"The student has to learn to speak our language, to speak as we do, to try the peculiar ways of knowing, selecting, evaluating, reporting, concluding, and arguing that define the discourse of our community."
~David Bartholomae
"Inventing the University"
On first glance, DB's essay is an elitist piece of academic snobbery at its finest, and the anti-authoritarian in me rejects him. "Don't listen to him," my heart screams, "listen to Zarathustra instead! Write in blood; blood is the spirit. Remember Peter Elbow: 'If I want power, I've got to use my voice' (Berlin 675)." But then I think that if, as a freshman, I'd been drilled in the academic language like Bartholomae argues for, I wouldn't be propped up in bed here at 2:30 AM, trying to find meanings between unrelated essays (Coleridge would be proud), struggling to write in big, unnecessary words like a true-blue scholar but failing, and regurgitating these complex ideas to people who don't care what I have to say anyway. Ah, the world of academia!
But Bartholomae is right. In order to be successful in college and in the scholarly community, students need to learn how to speak the language, walk the walk, quack like a duck, etc. "In composing," Berthoff states, "we make meanings" (648). Well, duh. But what she fails to tell us is that academics make meanings in entirely different ways than students. They regard texts with a hypercritical eye that notices the vaguest subtleties in a work. Bartholomae is a perfect example of this; in "Inventing the University" he analyzes students' entrance exam essays and infers meaning not by what they say but what they don't say. As I read over his intricate and oftentimes brilliant thought processes, I wondered if I would ever be that good. That kind of an eagle-eye is not inborn, it is learned. Even he states as much and argues for rigorous training:
"The most substantial academic tasks for students....are matters of many courses, much reading and writing, and several years of education. Our students, however, must have a place to begin. They cannot sit through lectures and read textbooks and, as a consequence, write as a sociologist or write literary criticism. There must be steps along the way. Some of these steps will be marked by drafts and revisions. Some will be marked by courses, and in an ideal curriculum the preliminary courses would be writing courses, whether housed in an English department or not. For some students, students we call "basic writers," these courses will be in a sense the most basic introduction to the language and methods of academic writing" (623).
In other words, a student must read a lot, write a lot, and spend years in school in order to learn how to skillfully speak and write in Academic Esperanto.
So pessimism and exhaustion notwithstanding, I am grateful that I begin my Masters Program with classes so rigorously structured. They will prepare me for the things to come. But I just wish I had this level of training when I was a freshman.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Practice Makes Perfect
Patrick Hartwell quotes Mark Lester in his essay, “Grammar, Grammars, and the Teaching of Grammar,” saying that “there simply appears to be no correlation between a writer’s study of language and his ability to write” (571). Several of the essayists in our Norton book agree with him; they have conducted “experiments” on the matter and come to the same conclusion: grammar just isn’t that important.
It is hard to take these researchers seriously though when one considers that their methods are questionable. How can there be a controlling factor when every writer is unique? He/she has come from varying socioeconomic backgrounds, from different localities, from different schools of thought. This variable, the writer variable, is never constant; therefore the test results are always inconsistent. In addition, the researchers are biased towards their results. They want to prove that grammar is irrelevant, so it is possible their outcomes are swayed to fit their beliefs.
But putting their gross abuse of the scientific method aside, grammar is at the very core of composition. It is the study of language at its most fundamental level, and since it is a writer’s job to manipulate that language to affect his/her reader in a specific way, it stands to reason that the writer needs to master it in order to be effective. Grammar, the mechanics and usage of language, is the skeleton that holds the body of language up. If a person is dedicated to learning how to write well, he/she needs to learn how to put that skeleton together bone by bone to his/her advantage. Writing is a craft, and it is both sloppy and lazy to refuse to learn every single aspect of the discipline.
I am not suggesting that one master grammar before attempting to write. Hartwell wisely points out that you wouldn’t tell someone to master physics and momentum before letting them try their hand at pool, nor would you tell them to get a degree in automotive engineering before letting them drive a car (571). Certainly, I am no angel when it comes to grammar and am continuously learning new rules myself. But I believe it is a work in progress and it is best done by practice. In “The Language of Exclusion,” Mike Rose states:
“Educational psychologists had demonstrated that simply memorizing rules of grammar and usage had no discernable effect on the quality of student writing. What was needed was application of those rules through practice provided by drills and exercises. The theoretical underpinning was expressed in terms of “habit formation” and “habit strength,” the resilience of an “acquired response” being dependent on the power and number of reinforcements. The logic was neat: specify a desired linguistic behavior as precisely as possible (e.g., the proper use of the pronouns “he” and “him”) and construct opportunities to practice it. The more practice, the more the linguistic habit will take hold.” (589)
The basics must be taught, and they should be taught using the method above. Practice makes perfect. You may not expect one to get an automotive degree to drive a car, but you better teach them where the gas pedal and brakes are before you hand them the keys.
It is hard to take these researchers seriously though when one considers that their methods are questionable. How can there be a controlling factor when every writer is unique? He/she has come from varying socioeconomic backgrounds, from different localities, from different schools of thought. This variable, the writer variable, is never constant; therefore the test results are always inconsistent. In addition, the researchers are biased towards their results. They want to prove that grammar is irrelevant, so it is possible their outcomes are swayed to fit their beliefs.
But putting their gross abuse of the scientific method aside, grammar is at the very core of composition. It is the study of language at its most fundamental level, and since it is a writer’s job to manipulate that language to affect his/her reader in a specific way, it stands to reason that the writer needs to master it in order to be effective. Grammar, the mechanics and usage of language, is the skeleton that holds the body of language up. If a person is dedicated to learning how to write well, he/she needs to learn how to put that skeleton together bone by bone to his/her advantage. Writing is a craft, and it is both sloppy and lazy to refuse to learn every single aspect of the discipline.
