Issue Number One
Defining Composition
Reading over Durst's data in chapters three and four, caused me to mainly ponder why there is such a lack of definition as to what an English course is. The students Durst polled seemed to not really even know the main point and basis of composition study. They seemed to think of it as an extended grammar lesson, where they had to write in perfect textbook phrasing. Most of the writers, even those that showed skill at it, denounced themselves as poor because they were unable to correctly place a comma here and there. The students not only did not know what to expect from the class, but they didn't know what good it would do for them either. They gave vague, pardon my French, kiss ass answers as to what they thought they would learn. (e.g. I think this class will help me grow as a student. I think it will broaden my horizons.) The students gave stock, patent, answers because they truly did not know what Composition study could offer them. None of them particularly saw it as an outlet allowing them to better present their thoughts, opinions, and ideas to the world.
Why is there such a lack of understanding about what Composition study is truly all about? Why, when I tell people I am an English major, do they assume I sit around all day and do grammar exercises? What can be done to better situate students to understand what composition is? To be honest, I think when students enter college, they should be given a new outlook on Composition and English studies. Perhaps before the course even starts, a teacher should re-orient the students’ definition of writing through discussion and debate. Otherwise, I'm not sure if any amount of superior teaching can help students to become better writers. After all, if students come into a class dreading it, they are very hard to get motivated, interested, and involved.
ISSUE
A Fear of Writing
One other major thread I noticed in Dust's findings is that may students enter college composition classes with trepidation. While it is common for Freshmen to be unsure of themselves, people seem to fear writing at a higher, more dramatic rate. What causes this intense fear? Are all high school teachers grammar, automatons that torture their students for misused punctuation? Or is it that lack of definition in composition study, which leads students to fear it? After all, we have a tendency to fear the unknown. And if students are unsure of what their English classes will offer them, or they have some horrible misconstrued conception of them, then it is easy to assume that they would be afraid to enter the courses.
Perhaps another reason why students fear writing is that they’re not given any agency over it in much of their study. They are not told that writing is a vehicle for their self-expression. They are told, in more or less words, that writing is a way to get, or more importantly, not get, a grade. I remember teachers who high school who assigned my work a point value. It seems to funny to break down creative work that way. And to be honest, that point value looming over me, often stymied my creativity. Instead of thinking of the next idea I could express, I obsessed over passive and impassive voice so as not to lose "points."
What can be done about students' fears? What can be done to make them see writing as a place to grow? These questions are important for all future and present teachers to consider. It is hard, if not impossible to teach someone who is scared to death to make a mistake. Learning is all about making mistakes, after all.
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Reflections on Durst Ch. 3:
I think a major problem with pre-college English classes is that writing is “Writing.” In high school, literature is this giant monolith that students (and most people) can never match with their own efforts. In college, when students are asked to write more than they have ever written before, this view of writing as an impossible climb does not mesh well with the demands of a composition class. I saw this attitude in many of the quotes within Durst: students trying to replicate the “proper” tone of respectable English which marks a learned person, but looking ridiculous in the process.
Writing doesn’t have to be deep, ponderous, inflated, or thesaurus-y to be successful, and I think this is important for students to know from day one. If they don’t know this, I think they’ll be too busy trying to write in a code of “proper” English, losing their meaning along the way. Students should know that English doesn’t have to be this burdensome, ponderous thing. It can be light, it can be funny, and it can be successful without sounding like one of Thomas Jefferson’s rough drafts.
So how can we let students write without fear? I think blogging is the best way to do this. If students were required to blog –let’s say, once a week—for a composition class, I think many of them would realize that writing can be anything they want it to be. And the blogs don’t necessarily have to be about English; if students write about the topics that they’re interested in, they’ll find writing much easier than they previously assumed. This idea is very similar to the “journals” I was forced to write in a few English classes, which no one (yes, even me) took seriously. Blogging would allow students to formulate arguments about ideas without them having to worry about “proper” essay construction.
Reflections on Durst Ch. 4:
The pragmatism and “Why do we have to learn this?” attitude that Durst writes about in chapter 4 are not exclusively limited to lower class and minority students (though he doesn’t explicitly state this). Many of my undergraduate peers, from freshman to senior year, had this attitude, and some even ruined many classes that would have been valuable experiences without their attendance. Obviously, the negative freshman attitudes that Durst examines are not just limited to freshman; and, as teachers, I think we should make it our duty to change them. Otherwise, things will be difficult for both the students and ourselves.
