40 Years and Still Fighting

This article serves as a survey of feminist literary criticism over the last 40 years. While its purpose is to cover a wide range of material briefly, and not necessarily to present the reader with new information about the topic, it does manage to make a few points that seemed to stick out from the rest.
The first thing that stuck out to me was the need for this article in the first place. At the risk of sounding sexist, let me explain. It amazes me that in our current world that seems to pride itself on its acceptance of all people, we still find ourselves with such a disparity between the sexes. It baffles me that the world of academia, the supposedly enlightened portion of society, took so long to recognize the contributions of women. Even today, we find ourselves struggling to overcome these old habits.
I also found it interesting that they would include the remarks of Sullivan that men and women have differing cognitive skills (58). This seems to be contradictory to much of what is being said by other areas of feminism. There seems to be an aversion to the idea that there is a fundamental difference in the ways that men and women think. This admission lends itself to a judgment of value by those who are seeking to undermine the contributions of women. Sullivan’s idea that men and women should approach research differently sets the area of women’s studies up for attacks from those who would claim that men’s use of “the quantitatively focused scientific method” is more valid than women’s “qualitative research techniques.” While there may be very little difference in the final outcomes of these different methods, the fact that Sullivan claims that women are more seemingly more adept at one suggests that they are not as skilled in the other. I thought this was an interesting point to include in this particular piece.

It's Perfect - Don't Change Anything

I am torn when it comes to the use of peer review in the classroom. Many of the benefits that this article discusses are the same arguments that I use to defend my use of peer review in the classroom. On the other hand, many of the questions that the article raises are also very present in my own mind as I continue to use peer review in the classroom. The study done by Brammer and Rees seems to only further my confusion over the issue. Their findings seem to be aligned with the turmoil that I am already facing.
I feel very strongly that peer review can have a positive impact on the writing of students. I think that it can be a great benefit to students to have someone else read their material. Everyone can benefit from sharing their work with an outsider who is able to evaluate our work. When I use peer review, I stress to students that is is more than just an exercise in finding mistakes in the mechanics and grammar of a piece. The peer reviewer can look at the arguments being made in a piece. They can give feedback to the author as to the clarity and completeness of the arguments being presented. The peer reviewer can also evaluate the level of support that has been provided by the author. They can point out areas of the paper that may be weaker than others. They can help us see our work from a different point of view. There are plenty of benefits that come along with a quality peer review.
The phrase, “quality peer review,” is where my struggle is rooted. No matter how much time I spend working with students on the correct way to reviewer someone’s work, I always end up with just a surface level evaluation. Most of the marks made, if there are any made at all, are marks dealing with spelling or punctuation. There is very little discussion of the organization of a work. Most students fail to point out any areas of weakness in their peers work. They miss the point of the exercise. Part of this is due to the fact that they don’t see much purpose in the activity. They see it as a waste of time, as many of the students in the study reported. If students don’t take the exercise seriously, there is no point. Students may also struggle to evaluate another’s work because they don’t feel confident in their own writing. If they struggle to write, how can they possibly look at someone else’s work and make suggestions?

Brammer and Rees offer a suggestion that may solve this problem. They suggest that peer review becomes a part of each step of the writing process. By incorporating peer review into the early stages, prewriting and brainstorming, it gains more value with the writer. This solution also means that students would be spending more time doing peer reviews. This extended exposure to the process can increase a student’s level of comfort with it.

We've Lost Our Revision

I can understand how students would find the idea of rewriting a work to be foreign sounding. I would have to admit that I find it hard to really comprehend myself. I have never had to completely rewrite a work from beginning to end. The computer has taken away this particular hardship. In some regards I think that it is a benefit, but I can also see it as a downfall as well.

