patricia. “On the Possibility of a Unified Theory of Composition and Literature.” Rhetoric Review. 4 (1986): 174-180.

Elbow, Peter. Writing without Teachers. 25th Anniv. Ed. Cambridge: Oxford UP, 1998.

Graff, Gerald and Cathy Birkenstein. They Say/I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing. New York: Norton, 2006.

Ong, Walter. Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. 1982. London: Routledge, 2002.

Teaching Pedagogy 2.0

This semester I have been forced to rethink some very core ideas about teaching and education. Questions about the purpose of secondary and tertiary education, the curriculum of English, Language Arts, and/or Composition courses, and the role of educators in the classroom have been floating around my brain for weeks now.

The biggest challenge that I have been faced with is the use of technology in the classroom. This issue takes precedent because the role one allows technology to take in his pedagogy is directly related to the way he views the purpose of education and curriculum. I have thought deeply about the use of computers in the secondary language arts classroom and have considered the challenges and potential pitfalls it poses. On the other hand, I have also pondered the potential that digital technology has in engaging and motivating students in a profound new way. Students need to learn to use technology as a tool and not to become technology indulgers as Cynthia Selfe would say.

One of the most interesting things to look at is the multitude of new genres that are developing thanks to the internet. Wikis, blogs, and web 2.0 necessitate new understanding of the terms author, audience, and ownership. Thinking critically about the political, social, and cultural implications of changing from a society centered on print to one centered on the digital word is crucial. Furthermore, digital literacy needs to be included in language arts curriculum because students are now using digital means of communication almost exclusively when outside the classroom. Communicating effectively should be one of the primary goals of language arts; however, communication and literacy take on new meanings in the digital age.

I still believe that the primary goal of teachers should be to foster critical thinking in their students. Students must learn to respond to a variety of ideas, developing their own unique positions. Whether students go on to continue their education or go straight into the workforce, complex thinkers create a better society. Likewise, civic literacy should be an essential part of the classroom because thoughtful citizens also create a better society. These may be idealistic notions, but I believe that teaching students to be responsible citizens is an important role of the educator.

Kathleen Yancey

The three main ideas which shape the work of Kathleen Yancey are technology, portfolios, and assessment. While I am not as familiar with her work with the latter two, I have found abundant evidence of that shows how her work with technology has helped to shape current methods in composition and rhetoric. Rhonda’s use of the interview with Yancey added great insight into one of the important theorists we are studying this semester. In addition, Yancey, like Selfe with memory, is interested in the five rhetorical canons and how they can be applied to our evolving definition of texts and literacy.

Rhonda mentioned two works that Yancey stated as those of which she is most proud. One of these is the article “Made Not Only in Words: Composition in a New Key” which I read as a part of my annotated bibliography, so I thought I would share a bit. This piece is based on the CCCC chair address in 2004 and addresses the current “tectonic” changes in literacy. Yancey does so by comparing the writing public of today to the reading public that developed in nineteenth century England in that they are both socially constructed, politically and economically driven, and that both take place outside of the traditional education system. The growing number of genres that students are using means that students can no longer be considered educated by mastering reading and writing alone (305). Communication and education have turned digital, but most assessment methods are lagging drastically behind. This is interesting in light of CSAPs, which many of us have just finished. We are still asking students to respond chirographically (not even through print) though the vast majority are far more adept with the digital word. Yancey backs a new curriculum emphasizing the textual relationships and context of composition. Finally, Yancey identifies three keys to composition that address a writing public: the circulation of composition (the view that all “writing” is done as a part of a conversation), the canons of rhetoric, and deicity of technology. Deicity deals with the time and space in which texts are created.

Yancey brings up a lot of interesting new ideas regarding the incorporation of technology and challenges her audience to embrace the idea of composition in a new key. I personally found this article to be both challenging and inspiring. The author speaks with such passion that it is hard not to get excited about trying new methods to challenge students to think critically about the world around them. In particular, I am interested in her discussion of the cannons of rhetoric, which she believes are all interrelated though she focuses mainly on the two most neglected ones, memory and delivery.

Cynthia Selfe

Selfe seems to be interested primarily in the social, political, cultural, and historical issues surrounding the use of technology in education. She supports the utilization of technology but more importantly argues that a closer look should be taken as to how the implication of technology is affecting both students and educators, and the climate of education as a whole.