As an aside, I think pragmatism in regard to learning is becoming a symptom of the American identity, as is anti-intellectualism and a sense of entitlement. This may be a discussion for another day, though (or maybe a different class).
I was happy to see that the successful strategy employed by the teachers is what I’ve always believed in: getting students interested in writing. For example, the student writing about mountain bikes eventually developed a real passion for English. When I tutored students unsure of what to write about, they were completely shocked when I told them that they could actually write about subjects they were interested in. This advice didn’t come from a book, but rather from a strategy that I often use; for example, my senior seminar paper was on The Simpsons and comic theory, and another paper I wrote that year (which got me into Kent) compared the works of Jonathan Swift to The Colbert Report. Through writing about subjects I thoroughly enjoyed, I was able to explore “literary” subjects that I wasn’t as passionate about.
Teaching Apprehension
I was so pleased about the title and intro to Chapter Three. Allusions to surrealists—what? I love when academics nod to artists. That’s so hot. The invocation of the de Chirico painting and Apollinaire’s poetics was engaging and thoughtful; more, it modeled inventive, smart writing.
With my first week of teaching College Writing II just behind me, I felt that so much of this chapter applied to me. While I enjoyed the reading, it did rouse some apprehension. Realizing what different places students and instructors come from, especially on that precious first day, is distressing. Looking back to last week, I realize already I could have done things differently, or more effectively. For example, the essay that Sherry employs on the first day—having her students write their biographies and expectations for the course—is so wise! This gives the instructor an immediate indication of the students’ backgrounds while also establishing each student as an important member of the class with a relevant history and future.
Of course, this all is difficult to gage, because the students are often trying to “construct the right kind of persona” (Durst 36). Though I know this to be true (I’ve had nearly two decades of student experience), I was still shocked to read it. Perhaps what scared me most was Durst’s assertion: “We therefore cannot take students’ comments about writing at face value as accurately and unambiguously reflecting their attitudes and experiences” (38). And he’s right, but still my instincts are to trust. Ask them to write a personal essay but be weary of it? I want to trust the students, to give them a few inches so they step through the door . . . Forgive my metaphor here, but I think you get the picture.
A natural optimist, it was difficult for me to read Durst’s opinion that most students want to squeak by on they least they can, that they care little for critical literacy and only want the “secret” to writing (61)—that they “want to do less” (59).
I think this stems from a general misunderstanding about English class, which I think is illustrated in John’s excerpt: “I have never been able to express myself well on paper; this is due to the fact that I understand very little about grammar” (43). His lack of confidence is a problem in itself, but his confusion as to what writing is/can be is more disappointing. When did we exchange self-expression with the study of grammar? And why do so many English students make this mistake?
As Durst defines in Chapter Four, English 101 is meant to be (and can be) an “intellectual orientation [. . .] that will prepare students for not just the writing but also the kinds of intensive, rigorous thinking, reading, speaking, and problem solving that make up a university education” (73)—not the Grammar Bootcamp that so many think. (And want? What is that about? Or is that just the sycophantic persona kicking in? I hope so. Not that there’s anything wrong with wanting to learn grammar; it just seems very unlikely that this would be the case, especially with this population.)
I’m eager to read more Durst, mostly because Chapter Four left me feeling anxious. He chooses to end with Rachel, the most successful student who also happens to be the most docile—d’oh! And of course Durst knows this: “It is somewhat ironic that the student to enter most fully into the critical, analytic ways of writing stressed by the 101 curriculum was the student who most carefully followed directions and did little questioning of the curriculum” (90-1). The answer to this problem? I think it hinges largely on time. A one-semester course cannot completely alter a student’s learning style. With more exposure to critical teaching methods, however, the students should learn. This is an “orientation” after all (73).
I thought it was kind of interesting in chapter four when Durst found out students were doing far less work than their teachers expected them to be doing. The students Durst polled were not even poor students; in fact they were doing well. How can this be? Do teachers have the tendency to overestimate the difficulty of their class and subject manner? Or, as I suspect, do teachers often pander to the weakest students, leaving the more advanced students un-challenged in some ways? How can we reconcile this problem as teachers in our classrooms? How do we make sure that the students with the least experience get the same opportunity to learn that those that are more prepared do? How do you go slowly enough for the students who need more time to absorb things, and fast enough so that the rest of the class doesn't become bored?