I am not suggesting that one master grammar before attempting to write. Hartwell wisely points out that you wouldn’t tell someone to master physics and momentum before letting them try their hand at pool, nor would you tell them to get a degree in automotive engineering before letting them drive a car (571). Certainly, I am no angel when it comes to grammar and am continuously learning new rules myself. But I believe it is a work in progress and it is best done by practice. In “The Language of Exclusion,” Mike Rose states:
“Educational psychologists had demonstrated that simply memorizing rules of grammar and usage had no discernable effect on the quality of student writing. What was needed was application of those rules through practice provided by drills and exercises. The theoretical underpinning was expressed in terms of “habit formation” and “habit strength,” the resilience of an “acquired response” being dependent on the power and number of reinforcements. The logic was neat: specify a desired linguistic behavior as precisely as possible (e.g., the proper use of the pronouns “he” and “him”) and construct opportunities to practice it. The more practice, the more the linguistic habit will take hold.” (589)
The basics must be taught, and they should be taught using the method above. Practice makes perfect. You may not expect one to get an automotive degree to drive a car, but you better teach them where the gas pedal and brakes are before you hand them the keys.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Swimming With the Fish
Because Marilyn went to the trouble of printing Stanley Fish's blog entry and creating an in-class exercise for us, and because we ran out of time to do it in class, I decided to make it my topic for this week's blog. Here are her questions:
1) What is the premise of Fish's blog,"What Should Colleges Teach?"?
2) Does his argument persuade you? Why?
3) Does his final sentence challenge your pedagogy?
Quite simply, Fish's blog entry says that if the title of a class is "Composition," the curriculum for that class should be composition-oriented. He was appalled when, while grading his graduate students' papers, he noticed that most couldn't construct a proper sentence to save their lives. He investigated the causes of this phenomena (because these students were composition teachers) and discovered that their classes were not true composition classes, but classes devoted instead to social studies. Rather than learning the nuts and bolts of the English language, students debated hot-button topics like politics, sexism, racism, etc. When Fish campaigned to change this painfully lacking curriculum, he was shunned and called a reactionary.
I am in Fish's camp because like him, I have been labeled closed-minded, antiquated, and reactionary, and for the exact same reason. I agree that in a composition class, students must learn composition. "Truth in advertising" as Fish put it. Anything else is irrelevant.
My reasoning, like Fish's, is largely anecdotal. I was fortunate (and now grateful) that my Composition 101 class was solely dedicated to composition. My class learned how to write different types of essays, construct proper outlines to manage our essays' organization, and conduct appropriate research. When we discussed controversial subjects, the conversations were relevant to the papers we were writing; we had to learn how to incorporate our heated ideas into our papers in a clear and fair manner. In addition, our teacher gave us a strong working knowledge of grammar and syntax. I truly feel that my teacher, Professor Lewis, expanded the quality of my writing, or at least provided the tools for me to do it myself.
But it seems to me, and perhaps I'm wrong, that my experience was unique. As an undergraduate in numerous writing workshops, I was amazed at the inability of many of my fellow students to write well. I could almost forgive the non-English majors for this, but not my comrades in literature and writing. Their problems composing encompassed more than just grammar and syntax. Coherent thoughts and arguments frequently eluded them. Organization was a four-letter word. How those students passed Comp 101 and made it to the upper 300-400 level classes - Hell, how they graduated high school - was a complete mystery to me. I know I'm not perfect, especially in grammar (I'm sure I've made some errors in this paragraph alone), but what I witnessed was flat-out ridiculous! Where was their Professor Lewis showing them the ropes?
When Fish said, "....students spent much of their time discussing novels, movies, TV shows and essays on a variety of hot-button issues....," I was reminded of my earlier blog post where I ranted about a teacher who used Spongebob to teach English fundamentals. She is still very certain that her way is the right way, and that thinkers like me and Fish are antiquated old farts who stifle education by catering to the "reigning elite" instead of to the students we (or Fish, rather) teach. Maybe this teacher's way is the new composition; among my classmates, I certainly seem to be the lone wolf in the grammar-syntax camp. But I hope that solely using pop-culture to teach budding students the basics is not what passes for scholarly work in this day and age.
I am fond of saying that English is the most important subject because it gives a voice to all the others. Here's some proof: When I was in Careers for English Majors with Dr. Sheidley, our class had to research what kinds of jobs English majors could get. To my surprise, I discovered that the American Bar Association strongly recommends that all aspiring lawyers get their undergraduate degrees in English due to the complex comprehension skills required in order to read, write, and interpret law. The American Medical Association also recommends aspiring doctors to double-major in English and some discipline of science to prepare for medical school. The reason is the same as it is for lawyers; doctors have an inordinate amount of complicated reading and writing to do. But what if these students' composition foundation is built on clay?
My dad always taught me that it is prudent to know at least the fundamentals of every subject imaginable, if for no other reason than to be a well-rounded person. But in composition's case, I think it takes a position of the utmost importance. All students, not just English majors, have to write papers for different schools of study (history, philosophy, psychology, etc.), and I'm certain that if undergraduates don't learn how to write well, they have no chance of succeeding in their chosen disciplines.