The computer has made writing a less intimidating practice. Students have more freedom when it comes to typing on a computer, or I guess I should say word processing. Students have the ability to make instant changes to their work.
We have seen the images of people hunched over a keyboard trying to “bang” out a paper quickly. The keys stick. The paper jams. The smallest mistake may require the retying of an entire page. No thank you. I would much rather have the freedom that a computer offers. Sitting comfortably over a keyboard. Constantly hitting the caps lock by mistake. Printing on a printer that never jams, or runs out of ink, or just looks at me and laughs. The only time that I have to retype is when I forget to save, or the computer shuts off, or when a hard drive crashes – which hardly ever happens. The only real difference, it seems, is that with a computer you have the freedom to make large changes to a work with very little effort. I am not sure whether this is good or bad. It allows students to move a paragraph from one location to another with just the click of a mouse. They can alter their organization with ease. There is something to be said about struggling though. If we make the writing process too easy for students, then I think that their writing is bound to suffer. While I can’t imagine myself rewriting a text 7 times, I have to wonder about what would happen if I did. What would I find in my writing if I decided to reexamine everything that I wrote 7 times?

By removing the rigor of revision, we have seemingly removed its importance as well. Students rely on their spellchecking software in order to catch all of their mistakes, and not on their own close reading of their text. The type and type until they reach the expected number of pages, and then they spell check, save, print, and turn it in, often without rereading it. By taking away the need for students to retype, we have taken away their need to read their work. They have lost all understanding of revision as anything more than a cursory glance at spelling and punctuation, if they even do that.

While I cheer for the invention of the word processor, I also lament the age of revisions that has seemingly passed us by. Students may be less intimidated to sit down and type now, but is their quality of work really worth the lack of trepidation? I just don’t know.

End note – This is draft number one of this entry.

A Little Bit of This and a little Bit of That

Bizzell seems to be one of the most practical figures that we have looked at so far. She seems to be able to look at what everyone is saying about composition, and take the pieces that make sense from each of them. She has used her experience in the field to sort through what everyone is saying, and pick out what makes the most sense to her and combining it into her own beliefs. She has not tried to reinvent the wheel or create a theory that opposes what is being said by other s in the field. She listens, and observes and then uses all of the pieces to come up with a complete picture. I think that Shaynee was correct in using the puzzle as an analogy for Bizzell’s theory.
Bizzel’s thoughts on writing and thinking were very interesting. We can’t just stop at teaching our students how to write. By giving them only the skills to write, we assume that our students will be able to use them. The problem is, our students don’t always have the skills that they need to think. They are often lacking the basic understanding of how to approach a problem or how to think through something that is difficult. According to Bizzell, one of our roles as the teacher is to teach our students to think. They have to be able to do this before they can write effectively. Grammar and punctuation are not important if the thinking is not there. The trick, also according to Bizzell, is that we cannot separate writing from thinking. We have to teach students to connect their writing with their thinking. Writing gives students a way to think through a problem and then go back and retrace their steps. Writing allows them to express a jumble of ideas one at a time in an order that makes sense. We can’t just focus on writing, but on the relationship that writing has with thinking. We can’t look at only one part of the problem.
I also liked Bizzell’s thoughts on the needs of students, and how we meet those needs. Some teachers focus only on additive teaching. They present students with the rules of writing and show them what “good” writing looks like and hope that that will be enough for students to become “good” writers. Other teachers just focus on the students’ role in a discourse community and provide them with select skills that they need in order to succeed. They don’t worry about the formal properties of writing or the ideas that students use to write. These two styles of teaching leave out vital aspects of understanding if they are taken separately. Bizzell suggests a third solution in the combination of both. She advocates the use of the rules and forms of writing alongside the greater implications that writing can have in the society.