I think these questions are difficult to answer. When you have 30 people in a class, it is hard to make things completely "equal" for all because no two students come in with the exact same strengths and weaknesses.
Being a teacher, means walking these sorts of perilous lines all the time.
To adress the question of orienting new students to the goals of composition class, the first day of the semester the teacher should explicitly outline the course objectives in as plain language as possible. For instance, "This class is NOT about simply learning how to write grammatically correct papers. This class will show you how to compose YOUR IDEAS and strucutre them in meaningful ways." Break the ice as soon as possible. That way, reagadless of each student's background, everyone will be on the same page.
I find it very intersting that Durst questioned the case of Joshua, the student who consistently wrote about mountain biking (86-7). Durst questioned that Josh may have shortchanged himself by sticking to a topic he knew well, that he would have been more challenged to write about other topics. I believe that Joshua is among the students who got the most out of the class. Even though his overall topic did not vary, his individual papers were not identical, so he did get a grasp of various writing techiniques and strategies. The fact that he was motivated and persued his writing beyond the class is exceptional, and is exactly what the class was designed to do. He will, no doubt, be given ample assignments on other topics throughout his academic career, and what he learned from the course will be applied to those projects.
Now, pardon my cynicism, but we will not turn high school seniors into Nobel laureates in the course of one semester. But, laying the foundations of analytical writing is a very obtainable goal, which was achieved very well in the case of Joshua.
Then again, I may be off the mark and should expect more out of my students. What do you guys think?
Thoughts on Durst and my own conclusions.
First let me say that I found Durst to be quite a formidable read, unlike the earlier stuff we have been reading. His writing was simple and clear, and when it comes to reading about theory, this is good stuff. Which leads to a braoder question of writing and reading going hand in hand. So often stdents disassociate writing from what they actually like to read and see them as separate constructs (although this was not touched on in the Durst reading, it came to my mind). Perhaps asking students to bring in examples of what they consider to be good writing would help open up a deeper discourse in an introductory writing class.
Back to the Durst reading, much of what he said in Chapter 3 leads me to contemplate what I believe I would like to try in the classroom.
First I love the idea of a prompt and begining with students writing about their relationships with writing. Although I agree with his assumption that one cannot take to heart everything a student says in an essay like that, it helps break the ice. Also the second prompt of discussing what the students expected to get out of the class gives great insight into the students expectations.
I also reacted to Durt's comment that the students felt that academic forms of writing were much more difficult (p.45). I asked myself why this was. The only answer I could come up with was that these students associated writing academically with a set right and wrong. Instead of approaching an academic paper with the idea of thinking critically and reflectively, they see writing as having a right way and a wrong way which probably produces the grammer-phobia and five paragraph pyramid minds that are now our problem as college professors.
This I think has to be attacked from the begining, and I agree with Brandon's idea that it has to be laid out at the start of the semester. Along with setting an atmosphere where the students are comfortable writing and free-thinking (because writing can be about place for many writers), there also needs to be class discusion on what we as a whole think writing is and our goals to become better writers.
Another thing that struck me in the Durst reading is the notion that students want some sort of prescribed formula for writing a good paper, and they often don't proof-read or revise. And I think as a teacher I will be emphatic about the great tool that revision can be. As an undergrad I admittedly wrote papers much like the students in Durst's survey, the night before they were due and paid little attention to the comments when they were handed back. Until one day, given the opportunity to revise, I read the comments and started to analyze my work. I then had a renewd perspective, and I started doing this with each paper. I think it made me a better writer. You cannot improve on your writing if you cannot look at it and see where it needs fixed. So all these students in Durst's study said they wanted to become better writers. Then my answer for them would be read and re-read your own work.
Durst also touched on the importance of writing overall. I believe students that have the concern that intro to college writing is a waste of time need to understand that throughout their college career there will be times that a paper may be the primary way that the professor gains insight into their thoughts and reflections as a student. This is their opportunity to express the way they view the material. This is why it is so important as a solid foundation.