Are we English scholars really so proud that we think we don't have to learn the basics first? I would never waltz into the math department and expect to whip out theories like I was Pythagoras or Archimedes without first having a solid foundation to build on. Even now, as someone who is not mathematically inclined, I may not be able to invent new formulas, but I've got Please-Excuse-My-Dear-Aunt-Sally branded onto my heart for all eternity. And believe it or not, the Pythagorean Theorem has proven useful to me on more than one occasion, as has the biochemical structure of DNA, the Spanish alphabet, and the fall of the Roman Empire, okay? My point is that students need to learn the basics first, and then they can sit around and play at being armchair scholars talking about social issues until the cows come home. And Spongebob, as funny as he may be, is not a good English teacher.
Fish finally concludes his blog entry by saying, "Please let it (a curriculum) include a writing course that teaches writing and not everything under the sun. That should be the real core of any curriculum." I, like Fish, don't believe students can have a good education without learning how to write well first. So I say to Fish: "Amen, brother. Preach on."
1) What is the premise of Fish's blog,"What Should Colleges Teach?"?
2) Does his argument persuade you? Why?
3) Does his final sentence challenge your pedagogy?
Quite simply, Fish's blog entry says that if the title of a class is "Composition," the curriculum for that class should be composition-oriented. He was appalled when, while grading his graduate students' papers, he noticed that most couldn't construct a proper sentence to save their lives. He investigated the causes of this phenomena (because these students were composition teachers) and discovered that their classes were not true composition classes, but classes devoted instead to social studies. Rather than learning the nuts and bolts of the English language, students debated hot-button topics like politics, sexism, racism, etc. When Fish campaigned to change this painfully lacking curriculum, he was shunned and called a reactionary.
I am in Fish's camp because like him, I have been labeled closed-minded, antiquated, and reactionary, and for the exact same reason. I agree that in a composition class, students must learn composition. "Truth in advertising" as Fish put it. Anything else is irrelevant.
My reasoning, like Fish's, is largely anecdotal. I was fortunate (and now grateful) that my Composition 101 class was solely dedicated to composition. My class learned how to write different types of essays, construct proper outlines to manage our essays' organization, and conduct appropriate research. When we discussed controversial subjects, the conversations were relevant to the papers we were writing; we had to learn how to incorporate our heated ideas into our papers in a clear and fair manner. In addition, our teacher gave us a strong working knowledge of grammar and syntax. I truly feel that my teacher, Professor Lewis, expanded the quality of my writing, or at least provided the tools for me to do it myself.
But it seems to me, and perhaps I'm wrong, that my experience was unique. As an undergraduate in numerous writing workshops, I was amazed at the inability of many of my fellow students to write well. I could almost forgive the non-English majors for this, but not my comrades in literature and writing. Their problems composing encompassed more than just grammar and syntax. Coherent thoughts and arguments frequently eluded them. Organization was a four-letter word. How those students passed Comp 101 and made it to the upper 300-400 level classes - Hell, how they graduated high school - was a complete mystery to me. I know I'm not perfect, especially in grammar (I'm sure I've made some errors in this paragraph alone), but what I witnessed was flat-out ridiculous! Where was their Professor Lewis showing them the ropes?
When Fish said, "....students spent much of their time discussing novels, movies, TV shows and essays on a variety of hot-button issues....," I was reminded of my earlier blog post where I ranted about a teacher who used Spongebob to teach English fundamentals. She is still very certain that her way is the right way, and that thinkers like me and Fish are antiquated old farts who stifle education by catering to the "reigning elite" instead of to the students we (or Fish, rather) teach. Maybe this teacher's way is the new composition; among my classmates, I certainly seem to be the lone wolf in the grammar-syntax camp. But I hope that solely using pop-culture to teach budding students the basics is not what passes for scholarly work in this day and age.
I am fond of saying that English is the most important subject because it gives a voice to all the others. Here's some proof: When I was in Careers for English Majors with Dr. Sheidley, our class had to research what kinds of jobs English majors could get. To my surprise, I discovered that the American Bar Association strongly recommends that all aspiring lawyers get their undergraduate degrees in English due to the complex comprehension skills required in order to read, write, and interpret law. The American Medical Association also recommends aspiring doctors to double-major in English and some discipline of science to prepare for medical school. The reason is the same as it is for lawyers; doctors have an inordinate amount of complicated reading and writing to do. But what if these students' composition foundation is built on clay?
My dad always taught me that it is prudent to know at least the fundamentals of every subject imaginable, if for no other reason than to be a well-rounded person. But in composition's case, I think it takes a position of the utmost importance. All students, not just English majors, have to write papers for different schools of study (history, philosophy, psychology, etc.), and I'm certain that if undergraduates don't learn how to write well, they have no chance of succeeding in their chosen disciplines.
Are we English scholars really so proud that we think we don't have to learn the basics first? I would never waltz into the math department and expect to whip out theories like I was Pythagoras or Archimedes without first having a solid foundation to build on. Even now, as someone who is not mathematically inclined, I may not be able to invent new formulas, but I've got Please-Excuse-My-Dear-Aunt-Sally branded onto my heart for all eternity. And believe it or not, the Pythagorean Theorem has proven useful to me on more than one occasion, as has the biochemical structure of DNA, the Spanish alphabet, and the fall of the Roman Empire, okay? My point is that students need to learn the basics first, and then they can sit around and play at being armchair scholars talking about social issues until the cows come home. And Spongebob, as funny as he may be, is not a good English teacher.
Fish finally concludes his blog entry by saying, "Please let it (a curriculum) include a writing course that teaches writing and not everything under the sun. That should be the real core of any curriculum." I, like Fish, don't believe students can have a good education without learning how to write well first. So I say to Fish: "Amen, brother. Preach on."
