FoolsCap

Some more thoughts on nothing in particular.  Mostly as a way to avoid doing my 7010 writing.

Am I the only one who feels that Adorno/Horkheimer are sadists par excellence?  And before you ask, I did trying saying "yes" to the text before resorting to more colorful language.

Anyhoo. . .

The English word essay is derived from a couple of sources, from what the OED tells me.  These are the two in particular that may be of note to us based on our recurrent discussion about the merits of the 5P theme and whether an essay has to have a thesis statement, although I think we’ve all pretty much answered those questions anyway (few to the former, not always to the latter).

1. The action or process of trying or testing
2. A composition of moderate length on any particular subject, or branch of a subject; originally implying want of finish, ‘an irregular undigested piece’, but now said of a composition more or less elaborate in style, though limited in range.

The second definition is taken from Montaigne’s Essais, the French word seems to possess something similar to the definition 1.  I just want to point out that, even though we’ve been reading so much about the traditional  comp pedagogy that taught process, theses, and neat conclusions, the original sense of the word "essay" had very little to do with any of that, it would appear.  The pedagogical model that we may want to think basing our comp instruction around is one that acknowledges the essay’s history (and its future as well).  Composing an essay is to set into writing the traces of the author’s trying or testing of an idea. . .an attempt (with no guarantee of success) to digest all your given object may offer. 

Or at least, this is what an essay could be, if we could get past the idea that it must have a thesis/etc.

I also want to point out, apropos of nothing in particular, that since reading McGann’s piece in 7010, I’ve been acutely aware of my own radial reading practices.  Not so much in the sense of looking up things in Atlases, per se, but noting in Adorno/Horkheimer places where they suggest Derrida, or noting in Derrida instances that make me note "Spellmeyer/Batholomae" in the margin. 

We’ve mentioned in class the use of hypertext in composition pedagogy, but I wonder if there isn’t a connection to be drawn between radial reading and hypertext.  In some ways, hypertext could be seen as the fulfillment of radreading, since it achieves the same function without as violent a break in the reading process.  I wonder if anyone has any suggestions on where to read about hypertext as a reading theory in addition to a writing one.  I doubt I’m breaking new ground with this association, but I’d like to see if there’s anything available on this topic.

As a further note. . .I guess I’m a little surprised that so few of our readings thus far have had much commentary abut reading practices.  [Granted, I haven’t started the reading for this week.  Not that we have class this week, though.]  It seems to me that, especially for our purposes, good writing (or at least, better writing) begins with better reading.  Hmm. . .

Some thoughts based on yesterday’s class:

I find it curious that nearly all of us chose to craft assignments that seemed to reveal assumptions, errors, or misunderstandings in our students’ thought processes.  I think we all had good assignments, but I wonder if this doesn’t indicate a lingering commonplace in our pedagogy: the assumption that our students are making these mistakes in the first place. 

That’s assuming, I suppose, that you view such assumptions etc. as mistakes.  One can argue that they are not mistakes, as such, but biases that develop naturally through acculturation, socialization, and other words that end in -ation.  Rather, these assignments could be understood as an attempt to encourage some meta-style thinking about the assumptions etc. that shape one’s understanding of the world. . .which was probably our own conscious goal when crafting our respective assignments.  That said, I’m trying here to do my own meta-analysis of the assumptions that generated the assignment.

As Jeff noted, it’s all a matter of appropriation.  Because we all aspire to be better comp instructors than we are now [and, at that, better writers than we are now], we read Corder on his "generative ethos" and hear Jeff’s lecture in favor of such pedagogical models and make the decision to appropriate it or not.

I think that many of us probably read Corder and heard Jeff’s spiel and uncritically appropriate the generatrive ethos for our own.  Why?  For one thing, we are all enveloped in a scholastic culture in which the person at the front of the room with a marker and whiteboard is an authority whose own motivations, biases, et cetera often go without scrutiny.  Because the generative ethos is presented as an ideal–both through its inclusion in the syllabus and and our own instructor’s own endorsement of its paradigm–there is a powerful temptation toward appropriation.