This is my first blog – ever. While I’ve resisted technology and am only temporarily embracing it for the sake of this course, I recognize that blogging is a great means of expression and communication. Giving incoming students, who are already accustomed to MySpace and Facebook (which are successfully limiting the human element of social interaction), an opportunity to blog, outside the confines of grammar and research, may be the spark needed to excite them.
Durst mentions a desire to communicate as a reason for success of some young writers. It seems to me that this is the only reason to write. Granted, there may be other reasons. However, even a journal is often a means of communication with myself, to better understand myself as a person, to collect my thoughts, and so on. Emphasizing this to students, that writing, even fictional writing, is a way to communicate some message, to whomever, may prompt writers in a way that simply assigning a research paper may not.
In many freshman composition classes, initial assignments involve making an argument, and doing research to support this argument. The class may culminate in a major, and often dreaded, research paper. While this paper can help prepare students for other research to be done in their four year, undergraduate experience, a better means of engaging students, at least initially, would be assigning a very unstructured, wide-open paper, that could be creative, argumentative, non-researched, or whatever the student wishes to undertake. Giving them the chance to say whatever is on their mind may allow students to more fully appreciate the opportunity writing offers (see: blogging).
The instructor may even allow students to do no research for the first paper. Simply a collection of their own thoughts, or some story they wish to tell, even if it is made up, gets ideas flowing, and may even make students excited. Encouraging students to handwrite their papers, at first, makes the paper seem less academic. Eventually, after students are able to see writing as at least tolerable, and perhaps even joyful, then research papers can be assigned. Research may not be so dreaded when students now see the research as an aid and/or basis for the thoughts they want others to understand.
The Enigma of the Arrival
Durst’s third chapter was interesting in his description of first-year writers who do not consider themselves “writers.” He mentions, specifically, a young woman named Rita who refers to her bad grammar and poor hand-writing when asked to describe her writing. This, it seems, is a reflection of her academic background in both primary and secondary schools, where an emphasis may have been placed not on content or sound argument, but on superficialities.
The amount of emphasis on grammar and hand-writing necessary for primary and secondary education is debatable. What is clear, though, is that Rita’s writing suffered as a result. She appears to have been made nervous when asked to write, and while she admits that, often, she has good ideas, and is even excited about the chance to express them, she quickly loses faith once the process begins. Having become so preoccupied with things that mean little for the thoughts she wishes to convey – things that could easily be corrected after the idea is fully expressed – Rita feels deflated, and her excitement is now gone.
The case of Rita is sad for a couple of different reasons. One is that she clearly had something to say, but lost that desire when the thought of criticism for surface issues cropped up. More potential writers, like Rita, may be unintentionally censored by similar fears. Obviously, this train of thought ought to be broken in order for instructors to gain the most clear and thorough responses from their students.
It seems that the best way to develop, or at least, unveil young writers’ ideas is to encourage rough drafts of papers. Durst gives an example of when a young man, in high school, would intentionally make the draft as rough as possible, in a competition with friends to see who could turn in, essentially, the worst paper. However, this specific case would likely occur less at the college level, and seems to be more of an exception than a rule. Giving students a chance to write without fear of a low grade due to grammatical errors ought to be stressed, especially in a first draft, or even first round of papers for the semester. After a couple of drafts, and plenty of revision, students can be encouraged to tweak their paper in the end, so that no major grammatical errors distract from the overall message.
It is true that some students may not take the draft and revision process very seriously, and may hold off doing their best work until the very end. This, in the end, while unfortunate, is a problem young writers will have to fix themselves. An instructor can and should encourage the process to the fullest, making it a central component of the course. However, students taking a college level composition class are adults, and should be treated as so. If they do not take the opportunity to fully write drafts and participate in the revision process, then a lower grade can be expected.
When I was reading Chapter 3 (The Enigma of Arrival), one thing that stuck out to me (at the top of page 37) was Durst's declaration that "we have not been sufficiently aware of students' attitudes and prior knowledge about writing," and that we need to "re-examine our own approaches." This excited me somewhat, because I think it is really a common problem. It seems that every time I have a discussion with someone who is not an English major, especially if they are in the beginning stages of their undergrad work, they cringe when I tell them I'm a writer, and they express their distaste for writing papers. And most of the time, they hate their English classes because they say the instructor is boring, lectures the whole time, and doesn't lay out the course expectations appropriately. We don't need Durst to figure out that we need to re-evaluate our approaches. It's obvious by just talking to the students.