Thursday, February 11, 2010
On Writing
In "The Topoi Revisited," Edward P.J. Corbett says, "The most frequently asked question of novelists on talk shows is 'Where do you get your ideas for your stories?'....They (writers) talk all around the question....but they never really get down to tell you how they create their stories." Later in his essay, he continues: "Teachers have made deliberate efforts to observe their students in the act of writing, to question them about their writing habits, and to speculate about their cognitive processes from analyzing the revisions that they make from draft to draft."
This quote leads me back to a recurring thought I've had since the beginning of the semester: why the hell do these people want to know so bad how a writer writes? In most of the essays we've read to this point, prominent scholars try to figure out the answer to this question to no avail. But they keep trying, and I think it's because they want to standardize the teaching of composition. It's as if they think that if they find that one magic formula, then all students can be trained to write like The Great Ones (James Joyce, Jane Austen, Ernest Hemingway, etc.). But I don't know that there is a formula for good writing. The Great Ones are great not because they stood on someone's shoulders (which they frequently did, let's be honest), but because they revolutionized some aspect of their craft. Geoffrey Chaucer, for example, developed iambic pentameter and in so doing, shifted the English language from the harsh guttural tones of the Anglo-Saxons towards something more melodic and pleasing to the ear. Dante Alighieri pioneered the use of allegory to reflect the political instability, corruption, and moral bankruptcy in his native Florence. The point is that good writing is characterized by original thought.
I think Richard Leo Enos would agree with me. In his Introduction in Recovering the Lost Art of Researching the History of Rhetoric, he criticized scholars in his field for standing on the rhetoric sidelines like football commentators rather than actually participating in the game. These scholars spend their entire careers saying, "Oh, he should have done this" and "It would have been so much better if he'd have done that," but they make no contributions of their own. And I believe that it's much easier to sit in the stands and heckle the team rather than being the quarterback making the plays. Enos says, and I agree, that there's very little, if any, original thought. And it's making the playing field static.
Even though Enos was talking about rhetorical scholarship, not creative writing, I believe it's pertinent to us creative writers as well. My biggest frustration as an undergraduate was that my classmates and I were taught to pick apart the work of The Great Ones, but not to create anything of substance ourselves. I frequently thought, "Who are we to criticize the masters? We're just a bunch of unimportant little undergraduates!" Oftentimes, our criticisms just parroted our professors opinions. Now, in English 501, I am agitated with our assigned readings because the authors seem to be mimicking each other; they all say, "We've conducted so-and-so experiment to find out how a writer writes, but our results are inconclusive." I want an answer - ANY answer - just so long as I don't have to read yet another wishy-washy opinion on the matter.
But truthfully, I don't think scholars will ever find that magic formula they're so desperately searching for. There's no philosopher's stone to turn lead writers into gold. And I'm okay with that. I don't want a magic formula. I don't want a sea of writers just regurgitating what each other says. If we all could do it, why would we do it at all?
Perhaps you find my opposition to investigating the writing process a bit short-sighted, and you could be right. As a creative writer, I'm protective of my process. This is not because I have some secret to hide, but rather because I believe part of the magic of writing is the mystery. I don't want some cold scientist to rationalize that feeling of divine inspiration I get when I suddenly feel possessed to create something. In our all-too reasonable Age of Reason, much of the magic in our world has fled because people have dissected it to death rather than create it anew. I don't want to understand how I do what I do, I just want to do it. I suppose I'm like the American Romantics in this aspect.
I don't pretend to have all the answers, especially when it comes to writing, but I do know this: if you want to be a good writer, then you have to practice. That's the formula. Let me give you a dramatic example of this. Nathaniel Hawthorne locked himself in a closet for years just to practice writing, and when he finally emerged, he promptly destroyed everything he'd written because he recognized these manuscripts were no good. Their only purpose was to teach him how to be better. I am no master, but I can tell you that I'm not the same writer I was 15 years ago. My stuff from back then was good for a teenager, but nowhere good as my stuff from now. A lot of that is my education, naturally, but I think it's mostly from practice. So just think what I'll know tomorrow.
Scholars and scientists could dissect a writer clear down to his/her last atom to find out the magic formula, where ideas come from, and how ideas are executed. But in the end, I think it boils down to practice and inventiveness. And asking a writer to explain how is like asking a horse why it runs fast. It just does.
Sure, you could say, "Why bother being a teacher if you have such a passive view of teaching composition?" And I would answer that I believe all people can learn to write better, formula or no. I struggle with calculus, for example, but I could become better at it if I enlisted the aid of a tutor, practiced problems, and devoted more time to studying it. But what separates the good from the great is original thought. If this magic formula theoretically existed, then it would stand to reason that what writers churned out was formulaic. Hardly creative. In fact, I'd wager that such writers would be parroting one another. And this kind of thinking is what Enos was protesting. So to paraphrase Enos, quit talking about the whys and hows of writing, and just do it already!
Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
This quote leads me back to a recurring thought I've had since the beginning of the semester: why the hell do these people want to know so bad how a writer writes? In most of the essays we've read to this point, prominent scholars try to figure out the answer to this question to no avail. But they keep trying, and I think it's because they want to standardize the teaching of composition. It's as if they think that if they find that one magic formula, then all students can be trained to write like The Great Ones (James Joyce, Jane Austen, Ernest Hemingway, etc.). But I don't know that there is a formula for good writing. The Great Ones are great not because they stood on someone's shoulders (which they frequently did, let's be honest), but because they revolutionized some aspect of their craft. Geoffrey Chaucer, for example, developed iambic pentameter and in so doing, shifted the English language from the harsh guttural tones of the Anglo-Saxons towards something more melodic and pleasing to the ear. Dante Alighieri pioneered the use of allegory to reflect the political instability, corruption, and moral bankruptcy in his native Florence. The point is that good writing is characterized by original thought.