Stuck in the Middle

I think that I would find myself somewhere between Elbow and Bartholome in their debate over the best way to teach composition. Some of the areas they discuss I feel very strongly one way or the other. Some areas I can see myself going either way on. Some of the areas I may feel one way about, but the current state of education makes it difficult for me to proceed the way I would like to.
When it comes to what students should write about, I find myself in the middle of the debate. I think that there are definitely types of writing that students must be able to do that would be considered academic. They need to be able to form their thoughts in to a comprehendible argument. They should be able to correctly write a letter and form complete paragraphs. These are things that student need to know. I also believe that it is important that students have a chance to write something that has no set form, or expectations from me. They need to see writing as an activity that can be done for no reason other than a means for expressing something that they feel is important. There needs to be a balance between personal writing and academic writing.
I agree with Bartholome in regard to how students should understand their roles in larger sense. Students need to be able to understand their position as a member of a bigger social group. I think that it is doing students a disservice if we fail to show them how they are influenced, and in turn influence, the world around them. They are individuals, but I don’t think that anyone is able to go through life without being impacted by some outside force. Students need to understand the way that they are affected by these outside forces in order to make a decision about whether they choose to be influenced by them or not.
I don’t know if I could justify using students’ writing as the key text for a course. I think that it definitely has a place in the curriculum. I have students do short writing pieces that we will later use to work on skills like identifying main ideas and voice. By using their own work, students are able to see these ideas in their own words, and not just in a text book. It also shows students that their writing has merit and worth to their understanding of topics being covered in class. I am right between these two men here.
I find Bartholome’s use of the term “frontier guide” to be pretty funny. I think that he is taking a shot at those who tend to turn their students loose on a topic and let them wander around in the wilderness of academe. Hopefully, these students will all make it out on the other side. While I don’t see myself as a frontier guide, I don’t think that I would label myself as manager either. I think that while I may have to use the skills of a manager to keep students on task and focused, the title is not quite accurate. I think that Elbow’s term may be closer to how I see myself. I teach my students the basic skills they need, provide time for them to practice these skills, but at the end of the day it is up to them to perform or not.

Conlfict in the Classroom? Bring It On!

I agree with what Graff has to say about a lot of things. He seems to make a lot of sense in his discussion of composition and education.
His views on conflict, and discussion over curriculum were particularly interesting for me. I think that it makes a lot sense to use conflict over a particular novel or subject being taught in order to engage students in the material. Students enjoy disagreeing, so what better way to get them involved than by giving them something to disagree with. If a teacher can get a group of students to become engage in an on-going discussion over the merits of a particular work, or its value to them in the future, then I think that those students are much more likely to stay engaged. Scott talked about using conflict as a catalyst for teaching, which makes sense. The students need some way to approach the material, and a conflict is one way they can do this. This takes a lot of confidence in the teacher though. The teacher has to be willing to bring conflict into the classroom. For some, this is a pretty intimidating idea. It requires the teacher to be prepared to defend the choices she is making in class and support these choices. It also means that you will be creating a group of students who will begin to question what you are doing more frequently. This is one of the most important lessons we can teach students. They need to begin to question. They need to have knowledge of all sides in a debate, before they can begin to understand it.
This leads right into another point that Scott made on behalf of Graff. Graff’s claim that argumentation is the basis for all fields really made sense as well. I think that in everything that we do, academically, socially, professionally, etc., we are forming some argument. When are constantly trying to present a point to someone else in the hopes that they will agree with it and support us. If we lack the skills to form an argument, we are going to be crippled in nearly all aspects of our lives. We have to be able to pass this information along to students. They need to be able to make a claim, support it, and the revise their claim if needed. This seems simple enough, but it is one of the most difficult things for students to understand. They grow up listening to poor arguments from adults, “Because I said so,” and they never see a need to improve their own argumentation skills. By giving students a chance to form arguments and debate an issue in a safe and controlled environment like the classroom, we provide them with the opportunities that they need to develop their own skills of discussion and argumentation. They need to be able to argue logically and civilly in order to fully interact with the world.

