In having students first read Berlin's "Contemporary Composition: The Major Pedagogical Theories" and Fulkerson's "Composition at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century," I hoped to begin the many conversations that I imagine will sustain us over the course of the semester. Despite the gap of time between Berlin and Fulkerson (and between Fulkerson and now), we're still addressing many of their concerns. Part of this is because teaching writing is not that simple, just as writing is itself not that simple. How we write and how we teach writing depends on theory, but also practice, institutional context, the students present in first-year writing courses.
This is what I noticed about many students' comments, just how grounded they were in present or prior experience as students and teachers of writing. I'm both wary and welcoming about this, though. It's important to ground theory in practice, to keep our heads out of the clouds and our feet on the ground, to not get swept up by the potential of a given theory without paying attention to the realities in which we teach. It's also important to not be driven purely past experience and knowledge, to be open to theory as well as amendments to practice. Just because it might seem like a given group of students would be averse to expressivism doesn't necessarily mean they will be. Many of those first-year students who hate/love writing will continue to hate/love, almost regardless of pedagogy. Perhaps we should be more attentive to that nebulous middle.
Then again, I did admit last night to being an idealist. I think I use language less flowery than Berlin, though. But what else did I note about last night's discussion? Let's see...
There is something of value in each theory (even current-traditional!), so don't discard. Instead, reduce, reuse, recycle, remix, repurpose. Don't get too infatuated with a given theory either; be sure to question it.
Writing of questions: Is it possible to draft a Fulkerson-approved CCS course? Argument or content? Should we worry about the communication of ideas and/or what course aspects are just extraneous information? What should really be at issue in a first-year composition course? Some kind of balance must be executed among teacher and student expectations, that neither pander to the other. And just what is the relationship between New Rhetoric and expressivism/expressionism? Come the semester's end, will we be able to complete Fulkerson's chart? What will we add and/or remove?
In the interest of fostering further communication, I offer a sampling of students' most recent entries. Among the interesting points of the individual posts is how much they mirror the existential/identity crisis composition continues to grapple with.
Every theory has potential to alter the way writing, the teaching of writing or the learning of writing is done and can offer a wide varieties of going about it.
Why can't one student dive right into the paper and just write, and why can't another student make an outline, a cluster cloud, or do ten rough drafts? If that is what works for that student, then let them do it. Sometimes I flurish in my writing by just diving right in, and sometimes I sit down and work on an outline. It just depends. It also depends on the topic, the assignment, other environmental factors.
Whether it be a current/traditionalist who flogs you with her red pen for incomplete sentences, a cultural studies methodologist who gives you a demographically related reading text to be inspired by, a feministic expressivist who has to make sure that you feel good about what you have written in your original voice or a hidden criminal defense lawyer posing as a composition instructor who is hell bent on cross-examining your paper, one thing is certain. They will definitely get you to write something and go through some sort of pseudo-process at that.
The idea of New Rhetoric's creating of the “real world” or reality by organization stuck with me (and took up a great deal of my margins!) in that I see that a person uses language (words) to organize thoughts. After that is done, it must be possible to turn that organization into fluid and cohesive ideas.
are we then to pigeon-hole each student into buying a certain model car, or writing style in this case, when others are readily available and may meet the various needs of each individual student? Whichever rhetorical theory teachers choose to implement, I think the first step should be to focus on a solid foundation, which will provide students with the necessary tools to add any accessory they want later
People say "do this, do that, follow these instructions" but rarely is the method behind the method explained. There is more mystery to writing, and more complication, than there should be. Maybe clearing up the mystery and bringing back a focus on clarity, analysis, end results and learning would be a better solution?
How do we standardize process? Fulkerson emphasizes that it doesn't really work when we break it down into a formulaic series of steps, from pre-writing to final draft, so what do we do? Process is, at least I hope, supposed to be unique to the author in question.
I don’t believe that the writing process can be broken down into pieces and filed away as a “box”. Writing is far too expansive and not to mention fascinating to be considered black or white.
One thing that I was really able to take away from Berlin was the idea that writing teachers are really important and have a huge responsibility to their students. He puts it this way, "In teaching writing, we are not simply offering training in a useful technical skill that is meant as a simple complement to the more important studies of other areas. We are teaching a way of experiencing the world, a way of ordering and making sense of it.
After reading pages and pages of composition and rhetorical theory, I feel like this quote really boils it all down. Why do we write at all? Why do we update our FB or Tweet? Why do we write emails? Blog? Even our reposting of video clips, articles, and photos is a way for us to find commonality-- or strike up an argument.
The real question is this: Why do we want students to write?
Do we want them to become the next major novelist? Do we want them to be able to compose great papers for their professors? Last time I checked, they don't let you write term papers as a career. So maybe we need to teach kids how to write so they can simply express themselves.
it is essential as educators to encourage students to question everything. It is important to engage students to form their own questions which will in turn guide them to their own answers. As a result, students begin to form their own identity as writers and individuals.