I think Richard Leo Enos would agree with me. In his Introduction in Recovering the Lost Art of Researching the History of Rhetoric, he criticized scholars in his field for standing on the rhetoric sidelines like football commentators rather than actually participating in the game. These scholars spend their entire careers saying, "Oh, he should have done this" and "It would have been so much better if he'd have done that," but they make no contributions of their own. And I believe that it's much easier to sit in the stands and heckle the team rather than being the quarterback making the plays. Enos says, and I agree, that there's very little, if any, original thought. And it's making the playing field static.
Even though Enos was talking about rhetorical scholarship, not creative writing, I believe it's pertinent to us creative writers as well. My biggest frustration as an undergraduate was that my classmates and I were taught to pick apart the work of The Great Ones, but not to create anything of substance ourselves. I frequently thought, "Who are we to criticize the masters? We're just a bunch of unimportant little undergraduates!" Oftentimes, our criticisms just parroted our professors opinions. Now, in English 501, I am agitated with our assigned readings because the authors seem to be mimicking each other; they all say, "We've conducted so-and-so experiment to find out how a writer writes, but our results are inconclusive." I want an answer - ANY answer - just so long as I don't have to read yet another wishy-washy opinion on the matter.
But truthfully, I don't think scholars will ever find that magic formula they're so desperately searching for. There's no philosopher's stone to turn lead writers into gold. And I'm okay with that. I don't want a magic formula. I don't want a sea of writers just regurgitating what each other says. If we all could do it, why would we do it at all?
Perhaps you find my opposition to investigating the writing process a bit short-sighted, and you could be right. As a creative writer, I'm protective of my process. This is not because I have some secret to hide, but rather because I believe part of the magic of writing is the mystery. I don't want some cold scientist to rationalize that feeling of divine inspiration I get when I suddenly feel possessed to create something. In our all-too reasonable Age of Reason, much of the magic in our world has fled because people have dissected it to death rather than create it anew. I don't want to understand how I do what I do, I just want to do it. I suppose I'm like the American Romantics in this aspect.
I don't pretend to have all the answers, especially when it comes to writing, but I do know this: if you want to be a good writer, then you have to practice. That's the formula. Let me give you a dramatic example of this. Nathaniel Hawthorne locked himself in a closet for years just to practice writing, and when he finally emerged, he promptly destroyed everything he'd written because he recognized these manuscripts were no good. Their only purpose was to teach him how to be better. I am no master, but I can tell you that I'm not the same writer I was 15 years ago. My stuff from back then was good for a teenager, but nowhere good as my stuff from now. A lot of that is my education, naturally, but I think it's mostly from practice. So just think what I'll know tomorrow.
Scholars and scientists could dissect a writer clear down to his/her last atom to find out the magic formula, where ideas come from, and how ideas are executed. But in the end, I think it boils down to practice and inventiveness. And asking a writer to explain how is like asking a horse why it runs fast. It just does.
Sure, you could say, "Why bother being a teacher if you have such a passive view of teaching composition?" And I would answer that I believe all people can learn to write better, formula or no. I struggle with calculus, for example, but I could become better at it if I enlisted the aid of a tutor, practiced problems, and devoted more time to studying it. But what separates the good from the great is original thought. If this magic formula theoretically existed, then it would stand to reason that what writers churned out was formulaic. Hardly creative. In fact, I'd wager that such writers would be parroting one another. And this kind of thinking is what Enos was protesting. So to paraphrase Enos, quit talking about the whys and hows of writing, and just do it already!
Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
My Pedagogy Statement: Some I Believe Statements
In "Pre-Writing: Models for Concept Formation in Writing", Rohman and Wlecke state: "There is no one philosophy of writing; consequently there can be no one method to teach it....The most that can be done, it seems to us, is frankly to state your philosophy of writing, and within those frontiers establish whatever methodological and pedagogical laws seem appropriate."
That's easier said than done. But here is my fumbling attempt to sketch out my basic pedagogical beliefs:
1. I believe that grammar is of the utmost importance. Grammar, to me, is a broad term that blankets the mechanics of language, i.e. word choice, spelling, sentence structure, and punctuation. When I write, I am very conscious of my grammar because I know that if my work is full of little mechanical errors, those errors can detract from the more important part, the ideas and content of the piece. Too many errors distract me, so I have little patience for them.
2. I believe that people need to make coherent arguments in their compositions. Free-writing is a great activity to help someone brainstorm or express their feelings, but that kind of writing is best for a journal. In an actual paper, thoughts must be focused and clear. Creative writing also must follow some sort of logic train. Even stream-of-consciousness has a method to its madness.
3. I believe in learning how to use technology - computers, multimedia, books, etc. - to aid in composition. Now more than ever in the history of mankind do we have an abundance of resources at our disposal. We would be fools not to use these tools to our advantage.
4. I believe in allowing everyone their own opinion, even if it disagrees with my own. Everyone has had a unique life full of unique experiences that has imparted a unique point of view. All views should be respected.
5. I believe in fostering creativity, not only in the people around me, but in myself as well.
6. I believe that the teacher should run the classroom, not the other way around.
7. I believe that people learn best by doing, not seeing. Experience is the best teacher of all.
8. I believe that while some people are born with a passion and gift for writing, ALL people can be taught to write better, even if they're not naturally predisposed to it.