Now: I’m not saying our esteemed professor has some nefarous motive behind his pedagogy.  I’m only trying to subject our immediate and (apparently) unscrutinized interest in the generative ethos to the same meta-critique we all asked of our students in the assignments we created.  My thesis–if I must have one, hahaha–is just to draw attention to both our own assumptions/biases/etc and to caution myself (and any who heed me) of the power we wield as instructors.

In case anyone is wondering. . .That’s a poster of He-Man wielding the Power of Greyskull.  It’s really the only image that makes sense, when you think about it.

Attentive readers will note that the puns grow increasingly atrocious as the semester continues.  It’s just going to devolve into dumb blonde jokes by, say, late November.

Attentive readers–particularly the class instructor kind–will further note that I am in fact posting the day of class.  Hrm. 

So:

p. 715: "’games of truth’"

Briefly: Foucault’s quote, describing knowledge forms as "games," reminds me of Derrida’s notion of "play" between and within words and discourses.  I don’t have a big point to make, I just wanted to note that both theorists construct language/discourse as something we should be having fun doing–an aspect that we tend to forget sometimes.

p. 717: "institutional anonymity of forms and conventions"

Shades of Bartholomae, Batman!  I think Spellmeyer observes something that correlates with Batholomae’s notion of commonplaces: they do sort confer a certain anonymity by allowing writers to assume a preestablished discursive form without risking the subjective "I."  [I almost sound like I know what I’m talking about.]  Since, as Bartholomae notes, commonplaces too often pass without scrutiny, couching one’s argument in these forms similarly allows an attempt to enter discourse without one’s subjectivity meeting the same scrutiny.

p. 720: Quoting James Porter: "’communities of discourse’", "’individuals bound by a common interest who communicate through approved channels and whose discourse is regulated’"

Briefly: I think these two ideas are what Batholomae means by "the university."  Nothing extraordinary, just sayin’.

p. 723: "[. . .] [W]e speak first, and then learn what we have said and whom we have become.  By beginning and beginning again, attempting and being mistaken, the "I" defines a space it can occupy, long before the writer makes any conscious determinations about truth and falsity, consistency or inconsistency, understanding and misunderstanding."

First: I wonder why Spellmeyer enforces the binary between consistency/inconsistency when truth/falsity and understanding/misunderstanding both get paired contiguously; it seems at odds with the rest of his argument here.

Second: The whole "speak first, learn what we have said" structure seems to explicate nicely my own suggested essay model from a few posts back.  I think, too, that Erica’s essay later in Spellmeyer works in much the same way my proposed model might.  Something for me to look for: does this model hold true for the essays that the assigned readings hold up as quality student work?  If so, does that in itself mean the model is viable?  Or is it merely an extrapolation from a technique that produces worthy results?

p. 726: "[. . .] [T]he last three sentences above might be seen as contradicting everything that comes before them in a passage opening with [an] unqualified assertion [. . . .]"

I read this sentence and asked myself: reading Erica’s essay, would I see the logical continuity in her essay, or would I read the "contradiction" and not see its connection to the rest of the response?  This goes to the ongoing discussion that Jeff and I have had via comments to my Bartholomae response.  Would I assume Erica made a mistake, penalize her for it, and then risk losing insightful, probing responses like the one Spellmeyer offers us?  I did not, in fact, read this as a contradiction since, as Spellmeyer notes, it is a contradiction that comes naturally out of her analytic method.  But if her paper were 15th in a stack of 30, would I see it?

p. 727: "[. . .] [E]very form of discourse [. . .] discloses retrospectively, and only retrospectively, the transformation of a game of truth."

I read as follows: Why ask a question to which you already know the answer?  It seems there is no quicker way to limit the possbilities of discourse than to limit its outcomes to a pre-ordained statement.