While I was reading some of the accounts of these students, I found myself pausing during my reading to daydream a bit about how I might approach a particular student, or what techniques or assignments I may use to engage them better. I liked that Durst asked his students to write on their own writing and course expectations at the beginning of the course. Often, students are asked to write about what they have learned at the end of a course, but that generally results in students spitting back the instructor's ideas, and they are generally not honest with themselves, which is most important. Although some of the students may not have shown much interest in writing, all of the examples were interesting and told a lot about each student, and allowed the instructor to target problem areas. One of the biggest problems, it seems to me, is that many students are intimidated by the idea of writing, and don't admit to being able to write. In my opinion, if one has learned a language and is literate, then one can write, because he or she is capable of communicating words. The grammatical stuff can come later. We talked about teaching function before form in our groups last week, and I think it is SO important when it comes to grammar. Toddlers learn language through interaction/ communication, and learn to correct their grammatical errors as they speak more. I think students should learn to correct their grammatical errors as they write more. The more a student practices writing comfortably, and about topics that are familiar to them, the more at ease they will feel when it comes time to proof-read and revise their own work. I think Bob is right when he says that many students don't take journals seriously (I myself can remember times in high school when I scrambled to finish a month's worth of journal entries in order to turn it in). However, I think journals are a great tool, when used correctly. I took a fiction workshop course during the spring, in which we were required to do daily writing exercises (both in and out of class), and later we were allowed to pull ideas from our exercises to start stories, which was really helpful. In my own classroom, I think I would definitely want to implement a similar practice, perhaps by giving daily writing prompts that would help to guide my students toward discovering a topic for an essay, and not necessarily an essay on a heavy issue such as abortion or capital punishment, but anything that a student really feels he or she can write about, and have something to say.
"I think I would definitely want to implement a similar practice, perhaps by giving daily writing prompts that would help to guide my students toward discovering a topic for an essay, and not necessarily an essay on a heavy issue such as abortion or capital punishment"
This made me think: I hope I can discourage such broad and overly-discussed "easy" topics like the ones Jillian mentioned above. When I was a tutor, it seemed like every other student defaulted to these topics because they couldn't think of anything else. And most of the time, the arguments they made were completely illogical and tried to establish some sort of objective morality.
So yay for blogging and journaling (though I prefer blogging).
Perhaps I’m prematurely old, antiquated, or not-so techno-savvy, but until this month I have managed to avoid using online journals, MySpace, and—for whatever reason—text messaging on my cell phone. This is, however, my second course this semester with a blogging component. I’m beginning to see how this could be valuable interactive element in a composition course. Practically everyone uses email and chatting, and a blog therefore seems like an approachable—and perhaps inconspicuous—medium for writing.
As Durst mentions in the third chapter, many students have little interest in “extending their writing processes, or in entering the sort of intellectual community that the composition class entails.” Contributing to a class blog might be a convenient, familiar way for students to begin the writing process, especially for those intimidated by the structure of formal paper writing. Replacing the traditional journal element of a course with a class blog also enables students to interact in the “intellectual community” of their peers (60). Responding to other classmates’ posts forces students to evaluate and articulate their own ideas. Blogs can therefore become thought-provoking, relationship-building, writing practice.
Reading the students’ self-evaluations in Durst’s third chapter was rather interesting. I felt like I was getting a preview of what to expect in a spring composition class. I confess, I was somewhat disappointed to read all the self-deprecating, derogatory comments about writing and English classes. Writing seemed to be such drudgery for most of the students! Ted’s paragraph, however, was a refreshing surprise, and a pleasant way to close the chapter. It reminded me that a composition class will have wit and insight as well as challenges.
As Mel mentioned in her post, I also like the idea of asking students to write a brief essay about themselves as writers and their goals for the course. This gives teachers an opportunity to learn a bit about each student’s personality, writing abilities, and writing objectives.