9. I believe that the road to Hell is paved with adverbs.
2. I believe that people need to make coherent arguments in their compositions. Free-writing is a great activity to help someone brainstorm or express their feelings, but that kind of writing is best for a journal. In an actual paper, thoughts must be focused and clear. Creative writing also must follow some sort of logic train. Even stream-of-consciousness has a method to its madness.
3. I believe in learning how to use technology - computers, multimedia, books, etc. - to aid in composition. Now more than ever in the history of mankind do we have an abundance of resources at our disposal. We would be fools not to use these tools to our advantage.
4. I believe in allowing everyone their own opinion, even if it disagrees with my own. Everyone has had a unique life full of unique experiences that has imparted a unique point of view. All views should be respected.
5. I believe in fostering creativity, not only in the people around me, but in myself as well.
6. I believe that the teacher should run the classroom, not the other way around.
7. I believe that people learn best by doing, not seeing. Experience is the best teacher of all.
8. I believe that while some people are born with a passion and gift for writing, ALL people can be taught to write better, even if they're not naturally predisposed to it.
9. I believe that the road to Hell is paved with adverbs.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
A Rant on the Quality of Teaching
In "The Present State of Freshmen Composition" by Albert R. Kitzhaber, he states on pg. 257: "The deficiencies of high school English courses and textbooks and of the professional preparation of many high school teachers of English have now been made a matter of public concern, and rightly so if any large-scale improvement is to be brought about." Now, to backtrack a bit, I've observed how sometimes a person, namely me, can go through something, and then all that week other somethings that point to that first something happen. This week was one of those weeks. I read this essay the day after I saw Kitzhaber's point made reality.
In my 600 class on Monday, I was angered over a high school English teacher's stand on educating her students. She proudly and defiantly said that she had thrown out the traditional ways of teaching in lieu of using Spongebob Squarepants and Family Guy to teach the fundamental mechanics. I had two thoughts when she took her position: 1) This lady has clearly watched Dead Poet's Society one too many times, and 2) Dear God, please don't let this woman teach my children English when they're in high school. Now don't get me wrong. While I am all for finding new ways to make English interesting to naturally bored teenagers, I felt like she, and teachers like her, are the reason why American kids can't perform as well as other nationalities in academic endeavors. These teachers are the reason why our education system has become a joke to the rest of the world! Our kids can't spell, create a grammatically correct sentence, or form coherent thoughts on paper to save their lives, but by God, they can point out the underlying metaphor in The Simpsons until the cows come home.
When I was going for my Bachelor's in Creative Writing a few years ago, I was thoroughly appalled by many of my fellow students. In 300 and 400 level writing workshops, they turned in final drafts of stories that sorely lacked any technical skill or creative merit. Their stories were also full of countless spelling and grammatical errors. Workshops were torture for me because I had to read their work; I was so distracted by all the problems with the drafts that I couldn't even pay attention to the stories. But if memory serves, those stories were so lackluster and unimaginative my brain hurt just to read them. I wondered how people so thoroughly bad at English could have graduated from high school, let alone be studying English as a major. Well, now I know.
Later on, the offending teacher touted how the more traditional teachers needed to retire because they were stuck in their antiquated ways; meanwhile, she was teaching them "the skills they needed to survive in the real world by teaching them tricks to get through their ACTs or SATs so they could get into college." Then she bragged about how she threw out the required textbook and had the kids trained to pull it out whenever the principal came into the room. I felt like asking her how exactly school admissions boards would be impressed with a kid who cited Spongebob as a major inspiration to his/her schooling. I also felt like shouting at her that she was not teaching them real-world skills like she was boasting, but merely teaching them how to cheat the system. I honestly can't believe how she thought she was a good teacher.
My high school experience was not full of cartoons.
In Senior English, the work was hard and deliberately so. My teacher, Ms. Bierbaum, said she was getting us ready to deal with college, and gave us a syllabus. Then a grueling year of Latin roots, Descartes, and Shakespeare followed. We studied the great Renaissance artists like Michelangelo, DaVinci, and Bernini and did presentations on their work. We didn't have PowerPoint back then, but it was fun using the overhead projector to show off La Pieta and David. I loved Edgar Allan Poe, only liked Ernest Hemingway, and absolutely hated The Grapes of Wrath. We studied Truth with a capital T and read Plato's "The Allegory of the Cave". Let's not forget how we also read and discussed the psychology of "Oedipus" and "Electra". If studying the classics and philosophy weren't enough, we also learned about different religions of the world - Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Judaism - and how their belief systems benefited humanity. It was a very challenging year, to be sure, but our teacher somehow found ways to make it entertaining at the same time she made it enlightening. By the time I graduated, I was a much more well-rounded person than when I began 12th grade. Ms. Bierbaum was energetic and passionate and just this side of crazy, and a damn fine teacher. When I become a teacher, that's what I'd aspire to be.
I know not all teachers are created equal. This moronic woman in my 600 class is not indicative of all teachers in the United States. When Dave told our class how he had his students on their desks to act out the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet, I thought that was brilliant. I'm of the notion that Shakespeare is better watched than read. But it proves my point that you can still teach the classics and make it fun too. And he didn't have to throw out the whole curriculum to do it either. It just frightened me that she did.
In my 600 class on Monday, I was angered over a high school English teacher's stand on educating her students. She proudly and defiantly said that she had thrown out the traditional ways of teaching in lieu of using Spongebob Squarepants and Family Guy to teach the fundamental mechanics. I had two thoughts when she took her position: 1) This lady has clearly watched Dead Poet's Society one too many times, and 2) Dear God, please don't let this woman teach my children English when they're in high school. Now don't get me wrong. While I am all for finding new ways to make English interesting to naturally bored teenagers, I felt like she, and teachers like her, are the reason why American kids can't perform as well as other nationalities in academic endeavors. These teachers are the reason why our education system has become a joke to the rest of the world! Our kids can't spell, create a grammatically correct sentence, or form coherent thoughts on paper to save their lives, but by God, they can point out the underlying metaphor in The Simpsons until the cows come home.