On Bartholomae (who will henceforth be called Dave or David so I don’t have to type his last name over and over):

p. 39: "The student has to speak our language, to speak as we do, to try on the peculiar ways of knowing, selecting, evaluating, reporting, concluding, and arguing that define the discourse of our community." [Italics mine–MLM]

I know as a young scholar I’m entering into an establish discursive community, but. . .here’s my problem with Dave’s sentence.  It’s sort of the same thought on two different prongs of attack:

1. I don’t think that the student will have a very easy time learning and entering *our* discourse if we position in the insular and elitist way that, in my reading, Dave inadvertently does.  And beside that: why would she want to if we’re looking down our collective noses at her?
2. Do we have an obligation to meet her halfway?  I invite my readers to check out Bartholomae_Inventing the University_ over at Jessica’s site.  I was going to respond there but it’s come up here, so. . . .Don’t we have an obligation to meet the student half-way?  I think Jessica is, perhaps, employing a little bit of irony when she suggests instructors "investigate the communities their students come from in order to accomodate them," but that’s what it comes down to, doesn’t it?  I think that insisting on the students duty to make her own place in the discourse makes it all the harder for us.

p. 42: "When the writer says ‘I don’t know,’ then, he is not saying that he has nothing to say.  He is saying that he is not in a position to carry on the discussion.  And so we are addressed as apprentices rather than as teachers or scholars.  In order to speak as a person of status or privilege, the writer can either speak to us in our terms–in the privileged language of university discourse–or, in default (or in defiance) of that, he can speak to us as though we were children, offering us the wisdom of experience."

I’ve quoted Dave at length here because I want to point out something.  I want to point out that, to me, his reasoning here makes about as much sense as a duck buying an umbrella.  I guess I see where he draws his conclusion from, looking at the student essays he offers us, but I don’t think this generality holds true.  I can’t really adequately defend my resistance to this logic, but. . .it just doesn’t do it for me. . .to borrow a phrase from Spaceballs.

[How great is it to discuss pedagogy and quote a movie called Spaceballs in the same night?]

Here’s some more comments.  I’m sure we’ve all read about free-writing as a way to start writing a paper.  Supposedly, even if you don’t have any ideas, if you "don’t know what to say," free writing will get you to a point where you find something to me.

Horse puckey.  It never works in my experience.  All I end up with is a sheet full of weird doodles and suggestive phrases that would land me in a sexual harrassment suit if I turned them in.  But thinking about free writing and the student with "nothing to say" got me thinking about two different ways to bridge that divide, one of which might make an actual honest-to-god assignment.

1. [Not the assignment one.]  I would suggest the following to a student who "didn’t know" or who had "nothing to say:" write about what it is you don’t know.  I know that sounds confusing so let me explain.  I’d ask him to try to figure out what it is he doesn’t know, and why he doesn’t know.  Not actual facts, mind you, I’m not trying to breed a race of psychic super soldiers, but I’d ask this student to identify where the gaps of knowledge are.  For example: I can’t make heads or tails of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  In my imaginary solution then, the work I would produce might identify the following gaps in knowledge: Palestinian culture, Muslim teaching, roots of Zionism. . .and then suggest why these things might be important to know about the conflict.  On the other hand, I wonder if any assignment you can’t explain well to grad students is wise to assign to freshman comp. 
2. [The actual assignment one.]  I like the idea of meta-assignments that ask students to examine their own writing/reading strategies.  On the other hand, I don’t want to fall back on the old "tell me how you feel about writing" chestnut, so I’ve come up with a slight derivation.  My first class would be the syllabus and introductions, yeah?  The assigned reading for the next session would be Harris’s chapter on Process and the following interchapter.  The next session of class would be discussion of the texts and the writing assignment would be this: For the first writing assignment, I want you to describe your own writing process.  Explain what steps you take to prepare for writing, what behaviors you exhibit when you write, and how/whether you revise after you write.  Do you use any of the models discussed in the chapter from Harris?  If you do, why?  You may also wish to consider the differences that arise when you write for different audiences: do you use the same process when you write for friends as when writing for school?  Try to explain why you think this process works for you (if you feel it does) or identify why it does not (if you feel that it does not).  Here’s why I think this could be a good assignment:  it’s complex enough to start enough by asking some real thought of the students, but I don’t feel that it’s too intimidating: it doesn’t require research and I’m not asking them to draw any significant inferences from other texts or anything.  I haven’t quite figured out how long I’d make the assignment though.  On one hand, it is sort of complex, so I think a minimum of, say, 700 words (2.5-3 pages) is not unreasonable; but I’d like this turned in pretty quick, so that might be too long.  Any advice?