Writing about his/her perspectives on writing for an unfamiliar teacher on the first day of college English is probably a frightening prospect for a composition student. Perhaps rewording the parameters of the assignment might make it seem less daunting. For example, an “essay” can instead become “a few sentences” or “about half a page” that, like Durst’s Sherri says, “is not for a grade” (38). I also like Zebroski’s idea to use himself to “model a writer writing.” When he asked his students to write about their personal history as writers, he wrote a short, informal paragraph about himself and used it as an example in the class (Zebroski 9). This seems helpful—something like this helps students understand what teachers are asking them to do while alleviating apprehension about the assignment.
As Dust later points out, these initial comments cannot be taken too seriously. After all, most students attempt to ingratiate themselves with teachers/authority figures, and their positive comments may not reflect their actual attitudes and uncertainties. However, this type of introductory essay seems to be a useful way to evaluate new students/college writers and begin the reflective teaching practices discussed in George Hillocks’s text. After this initial assignment, a teacher can interpret, anticipate, and begin to adjust his/her course to meet the needs of these immediate students. Many of the students Durst mentions have misconceptions about “good” writing or their own abilities. As a teacher, I don’t know that I could help someone like Randy “find that special something” that will get him an A paper—if there even is a “special something”—but I might be able to guide him through a process or help with an idea (52). Although Hillocks advises teachers to articulate their own concepts of student success and student goals in advance and expressing them to the student (Hillocks 34), I think student goals are also an important aspect of class-wide objectives.
We seem to be talking quite a bit about the role of grammar in composition courses. Although I would certainly never give students grammar exercises, quizzes, or assault their essays with red ink, I do feel that it is my responsibility—on some level—to help students become better, more efficient communicators. Sometimes that means pointing out—and explaining--run-on sentences. Doesn’t it? I feel as if I would be doing students an injustice if I did not guide them though recurring problems or help them resolve issues that hindered the readability of their work. Obviously, a composition course is not the place to stress the minutiae of the English language, and, as Durst discusses in the third chapter, new undergraduates are already overly concerned with the “correctness” of their writing.
Rather than the traditional goals of “correctness, clarity, and conciseness”—or the “holy trinity” of composition—Durst suggests that reflectiveness, questioning, elaboration, and revision are more enriching, engaging, and provoking goals for students (57-59). These objectives seem to relate to the process of writing, rather than the finished product. Process-centered goals help students develop and practice skills that lead to a product—in this case, writing. As Jillian mentions in her post, grammar details are secondary to overall communication, and maybe students become more proficient writers through practice. Still, I do not want to placate them.
I suppose it is important to situate grammar instruction in an appropriate context. Helping students improve the cogency and style of their writing does not have to be about memorizing rules or diagramming sentences. I still applaud my English 102 professor for helping me through some passive voice issues, and for suggesting that try I burying my however’s and although’s within the sentence (he said it would read more "gracefully"). I am grateful for moments like those, and I feel that they have helped me become a better, more assertive writer.
A couple of you have announced that this is your first ever blogging experience. Congratulations! While I think that technology might be reducing the amount of face to face conversation we engage in everday, it is a constant and seemingly inevitable force in today's society. I agree with those of you who said that blogging might be a nice thing to incorporate in a beginning Freshmen course. As I said in class today, a lot of students are already engaging in blogging, and I think that by embracing that medium we can make writing seem less scary and foreign. We need to point out to students that they are probably already doing a lot of writing. Embracing blogging could help to redefine students definition of "writing." It doesn't all have to be about grades and grammar.
In regards to whether it is our responsibility to teach grammar, I'm not sure. From what I have read, grammar exercises do not seem to be an effective way to teach grammar. How then do you teach it? Researchers like Noam Chomsky seem to think that language is an innate ability people are born with. He writes about an internal language machine in the mind with little switches that need only be turned on to work. How do you turn those switches on? I don't think anyone has a good answer for that, because as of now, I've never come accross a grammar exercise or teaching plan that works.
Yeah, everyone seems to agree that grammar exercises don’t work. Just because I secretly loved them as a kid (yes, it’s sad), doesn’t mean everyone—or anyone—else does! I suppose the best way to learn about communication, vocabulary, and such is though reading and practice. Still, there is obviously some element of instruction and guidance involved learning. For new composition students, however, emphasizing rules and grammar seems debilitating and counterproductive. We want to encourage ideas, inquisitiveness, and productivity, right?