When I was going for my Bachelor's in Creative Writing a few years ago, I was thoroughly appalled by many of my fellow students. In 300 and 400 level writing workshops, they turned in final drafts of stories that sorely lacked any technical skill or creative merit. Their stories were also full of countless spelling and grammatical errors. Workshops were torture for me because I had to read their work; I was so distracted by all the problems with the drafts that I couldn't even pay attention to the stories. But if memory serves, those stories were so lackluster and unimaginative my brain hurt just to read them. I wondered how people so thoroughly bad at English could have graduated from high school, let alone be studying English as a major. Well, now I know.
Later on, the offending teacher touted how the more traditional teachers needed to retire because they were stuck in their antiquated ways; meanwhile, she was teaching them "the skills they needed to survive in the real world by teaching them tricks to get through their ACTs or SATs so they could get into college." Then she bragged about how she threw out the required textbook and had the kids trained to pull it out whenever the principal came into the room. I felt like asking her how exactly school admissions boards would be impressed with a kid who cited Spongebob as a major inspiration to his/her schooling. I also felt like shouting at her that she was not teaching them real-world skills like she was boasting, but merely teaching them how to cheat the system. I honestly can't believe how she thought she was a good teacher.
My high school experience was not full of cartoons.
In Senior English, the work was hard and deliberately so. My teacher, Ms. Bierbaum, said she was getting us ready to deal with college, and gave us a syllabus. Then a grueling year of Latin roots, Descartes, and Shakespeare followed. We studied the great Renaissance artists like Michelangelo, DaVinci, and Bernini and did presentations on their work. We didn't have PowerPoint back then, but it was fun using the overhead projector to show off La Pieta and David. I loved Edgar Allan Poe, only liked Ernest Hemingway, and absolutely hated The Grapes of Wrath. We studied Truth with a capital T and read Plato's "The Allegory of the Cave". Let's not forget how we also read and discussed the psychology of "Oedipus" and "Electra". If studying the classics and philosophy weren't enough, we also learned about different religions of the world - Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Judaism - and how their belief systems benefited humanity. It was a very challenging year, to be sure, but our teacher somehow found ways to make it entertaining at the same time she made it enlightening. By the time I graduated, I was a much more well-rounded person than when I began 12th grade. Ms. Bierbaum was energetic and passionate and just this side of crazy, and a damn fine teacher. When I become a teacher, that's what I'd aspire to be.
I know not all teachers are created equal. This moronic woman in my 600 class is not indicative of all teachers in the United States. When Dave told our class how he had his students on their desks to act out the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet, I thought that was brilliant. I'm of the notion that Shakespeare is better watched than read. But it proves my point that you can still teach the classics and make it fun too. And he didn't have to throw out the whole curriculum to do it either. It just frightened me that she did.
Thoughts on Writing
When I read Janet Emig's essay, "The Composing Process of 12th Graders", I was fascinated by what she had to say, even though she didn't really have much to say about 12th graders specifically. The interview with John Ciardi on pg. 231 was intriguing because he made an accurate correlation between the act of writing and the act of riding a bike. A writer does not stop to think about all the processes it takes to write, just as a rider does not think about all the processes it takes to maintain balance. He/she just does it. In my own experience, sometimes I look back at my work and ask "How did I do that?" There have been times when I've written things, creative and scholarly, and I was utterly amazed at how brilliant I sounded. I'm not trying to toot my own horn here, I'm just saying that I was surprised at even myself. I've even said, "Wow, did I really write that?" I couldn't fathom how such beautiful and interesting insights came from someone like me. I reflected on how this could be so and still have come to no definitive conclusions.
When Ciardi said that asking him to reveal his secret is asking him to tell lies, that's true too. It reminded me of an interview I'd read in which the interviewer was talking to Stephen King. The interviewer asked him a similar question, "Where do your ideas come from?" King replied in complete frustration, and I'll never forget this for as long as I live, "Don't ask me where my ideas come from because I DON'T KNOW!" Then later he described how sometimes, he makes up stories about where his story idea comes from just to get people to quit asking him that. Ciardi said something much like this as well. And in my experience, I find they're right. I don't know where my ideas come from. I just know they start out as vague daydreams that quickly start scratching their way through my mind like a wild animal. They don't leave me alone until I put them to paper. I don't think I've ever gone so far as to make up lies about this, but then again, I am still a fledgling writer. Maybe when I've earned world renown like Ciardi and King, I'll start exaggerating like they do.
Later, in the section titled "Antimonies" on pg. 238, she states: "Creators....are separated from the object and bored enough by creating it to put off completion until the psychologically appropriate time; and involved through their creation in 'working out of conflict and coalition within the set of identities that compose' their personality." After reading this passage, I wondered how many times I've stopped working on a project because "it just wasn't time yet"? I thought it was just my own private neurotic behavior, the product of my ADD, impatience, and immaturity. But this passage suggests it happens to many writers and I never knew that before. Could we writers know on a subconscious level that we are not capable - physically, mentally, and spiritually - of finishing a particular project until a given time, that our brains realize our work won't be as powerful if we try to force it to come at the wrong time? Do we have to be psychologically and spiritually ready to finish something? And what are the implications if the answers to these questions is yes?