One of the first acknowledgements that Selfe makes (and unfortunately relatively few secondary teachers are making) is that outside of the educational setting students are engaging with technology obsessively, impulsively and often thoughtlessly. This brings up a couple of issues. First of all, educators of an earlier generation are rarely as tech-savvy as their students, so a new form of digital divide is increasing between these two groups. Secondly, students are not only imprudently accessing information, but they are also recklessly supplying information about themselves. Students may have adept skills in using technology, but they need to be taught to use these skills in tandem with critical and metacognitive thinking.

Selfe’s interest in hypertext theory is very interesting to me. This theory is somewhat associated with postmodern theory in that it favors a decentered rather than linear view of texts. Likewise, hypertext theory concerns arrangement in terms of the five canons of rhetoric. In terms of authority and ownership, many changes have taken place since print culture, blurring the lines between reader and writer. I like this theory because, though we don’t know all of the implication technology will have on society, this is a good way to begin reflecting on the monumental changes our society is experiencing.

Selfe and her fellow collaborators like Gail Hawisher advocate critical thinking when incorporating technology because they make the point that technology is not neutral – though who control it have a political agenda just like with any other medium. It is crucial that students learn to see the political connections associated with their use of this tool and not to be simply blind indulgers of technology.

Erika Lindemann

There are two major ideas about Erika Lindemann that stuck out to me after Rebecca’s presentation. First, Lindemann is firmly entrenched in the camp that rejects the use of literature in freshman composition courses. Second, Lindemann advocates a System model for the teaching of freshmen compostion courses which attempts to reconcile the differences between the process and product models of writing. These arguments are important because they bring up some interesting questions like: What should be the purpose of entry level composition classes? How should literature be defined?

I think the most important argument that Lindemann makes in her dispute with Tate about whether or not to use literature in freshmen comp classes is that students need opportunities to engage with a variety of genres, styles, and modes of writing. These types of courses should not be designed to breed English majors only; the reality is that most of these students will be moving on to other areas of study far away from literature like engineering, business, or computer information sciences. With students heading in such an array of directions, it is important that they cultivate skills that enable them to engage with many different types of texts. Furthermore, students should be prepared to participate in argumentative discourses outside of the academy and, therefore, need a host of rhetorical and composition skills in order to effectively do so. In addition, as mentioned in class, when using literature to model writing, one runs the risk of the literature becoming the focal point instead of the actual writing.

Lindemann’s system model of teaching composition supports these arguments because it is focused on students' writing. Positioning herself between Peter Elbow and David Bartholomae in their debate, Lindemann not only accepts and rejects ideas from the two, but posits her own notions as well. Belief in the careful reading and analyzing of texts, preparing students to “negotiate the demands of writing in varied disciplines” (Wasil handout), and developing a collaborative environment are all essential ideas to the System model. I also love the quotation that Rebecca provided from Lindemann: “Our goal is to improve writers, not individual pieces of writing.” Unfortunately, there are too many teachers that fail to adhere to this advice.

Kenneth Bruffee

Bruffee is a major advocate of collaborative learning and believes this process contributes to significant benefits in the attainment (or invention) of knowledge. In addition, Bruffee supports the use of collaboration in writing centers, the composition classroom, and in writing in other disciplines as well. Bruffee’s collaborative theory is grounded on social constructivist epistemology which asserts that knowledge and even reality do not exist until they are socially constructed. In some ways Bruffee’s ideas seem to coincide with Graff’s well-known decree to “teach the conflicts” in that students are learning to situate themselves in a larger academic discourse. However, Bruffee’s ideas are not purely based on argumentation; instead, he sees the collaborative process as a time of creating knowledge.

I agree with Bruffee in that collaborative learning has many benefits: it is a way to attain new points of view, it challenges students to develop their own position, and it engages students in the dialogic academic setting. My major contention with Bruffee is his assertion that learning can only take place socially. While I concede that all knowledge is ascertained through some sort of interaction between ideas, I argue that this can be done by an individual. A student can go to the library on their own, pick up a book, and engage with the author of that text. Though many people may benefit from having a group discussion about the contents of the book, why is it impossible for the individual to develop his own opinions and to attain knowledge without the collaborative process?