We can’t deny that there are language standards. Certain deviations from the “norm” do hinder readability, whether it is misplaced modifiers or misspellings. As we’ve discussed in class, telling a student who’s struggled through a paper, “Hey, Tom, that’s a run-on sentence!” can be potentially stifling. Still, I do think there is an appropriate time and an appropriate stage to guide students past these types of issues. Perhaps mentioning something one-on-one or making a suggestion on an essay might be a good approach—but only as a secondary or final concern later on in the course. Maybe, for some students, that stage doesn’t come in the initial composition class. I don’t know. But I do know that I can’t over-think this. Perhaps if I act as a source of encouragement and focus on goals of reflection, questioning, and elaboration—as Durst mentions—maybe the students can learn to as well. At least I hope so!
This is not intended to be an insult, but I'm surprised that so many of my peers in this grad program are not familiar with blogs, or they are familiar with blogs but they don't use them. (Note: By "blogs" I mean blogs with substance, as opposed to the journalish blogs out there.) I feel like a black sheep because I have two blogs and read about a dozen others. So, everyone should blog so I don't feel like such a nerd.
First, Notes to my fellow classmates.
I am with Becca (sorry Bob), I know what blogs are, but until now have never read or used one. Admitedly, I am still confused about their value.
I also agree with Becca about teaching, or not teaching but being aware of the importance of grammer as a tool to effectively communicate the written word. Sometimes grammer just is what is, like math or science. Does their always have to be a reason to just put a comma where it is supposed to go? Can't we just accept that we don't know why and just apply grammer rules? This is the way I have always seemed to ration it. What do you think?
Toughts on Hartwell:
Hartwell brings up some thought provoking ideas toward the end of his article. He says, "I think it's essential to establish a new language base in the classroom" (p. 12). I like this idea. Starting the semester or year off with new ground rules about how we are going to "talk" in the classroom, not just how we are going to write. the way in which he graphed these idea also helped me realize his point. The idea that "Language develops as product of participating in ideas" (p. 13) seems very reasonable to me.
It's like starting a new job. At first you don't know what to say to your co-workers; it is not that you have nothing to say or don't enjoy talking. It is that you haven;t figured out how to relate to them out loud. You don't know what is approiate to say and not to say, what might make them laugh, or just annoy the hell out of them. So you keep quiet until you figure it out; before too long you are taking too much.
I think that that is how a new classroom starts out. The only drawback is there is not as much time spent in the classroom as a traditional work setting. So the process needs to be sped up a bit. The main point is that language needes to arise organically just as much in the classroom as it does in the outside world. Which is why is an excellent point to allow the students to tell stories, narrate in class. To move away from the center as the teacher so much and let the students develop a language of their own.
I beleive that in this way the students can interact with language on a deeper levell and see how even though their is a fomal way of writing a paper, language is ultimately about communication and can be organic and shared.
Here are my views on the subject: Some rules of grammar are black and white, right and wrong, even if their roots are ridiculous. Other rules are provisional, and can be avoided in certain contexts.
More on blogs - I read them for criticism of media (TV, movies, etc.), news, and just to read the writings of writers I enjoy. I probably am involved in them so much because I spend way too much time on the internet. This Internet addiction has led me to do my fair share of freelance writing and blogging, though, so I don't mind. I just wish the pay was better.
I believe that fear in the English class is an outrageous thing, especially when i comes to writing and composition because teachers should be expalining that writing is mostly subjective and a good way to be creative. Of course, students must also concentrate on how to write academic papers, but i see now reason why we should scare our students in the 101 class. I mean, they just starting so why explain that the rest of their intellectual careers will depend on writing...why not explain that writing can fun and not nearly as threatening as they might think it is.
I know i talked about my fear in class and i think that if someone told me that everyone has different skills at writing then i might not have panicked. i expected that the teacher would ask me pointe blank to define grammar, diagram sentences, and write a full-out research paper the first week. And, of course, none of this happened. Instead my teacher had us read novels and then write accordingly, but we wrote what we wanted to write about. I think that as compostion teachers we need to remember that these students are not up for their thesis's yet, and some of them might never write that much, but we need to try to foster a love of writing or at least not pure fear of the subject.