When Ciardi said that asking him to reveal his secret is asking him to tell lies, that's true too. It reminded me of an interview I'd read in which the interviewer was talking to Stephen King. The interviewer asked him a similar question, "Where do your ideas come from?" King replied in complete frustration, and I'll never forget this for as long as I live, "Don't ask me where my ideas come from because I DON'T KNOW!" Then later he described how sometimes, he makes up stories about where his story idea comes from just to get people to quit asking him that. Ciardi said something much like this as well. And in my experience, I find they're right. I don't know where my ideas come from. I just know they start out as vague daydreams that quickly start scratching their way through my mind like a wild animal. They don't leave me alone until I put them to paper. I don't think I've ever gone so far as to make up lies about this, but then again, I am still a fledgling writer. Maybe when I've earned world renown like Ciardi and King, I'll start exaggerating like they do.
Later, in the section titled "Antimonies" on pg. 238, she states: "Creators....are separated from the object and bored enough by creating it to put off completion until the psychologically appropriate time; and involved through their creation in 'working out of conflict and coalition within the set of identities that compose' their personality." After reading this passage, I wondered how many times I've stopped working on a project because "it just wasn't time yet"? I thought it was just my own private neurotic behavior, the product of my ADD, impatience, and immaturity. But this passage suggests it happens to many writers and I never knew that before. Could we writers know on a subconscious level that we are not capable - physically, mentally, and spiritually - of finishing a particular project until a given time, that our brains realize our work won't be as powerful if we try to force it to come at the wrong time? Do we have to be psychologically and spiritually ready to finish something? And what are the implications if the answers to these questions is yes?
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
The History of Rhetoric: The Sweetened Condensed Version
Tonight's lecture combined my two favorite and strongest subjects: English and History. It was largely Greek and Roman history too, which is my forte. When Dr. Souder started talking about Cicero, I was practically drooling like one of Pavlov's dogs. It's funny how I can hear the same story a million times, but it never gets old. At least when it comes to Ancient Roman history.
I appreciated the lecture because it appealed to my artistic side. I know this class is more oriented towards speaking and scholarly pursuits, but it applies to creative writing as well. I already use the 5 Canons of Classical Rhetoric. First I must invent a problem to build a story around. Then I must decide how to arrange it, i.e. should I write chronologically, or should I start in the middle of the story and work backwards? What Style should I write in? First person, third person? How would the character think and act, and how should my choice of words reflect that? Memory is trickier, I suppose. I must remember the details about each character so I can maintain a certain consistency that readers expect. That is harder than you may think. When it comes to writing, I almost think that Delivery and Arrangement are interchangeable because both really determine how powerful a work can be. How I set up my story and how I present it can pack a mean punch if I do them right. In contrast, if I do it wrong, then the same story becomes weak and meaningless. It's a tightrope walk, and sometimes I have to do it without a safety net.
Of course, the Rhetorical Triangle is something I always must consider as well, although I didn't really have a name for it until tonight. It goes back to what Dr. Souder was saying about genre: an audience of a certain genre has particular expectations, and if you fail to think about your audience, your purpose, and your occasion, and treat the situation accordingly, you're going to fail at your endeavor. Of course, there are times when it's necessary to say "To hell with what people think!" One of the best short stories I've written to date was born out of this attitude. I was so frustrated about the restrictions imposed on me in my English 316 (Creative Writing: Fiction) class that I finally said "Screw it, I'm doing this my way." And what do you know? It was everyone's favorite, including David's, who bless his heart, was impossible to impress. My favorite modern-day writer, Stephen King, suggests in his book On Writing that you pick one person to write for - he writes for his wife - and forget the rest. But even he should agree that his target audience is going to be mighty pissed off if he writes a tacky romance novel when they're expecting horror. As for me, I've yet to figure out who I should write for. Maybe that's half the battle.
I appreciated the lecture because it appealed to my artistic side. I know this class is more oriented towards speaking and scholarly pursuits, but it applies to creative writing as well. I already use the 5 Canons of Classical Rhetoric. First I must invent a problem to build a story around. Then I must decide how to arrange it, i.e. should I write chronologically, or should I start in the middle of the story and work backwards? What Style should I write in? First person, third person? How would the character think and act, and how should my choice of words reflect that? Memory is trickier, I suppose. I must remember the details about each character so I can maintain a certain consistency that readers expect. That is harder than you may think. When it comes to writing, I almost think that Delivery and Arrangement are interchangeable because both really determine how powerful a work can be. How I set up my story and how I present it can pack a mean punch if I do them right. In contrast, if I do it wrong, then the same story becomes weak and meaningless. It's a tightrope walk, and sometimes I have to do it without a safety net.
Of course, the Rhetorical Triangle is something I always must consider as well, although I didn't really have a name for it until tonight. It goes back to what Dr. Souder was saying about genre: an audience of a certain genre has particular expectations, and if you fail to think about your audience, your purpose, and your occasion, and treat the situation accordingly, you're going to fail at your endeavor. Of course, there are times when it's necessary to say "To hell with what people think!" One of the best short stories I've written to date was born out of this attitude. I was so frustrated about the restrictions imposed on me in my English 316 (Creative Writing: Fiction) class that I finally said "Screw it, I'm doing this my way." And what do you know? It was everyone's favorite, including David's, who bless his heart, was impossible to impress. My favorite modern-day writer, Stephen King, suggests in his book On Writing that you pick one person to write for - he writes for his wife - and forget the rest. But even he should agree that his target audience is going to be mighty pissed off if he writes a tacky romance novel when they're expecting horror. As for me, I've yet to figure out who I should write for. Maybe that's half the battle.
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