Lunford's quests

Nancy’s focus was on Lunsford’s attention to the role of women, historically, in the area of writing. She also discussed Lunsford’s ideas about the role of collaboration present in much of her writing. These areas highlight Lunsford’s work in the past, as well as what she is continuing to do today.
Lunsford spent a lot of time working to change the image of women’s roles in writing. She struggled against the male-centered world of academia in order to reach the goals that she had set for herself. She was able to pursue a higher education even after she was turned away initially. Lunsford continues to work to address the roles of women in the classes that she teaches today. In order to bring the works of female writers to the attention of her students, she pairs them with well-known male authors. By introducing her students to the little-known female authors, she can begin to demonstrate to her students that women have been important figures as long as men have been. As a culture, we tend to overlook the contributions of women writers. Lunsford is working to put a stop to this trend. She finds works and authors form the major stages in composition that have been marginalized for most of recorded history.
Lunsford also spends a lot of time focusing on the idea of collaboration in writing. She claims that, “all writing is collaborative.” Even when we write on our own we have a dialogue running through our head. We respond to what we have heard, or read from other sources. We think through and address arguments that people might make against our own argument. We have people read what we have written in order to verify that it is clear and comprehensible. In the most overt forms of collaboration, we work side by side with another person to create a single piece of writing. We discuss back and forth about the topic and create a more complete argument through this discussion. Lunsford modeled her ideas regarding collaboration through much of her work. She wrote many titles with her collaborator Lisa Ede. Even though the two had very different styles of writing and the process that accompanies it, they were able to use these differences in order to create a stronger work. They worked together and helped each other overcome their shortcomings. This collaboration proves to be an effective example for those who read their works. Her work with collaboration also continues today. She is constantly pushing for changes in the world of higher education in regard to collaboration. She is seeking acceptance for collaborative graduate dissertations, and thesis projects. While many see these changes as an attack on the integrity of academia, Lunsford sees them as a chance for students to work together in order to create a stronger end product.

Murray and the 'process'

I was very interested in Murray’s thoughts on writing. I think that his focus on pre-vision, vision and re-vision is an effective way to let students know what the writing process should look like. As an English teacher, we are constantly trying to stress the importance of the process involved with writing, usually with little effect.
I particularly liked the idea that you should not start writing until you had taken a significant amount of time to discuss your work with yourself. This is something that writers do that seems foreign to students. They are under the impression that they should begin writing right away in order to finish quickly. They take no time for thinking over the information. They take no time develop an argument to guide their work. They take no time to reach some point of destination for their work. They just sit, and usually end up staring at a blank page until they finally exclaim, “I don’t know what to say.” It would be interesting to give them an assignment that prohibited any written work until they could discuss their subject with themselves, or another student. It would be equally interesting to present them with the idea of a writing signal that ‘tells’ students when they should begin writing.
The vision phase is often seen as a condensed version of the re-vision phase. Students begin to revise too early in the process. They spend too little time developing an order and meaning to their work and focus on spelling and grammar errors. This leaves students with a seemingly wandering sense of order in their work. Without enough time to develop meaning, students are left with very thin arguments and little support. They don’t put the appropriate effort into the ground work, and they are left lacking in the end.
The final phase of writing is where students seem to jump to before they work on the real structure of their writing. The re-vision phase focuses on the voice of the paper, and the final editing of the mechanics. While this is an important step, it is not the most important step. If a student spends the majority of his writing time here, he loses the time that should be spent developing and crafting a paper. The edit, according to Murray is the last act of the writer in order to become the reader’s advocate. Even if a work is free from errors and is easy to read, that does not guarantee that there is anything worth reading.
The discussion of the environment that accompanies writing was also interesting. We sometimes forget that our students are going to react to the way that we present an assignment, and not just the content of that assignment. If we continue to force students to write within a rigid frame, we are going to push them even further away from writing. We have taken one of our most basic means of communication and alienated our students from it.