I would like to learn more about the specific methods that Bruffee advocates for the collaborative process in terms of composition. This collaborative process seems to include, though is not limited to, the peer review process. But how else does he socialize the learning process? Furthermore, in a model like this, how does the instructor ensure that groups are engaging in higher order thinking rather than conversing on trivial points on a text and making superficial corrections to writing?

Hugh Burns

Hugh Burns’s visit to class last week was a real pleasure. Burns has an engaging and approachable personality. His talk focused on many of the foundational ideas of rhetoric like the seven liberal arts of Ancient Greece which include the trivium (logic, rhetoric, and grammar) and the quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music). The quadrivium is particularly interesting because of the assertion that students must master the seemingly disparate fields of mathematics, science, and music before grappling with philosophy. Though these ideas are literally thousands of years old, they tie in well with the emphasis on an interdisciplinary approach to higher education that Burns supports. Burns is an advocate of Writing Across the Curriculum and also considers the role of technology in areas other then English.

Burns also spoke on the four Language Arts which are speaking, writing, listening, and reading. The first two are heuristic which involves solving problems under conditions of uncertainty, while the latter two are concerned with hermeneutics or interpretation. The most interesting part of Burns’s talk was when he spoke on his area of expertise: technology. He provided an interesting perspective on programming software that applies algorithms to language. A three pronged approach to artificial intelligence was also explained by Burns, which includes knowledge acquisition, knowledge representation, and search. Finally, I found his approach to writing interesting. Burns stated that he writes about four or five pages daily without completing any prior research. He said that he “tries to get the light to come on in here [motioning to his heart]” before validating his ideas through research. This ensures a certain authenticity of ideas.

Burns also spoke on Wayne Booth, a literary critic from the University of Chicago. His first and most influential book Rhetoric of Fiction defends the role of the author, specifically an “implied author” or speaker who posits some statement of truth. This idea goes against the theories of New Criticism which attempt to view a text in isolation, apart from contextual information. Other works include A Rhetoric of Irony, Modern Dogma and the Rhetoric of Ascent, The craft of Research, and Rhetoric of Rhetoric.

Brammer and Brees

The main argument of the article by Brammer and Brees is that peer review is a valuable part of the writing process if done in the right way. It seems that many composition instructors have accepted that peer review should be a part of the writing process, yet they fail to thoroughly instruct students in how to successfully participate in it. Teachers must increase time preparing students, use multiple ways of presenting the strategies of the process (lecturing, handouts, and modeling), and demonstrate to students that they themselves believe in the value of peer review (81). This helps students to go deeper than simply making proofreading corrections.

The basis for this article was a survey conducted at a predominantly “white, middle-class, suburban” university in which the researchers questioned both faculty and students on their experiences with and attitudes toward peer review. The results were not terribly surprising: most students and faculty believe that there is some value in the process. It is more interesting to look at these statistics next to the results from the L2 survey. Most L2 students also believe in the importance of peer review; however, they experience more anxiety and reluctance to participate because of the inherent power relationships involved in the process. Though students who are still struggling to master the English language may have very valid, even profound, thoughts, they have far less confidence in expressing them because of the communication barrier.

One of the ideas suggested by Brammer and Rees is that in order to have an effective collaborative peer review experience, a rapport must be developed among group members. “Students need to create a sense of shared community in order to develop dialogues of trust and to build confidence in their classroom peers” (81). Because writing is a very personal process and sharing one’s writing means making one’s self vulnerable, creating a positive, nonjudgmental environment is extremely important in ensuring that students can be confident about their writing as well as the peer review process.

Kratzke

Kratzke frames his article around the concept of “recopying to revise;” however, his main argument is that teachers must train students to remain (or become) independent of computers. Instructors cannot be Luddites; technology should be used as a tool provided that it assists and does not interfere with students’ cognitive and composition processes. The notion of drafting was interesting for me because I’m young enough that I always remember being able to save documents, whether on a thumb drive or floppy disk. I’ve never had to rewrite multiple drafts, but imagining this leads me to the conjecture that, although painstaking and time-consuming, drafting in the old sense must have done much more to improve student writing than the current revision process. As Kratzke claims “much student writing lacks a certain human quality” (authors emphasis) (15). The major issue is that students are skipping the entire cognitive process: spell check and grammar check make most of the corrections for students, and the corrections the students do make on their own are superficial. If real, in-depth revisioning is not completed, then students are unwittingly tweaking the same first draft over and over.