As i was reading Chapter 3 i began to think about the subjectivity of writing. I mean, even if it is an "academic" paper, who is that says it is a good one or not? I think that as teachers we need to be aware of how much subjectivity goes into the grading of papers, and not try to preach certain ways of "correct" writing to our students. I know that there were times when i was a tutor that i thought a paper was fantastic and my partner thought it was horrendous... a lot of "good" writing is opinion based. I would like stress to my students that just because someone says it "isnt good" that doesnt mean that someone out there would think it is. I am not sure if i am completely off topic here, but this thought always pops into my head anytime that snyone says that "so and so is a great writer, but whats-his-name is not so much." I suppose that was a semi-harsh example, but i think you know what i mean. Any thoughts, or am i way off base just contemplating this??
Sorry that i popped off topic, but the idea of grammar right now is just too much, and i think that i am still "on the fence" about blogging and facebook in curriculms....i like the idea that students know the space well and feel more at home writing within them,but when will they learn that not everything can be explained with an "lol" or an "omg?"
Yeah, but blogs are not all "LOL," "OMG," and "WTF." Look at this blog, for example. I think if we redefine blogs as something more than LiveJournal/Facebook/MySpace ramblings, we can show people that they are new new home of news, criticism, and entertainment writing. Hell, I use my own blog to do the same thing (and as an excuse to write as much as possible). And one of the sites I write for Valley24, has the same goals. Blogs are great for people to think and write critically about things that would never be published in something like a newspaper. And you can't tell me that newspapers aren't boring.
In summation, blogs do not always equal social networking sites. We're all young people here, let's start acting like it!
Ashley, Bob, Mel, well, everyone writing in this strand! --
what you're all talking about here is so important - communicating with our students. really talking with them, beginning with where they are, what they know, what they need to learn, and what their conceptions/assumptions/desires/fears are. it's one of those things that no one would disagree with even though very few people actually talk about it explicitly. this is really the lasting value for me in what durst writes - by sharing data he systematically collected and analysed, he grounds his claims in these people's actual experiences. it's not as easy to disregard - "oh, that's just one person's [i.e., russel durst's] take on things."
and it all adds up, as your comments in this strand do for me, to the importance of knowing the people we teach, of adopting the role of learner in figuring out how we can best facilitate their learning. (and by knowing the people we teach, btw, i don't mean that we should be friends with them ... but successful teachers i've observed over the years have been ones who can connect in some way with her/his students in an individual way).
pam
To Mel's teaching apprehension .... while i'm reading through the blog, i'm listening to a new neil young album, live at massey hall, 1971 [which is really really good btw] and the song playing when i came to teaching apprehension was 'don't let it bring you down" - which, although the song doesn't apply really, the title does.
i remember my early years of teaching as roller coaster-ish [maybe one of you creative writers can help me polish my language here!]. i'd leave the room one day thinking i'd completely failed, what a miserable waste of time for everyone, no one was getting anything. and then the very next class meeting would be wonderful - someone would say something that would demonstrate they were learning, getting it, and someone else would respond to them and it would go from there and i'd feel such a high leaving the room. like what i was doing was meaningful outside my little life. i found teaching very addictive.
and the students who always charged me up the most were the ones who struggled - the ones who weren't docile and good students (as mel suggests, it's sort of no surprise that these students are the ones who succeed in school).
remember when durst wrote in the 3rd chapter: "Paradoxically, the essays that portrayed the writer, and writing in general, in a more negative light were often among the liveliest and most interesting to read. Those pieces that offered a more positive slant were often more general, insipid, lacking in conflict, distinctiveness, drama, or intensity" (47). I suspect this is the case because students who are rewarded by the educational system as writers are likely to be ones who can produce polished, correct prose, too often at the expense of interesting content. While the other side of the coin is that because of this over emphasis in school-based writing on correctness, students who may have something very interesting to say but don't say it correctly are penalized and come to believe themselves as bad writers. I'd take the writers who can produce intersting arguments and creative thinking over correctness any day (it's easier to teach the latter than the former).
related to this - I was talking with Jim Gaudino, the Dean of the College of Communication and Information the other day, and he said that there is an overemphasis in his college's faculty on grammatical and surface level correctness, too. When I said that I could see why journalism students should have a grasp of these surface level concerns, he said it really doesn't make sense because journalists and professional writers especially have so many levels of editorial interaction with their texts. it's all cleaned up by someone else and what really matters is that the writer has something to say!
pam
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