Ong and the world of tomorow

Walter Ong makes a very interesting point about the development of our ‘global village.’ We constantly hear about the role of capitalism or commerce in expanding borders. We hear how the world is made smaller by our use of the telephone or video technology. But, according to Ong, the real source of our current world-wide community is our dependence on secondary orality. Ong argues that we have transitioned form a culture that first was only concerned with the group. Because our communication was limited only to what could be spoken to one another, cultures held the group as the primary focus. The group was where we spent our time. Our thoughts centered on those around us. It wasn’t until the introduction of the written word that we began to turn our focus inward. We began to think and process the world around us on our own terms. We moved the focus of understanding away from the group and turned it on ourselves. People were able to interact with ideas, concepts and beliefs in the privacy of their own mind. This transition was expanded with the invention of the printing press. More people were able to access words in a standard format. We could disseminate information to entire people groups. This allowed the greater portion of our community to begin to think. It was not just the elite and wealthy who had the opportunity to touch and hold knowledge. The lowliest peasant could learn to understand the written word because it was readily available. Even with this widespread access to words, we continued to turn inward. People focused on their own thoughts and only entered the realm of public discourse on specific occasions. It wasn’t until we had spent a significant amount of thinking in the confines of the individual that we began to look outward to the rest of the world. With the introduction of what Ong calls secondary orality, we began to reach out to those around us. We feel an obligation to look at the world around us because we have first looked at ourselves. We have a need for spontaneity because we have decided that it is beneficial. We find this spontaneity in others. It is this transition from the group to the individual and back to the larger group that has lead to our current system of discourse.
We continue to develop this realm of secondary orality in order to keep up with the changes in technology that accompany it. As the means of communication advance, we must adjust our use of them in order to make the most of these systems. We must learn to interface with a new system every few years. This time frame is decreasing steadily. As the technology drives forward, we must scramble to keep up.

Hooray for DNA!

While I found the subject matter being covered in Sidler’s article interesting, I don’t know if I share her belief that our current study of the human genome is going to drastically change the way that we teach and understand composition in the near future. I think that, as a result of the larger scope of technological advances currently taking place in all sectors, there will be marked changes in composition, but I don’t know if they will be the result of a single area of research. The studies that Sidler mentions will cause changes, but these changes will be gradual and will occur in tandem with other advance. I don’t think that we can clearly separate the effects of one advancement over another. I will take a moment to discuss some of the points that Sidler makes in her article.

Our students’ environments will be changing. I can’t imagine that anyone involved in education would argue with the fact that the world is different than it was even ten years ago. The world is much faster than it was when I was in high school. Nearly all of my students have cell phones. They walk around with iPods permanently attached to their ears. Their primary form of communication is text messaging. Not only is the world changing to a faster format of communication, but these changes are coming faster and faster. The jump from email to instant messaging took several years. People were “slow” to make a transition from a relatively stable form of communicating, one that at least offered a chance for revision and reflection, to amore instantaneous one. This provided an easier jump to an even faster and more convenient form of communication. As the technology improves, people are more willing to jump to the newest trend in communication. Our students are going to be among those who make the jump first. We have to be aware of the changes and be ready to adapt to them as well. We can no longer sit back and wait for a form of communication to develop. Our students’ environments are changing so rapidly, that, if we wait, they will have already moved on to a new technology before we even start to consider learning it.

One aspect of Sidler’s discussion that unsettled me was her look at how our students’ bodies will be changing as a result of research in genetics. There is already a rift between the “haves” and the “have nots.” This gap is going to increase exponentially if we reach at point at which wealthy parents can afford to make their children smarter from birth. I cannot even begin to comprehend how a teacher can successfully manage a classroom in which some of the children are bred to be smarter than others. How can we create a system that meets the needs of all children if are creating children with an obvious biological advantage? Would we need new classes for the genetically enhanced? Would we need entire advanced programs for these students? Would we need new schools for these students? Would we ignore the obvious correlations this has to the past?

Process or post-process - why not both?