One issue brought up by Kratzke is the notion that student achievement in composition is not increasing. For scores of years instructors have lamented over their students’ declining writing skills. If these instructors are never satisfied can it possibly mean that good writing is simply not easy to do? I personally believe that great writing takes incredible amounts of time, effort, and practice (and possibly a little natural talent). All other writers, whether poor, mediocre, or good, can always improve, but I’m not sure that it is possible to have a massive quantity of great writers.

Kratzke quotes Jane Healy pondering the Ongian possibility that “the act of reading itself may be on the way to obsolescence” (13). NPR had a report this morning of a university in Mississippi that has made the transition to all computer-based textbooks. The benefits and disadvantages will continue to be argued, but the fact remains that physical texts are losing ground in many ways. I agree with Kratzke that the “transactional” nature seems to be missing when you read a text on the computer; however, I’m sure that new modes of cognition will develop with technology. The important thing is that this metacognitive process does not become obsolete.

Tasker and Holt-Underwood

This article summarized the major arguments that have been developing over the last forty years in feminist literary criticism and theory. The article really doesn’t posit any ground-breaking new ideas; instead, it reminds the reader of the long and difficult struggle that women have faced in achieving an equal voice in society. Feminist historiography in composition and rhetoric reveals the silencing of female voices throughout the literary tradition. Criticism of the early aspects of this approach is that “feminist methods are highly interpretive, difficult to identify, and often only implied” (57). Over the last couple of decades, approaches to and opinions of feminism in the literary field have grown tremendously and have become much more diversified.

One assertion that I found particularly interesting was brought up by Patricia A. Sullivan. Tasker and Holt-Underwood explain that “Sullivan argues that women’s cognitive functions are different than men’s” (58). I would be interested to hear an explanation of exactly what these differences are. The debate between Biesecker and Campbell was also particularly interesting. The two argue about historical methodology and both claim the other is further silencing women’s voices. I agree with Campbell that not all women (or individuals) have “equal rhetorical ability;” there are innumerable factors that determine one’s abilities, and no two individuals are exactly alike. One of the things that is made the clearest in this article is the notion of pluralism in feminist methodology. Every individual has her own experiences, methods, and agendas creating endlessly diverse perspectives. That “pluralism thrives” (67), is a notion that is central not only to feminist research methodologies, but to all of theory and criticism in general.

Bartholomae Presentation

Like Bizzell, Bartholomae emphasizes the importance of preparing students for academic discourse. Students must find their place within culture and must be self-aware. Bartholomae seems to keep it pretty simple: students must learn their place within cultural contexts, the analysis of academic texts must be at the center of the thought process, and engaging in academic discourse is the ultimate goal for these students.

The debate between Elbow and Bartholomae makes public a discourse on the appropriate approaches to composition and language. Comparing ideas of social versus individual contexts of writing, and trust versus skepticism of language are interesting disputes. I agree with Bartholomae that language should be distrusted because it is constantly being manipulated in order to exert power, sell products, and persuade audiences. However, what may be more interesting are the similarities between Elbow and Bartholomae. Both see the importance of approaching writing as a process and carrying out a great deal of writing. Students also need to develop self-confidence in their critical thinking and writing processes; this empowers students to further develop their voice.

Hearing how Bartholomae’s ideas worked in relation to Elbow’s was important and very beneficial. Emily’s presentation helped to clarify the argument between these two scholars and to see how this debate has contributed to larger ideas of composition in the academic setting.

Bizzell Presentation

I definitely dig Patricia Bizzell. Culture is our key to connecting with students and getting them to think critically. It seems like there may be a connection to Graff here in the way Bizzell encourages the politicizing of texts. Again, it is the nature of conflict and differences of meaning and interpretation that enable dialogue and critical thinking. By bringing in the political aspect, the relationships of power can be explored, and students are challenged by opposing ideas. It is crucial for students to learn to take a position early on. When students learn to take a position, even with their own deep-seeded cultural beliefs, they are developing the “self-awareness” that Bizzell promotes.

Bizzell also suggests that students do not merely have a writing problem, they also have a thinking problem. The task of the instructor is to use the students’ culture as a tool to help engage students in critical thinking. When students begin to see the how they operate within their own culture and how this culture determines their thought process they can also begin to think critically about relationships to other, more diverse ideas and can begin to engage in dialogue within various academic discourse communities.