I can see myself using all three of the composition styles that are being discussed in this article. There are lessons in which I feel that it is important that my students understand the, “rules, conventions, standards, quality and rigor,” that make up the current-traditional rhetoric. Some assignments are more suited to the more organic, discovered, “messy” style that is highlighted in the process-oriented method. There are even days when I try to stress to my students the importance of their writing in terms o f the larger social picture in which they are situated. In this sense, I feel that I fit in, at least to some degree, with those who feel that post-process is the way to go. I think that the only way to truly prepare my students to become writers in any situation is to provide them with at least a limited exposure to all of the styles.

Matsuda does very little to veil his dislike of the current-traditional rhetoric. It is clear to the reader that he views this as an outdated mode of education. I find myself agreeing and disagreeing with him. While I think that it is important to encourage students to use their own voice and style when they write, I also understand that they will find themselves in situations that will require them to demonstrate their ability to write according to the rules and guidelines that are followed by the more prescriptive users of the language. When a student applies for a job, the potential employer may not be impressed by a witty use of dialogue or a turn of phrase that shows the student’s skills in writing. The student must be able to first use the skills before she is able to understand when it is appropriate to use them, and when they can be abandoned for a more expressive use of the language.

The more expressive style found in process writing is where I spend most of my pedagogical time. I would bet that most teachers today spend a majority of the time working on the process of writing. This can either be credited to the teacher’s genuine belief that this is the best way for students to learn composition, or the fact that most of the focus in curriculum and professional development is centered on the writing process. For me, I believe that this is the best way for a student to gain ownership over her writing. If a student is able to choose a topic that is important to her, understand that topic and then demonstrate her understanding of the topic in a format that she finds fitting, she will end up with a product that is more genuine and relevant than anything that I could prescribe for her. The problem with this approach is that it is very difficult to create a fair and balanced means of assessing it.

Post-process writing is where I spend the least amount of time with my students. This particular focus, on the social role of composition, is difficult for students to grasp. I have a hard enough time trying to encourage students to find interest in their own life, let alone in the larger social system. Nevertheless, I do try and create at least some understanding in my students as to what their role can be and how their words can contribute to a grander public conversation, both through writing and discourse.

Everything I Need to Know I Learned From Spellcheck.

I have to admit, I have never really thought about the influence that spell check has had on my writing. It has always just been there. I saw it as a harmless advisor that would point out basic mistakes as I was typing. As a mediocre typist, I spend most of my time looking at the keys, so it is nice to have a way to keep track of what I was actually typing. For me, the spell check has always remained a tool though, and not a form of instruction. I have always been able to look at the suggestions and reject them if they did not make sense, or if they went against a style that I was trying to use. Because I have thought so little of my own use of spell check, I have not given it much thought in terms of my students either. This is something that I need to remedy.

I believe that part of my duty as a teacher is to instruct my students in the skills that are going to be most relevant to them. These skills are not limited to what they will need on a test, but should include real-life skills that will really make a difference. As McGee and Ericsson say, I need to become “more than a user of technology.” I need to teach my students how to evaluate technology and how to wield it as a tool and not a crutch. My students need to be able to make decisions on their own in terms of their revision choices. I am sure that most of my students just click the first option that comes up when they check their grammar and spelling, if they check their grammar and spelling. I need to model for them the process that they should take in order to evaluate their options and choose the one that best suits their needs.

I also need to emphasize with my students when it is best to use this tool. In class, I try to lead students through steps in writing that allow them to progress from their initial ideas to a finished product. I can help students to develop ideas, and focus on how they choose to express them while they are in my classroom. When they leave the classroom, however, they are their own. They are at the mercy of their computer. They can become too concerned with grammar and spelling mistakes and forget about their ideas. If they are writing a piece of dialogue, they may be lead away from their own choices and guided by the choices of a programmer. The key is not forcing students to avoid using the tool, it can be a benefit to their writing, but to instruct them on how to use it correctly and as an aid and not a hindrance. It is just another step in educating students in how to interact with their world and not just be moved along by it.