Graff Presentation

Conflict. If there is one word to sum up Gerald Graff and his ideas on composition, pedagogy, and thought, it has to be conflict. Graff employs words like “against,” “wars,” and “argumentation” to illustrate his assertion that differences of opinion are the starting point of academic discourse. Even Graff’s dissertation on poetry and objective reality centers on argumentation: he asserts that poetry is more similar to prose than most assume and that poetry makes claims and assumptions that hold objective truth and can be argued just like prose. Graff abandoned a strictly theoretical approach to focus more on pedagogical ideas, though he maintains his focus on conflict.

Graff’s promotes the idea that teachers must prepare students to enter the world of academic discourse. I like his ideas about “teaching the conflicts;” this is the way that scholars and audiences make meaning of texts. Nuanced interpretations of texts create subtle differences of meaning. Students need to first understand the scholarly vernacular being used, and if instructors need to “translate” it for them, then so be it. The essential thing is that students become familiar with the academic climate of debate and that they learn to develop their own voices within this culture.

Scott’s handouts were very helpful in understanding Graff’s arguments and how he relates to our other major theorists.

Murray Presentation

The notion that Murray focused mainly on influencing the curriculum and pedagogy of secondary education, must have been a result of the troubling experiences he, himself, had in high school. This is great because I know I see dozens of students on a daily basis whose needs aren’t met in secondary public schools.

Murray believed composition instruction should be both “product driven and process-oriented,” combining the ideas of Kinneavy(?) and Elbow. He further developed hese ideas in his pre-vision, vision, and revision strategies. I believe the most important thing a teacher can do for a student is to help him discover a vision. Teaching information or even skills is one thing, but if you can inspire and motivate a student by assisting them in realizing their vision, you have empowered them to continue learning and growing on their own.

The pre-vision signals were very interesting to me, and I’d like to learn more about some of them (news, line ?). Following surprise is also an interesting idea... I loved Tony’s approach to the presentation. He brought a lot of good energy and showed us this theorist’s ideas instead of just telling us.

Lunsford Presentation

It was refreshing to hear of another theorist (Elbow and Murray being others) who struggled to achieve her place in the field. Lunsford’s humility in addressing the challenges of “making it” in the world of academe is encouraging, because the pompousness of some of these other guys can be nauseating at times. Her ideas regarding collaboration are noteworthy. Her relationship with Lisa Ede and others shows that the result of consistently exposing yourself to differing view points (and even just different personalities) can be the impetus that inspires great work.

One of the interesting ideas associated with Lunsford is her focus on the absence of attention to memoria in rhetoric study since the introduction of print. I think Ong would be particularly interested in this too, seeing how this was the most essential aspect of the word in purely oral cultures. So, how does Memory factor into rhetoric when language is based mainly on the printed/electronic word? The only “memory” I can think of is on a USB drive, which simply gives the electronic word more agility and longevity.

Ong - Exploring Secondary Orality

The most interesting aspect of the Interface of the Word metaphor is the question mark at the end of the illustration. What is the future of the word? By labeling the advent of the “electronic word” secondary orality, Ong suggests that the visual will be dethroned by the oral. When we look at technology today the future is not completely clear; however, one thing is for certain: the word is expanding in new ways. Technology is transforming not only composition and education, but in a broader sense, it is changing the way society thinks.

Both visual and oral components are flourishing in the fields of composition, pedagogy, and communication. For example, the dominance of the visual word is still obvious in the record number of books that are published each year. Emails, blogging, text messaging, and web 2.0 have become dominant forms of communication. In addition, scholarly research may be done primarily through the computer today, but it still relies on text based information. The immense popularity of iTunes, the emergence of audiobooks, and the availability of lectures, speeches, and podcasts online has re-established the oral word as a major mode of cognition. While both oral and visual make strong independent claims for authority in language, the hybridization of the two may be the most interesting aspect yet. The use of webcams and video sharing (YouTube) cannot be overlooked. Combined oral and visual modes of communication are becoming some of the most commonly used forms of communication and are becoming much more important in tertiary education. (However, few secondary or primary schools actually fully utilize this technology.)

Regardless, Ong is right: this transformation of the word is changing the way that we think. Further evidence of the move from print to electronic culture can be seen in the radically changing newspaper industry. The demand for print editions of newspapers is quickly diminishing, so companies are turning to the web to deliver their information and opinions. We are now a society of excessive multitasking and rampant attention deficit disorder. We imbibe information in short bursts: we read a few lines here, watch a 50 second video clip there, and we’re set. I’m not criticizing this revolution in society, nor was Ong. It’s just fascinating to take a step back sometimes and look at how much the word (and world) is changing.

Ong on YouTube link

Thoughts on Elbow

Elbow’s idealism is attractive because he makes himself accessible and identifiable with the writing student. He uses his failures in writing to relate to the average, struggling composition student. The free writing ideas presented are helpful; it is encouraging to hear someone as influential as Elbow endorsing the idea of “mess-making.” The problem I see with my students though is that they often never bother cleaning up the mess. The question I had during Tim’s presentation concerned evaluation. Elbow claims to only give positive feedback, so my question is how do students improve their writing? The article provided some insight in this area: “I stress my own conviction that the goodness or badness in a piece of writing is an ‘unknown’ and that the only trustworthy measuring instrument we have is the reactions of as many real readers as possible” (594).

The importance of finding one’s voice and really coming into the ensuing “sincerity” in one’s writing was powerful for me. I now understand this to be the key to expressive writing. Expressivism has always been attractive for me, but understanding its potential contribution to all aspects of writing is immense.

Thoughts on Kinneavy

The religious influence on Kinneavy is of particular interest for me, for Catholicism also made a heavy impression on Walter Ong, the subject of my presentation. We see this with Elbow as well. In a way these authors seemed to look at composition as a spiritual act. Might the anxiety Kinneavy felt towards the transgressive aspects of literature be a result of his conservative social values?

It seems that Kinneavy, at least to some degree, deserves the acknowledgement he receives for his contributions to the field of composition and rhetoric. His ideas may be challenged, just as any other scholar, but the impact he made in helping to solidify a place for rhetoric in the college educational system is significant. I would like to read more of his work; the excerpts which Klayton provided for us were very intriguing. I’d like to find out more specifically about how his ideas in A Theory of Discourse have been used in composition instruction. Also, how and why did he have such a big impact on the standardized testing movement? To me this seems counteractive to the progress he was making in other areas of composition and rhetoric. His consideration of the implications of technology on composition is very important too. He was able to acknowledge the tremendous impact that technology has on language and communication.

Paul Kei Matsuda's "Process and Post-Process: A Discursive History"

Basically, this article looks at the name game of composition theory, especially regarding the process and post-process methods and how these terms, and the variety of ideas represented by them, apply to the field of L2 writing. Matsuda gives a solid review of the different approaches to grammar and composition theory in regard to L2 writing in the last 40 to 50 years. The current-traditional approach is well contrasted against the foundational ideas of the process movement. However, various scholars have challenged the labels given to certain ideas and have created new ones, attempting to redefine the boundaries of these approaches. For example, Faigley, Bizzell, and Berlin all, more or less, saw three philosophies represented in the process movement: expressive, cognitive, and social (72). The problem came when people like Trimbur decided that the social aspect should constitute its own movement, which he dubbed post-process (73). For me personally, I don’t see the big deal, and I feel Matsuda is leaning the same way. It doesn’t matter what you label it; the focus should be on the effectiveness of these practices and whether or not they are truly helping students become better writers. Matsuda’s ultimate purpose when discussing the post-process is “to show how such a term could mask the complexity of ideas to which it refers, and to caution against defining post-process as the complete rejection of all tenets of process pedagogy or theories” (78). Because Trimbur does not propose any new strategies, nor does he say anything really relevant, I see this as a moot point. Matsuda says “the post-process movement does not represent a unified theoretical front” (73). The main issue seems to be that different scholars rank the three process ideas in various degrees of importance, but these scholars are all still looking at the same ideas and simply putting brackets around the min different places.

There are critics like Kent who “construed ‘process’ as an attempt to develop ‘a generalized process or Big Theory’” (74). The author implies that Kent is misguided in this assertion, and rehashes the point that process writing is full of a “multiplicity of L2 writing theories and pedagogies” (65). I personally think the process approach has a great deal to offer in writing instruction. Acknowledging that students have something to say, helping them find their voice, encouraging creativity, reinforcing the revision process, and using student writing as a crucial text are all great ideas that can go a long way in improving students’ writing and potentially even their attitudes about writing.