p. 44:"The problem of audience awareness, then, is a problem of power and finesse.  [. . . .]  And they argue, implicitly, what is generally true about writing–that it is an act of aggression disguised as an act of charity."

Dave:  Calm. . .the fluck. . .down.

Compare Dave here to Corder, p.12:

"Any author or teacher, for example, who thinks of writing as giving power is probably singling out a single, legitimate feature of writing, but is otherwise violating the spirit of human connection."  [Italics in original–MLM]

Maybe I’m naive (maybe I’m amazed at the way I love you), but I don’t identify with these issues of power-struggles in the classroom.  Of course, that may change once I’m actually teaching, but still. . .I understand that, as the instructor, I have authority over graders, expectations, et cetera, but I don’t think of it as power, per se.  It kind of creeps me out to do so, actually–why would that be?  I guess it’s this: If I have power, it means it can be misused (absolute power, etc.); but if I have authority, it also means I have responsibility.  It’s all semantics, I guess, but I’d rather concern myself with meeting my responsibilities than wielding power.

p. 46: "Contemporary rhetorical theory [. . .] available to him."

At last, a succinct explanation of what Barthes is on about.  Anyone know of a good primer on Lit Theory?  Not the anthology that Barrett Watten recommends, but something more akin to "Literary Theory for Dummies?"

p. 52: On "commonplaces"

I understand Dave’s thoughts on "commonplaces," but will somene kidly explain how these differ from cliches?

I’ll more than happily comment on Spellmeyer once I get the blasted thing to print–dadgum nogood dial-up modem.

Didn’t get it.  ‘Nuff said.

Well. . .I actually read this more as a way of demonstraing the "thesis-less" essay.  That’s all I’ve got right now.  I’m trying to make sense of it in the context of the other Barthes I’ve read in 7010, so I maybe I need to reread it trough the 6010 lens.  But I’m not gonna.

I mean not yet.  I meant not yet.  Y’all knew that, right?

Crap.

[Brief note on something I just noticed.  The greater white space left between comments up there sort of signifies a pause in my "speaking."  Why is that so?  Something about visual rhetoric or something?  Any answers, those of you who know this stuff?]

::Anguished Sob:: I don’t think Morrissey will ever forgive me for that awful pun.

I want everyone to believe me that I wrote the following comment on p. 27 of Lauer’s essay:

For "rhetoric," read "comp"

I want you to believe me because honest I picked this up before p. 44: "The very term rhetoric was replaced with composition, which was devoted to practice and criticism." [Italics in original]

Okay, Jeff you win: We’ve been reading all this hoo-ha about rhet in order to see how it became comp, and how our discipline has been shaped over the years.  ::Sigh::  In the interests of accuracy, here is the note I added on 44:

Dang it!

So noted because I thought I was pretty hot shite picking up the whole rhet=comp thing and then she has to go spell it out for everyone.  Yeesh.

Anyway, I don’t really like this Lauer piece, but I did draw from it the following insight.  It’s not a breakthrough for most of you folks, but it was a minor revolution for me.  The  (near) universal behind Lauer’s history of rhetoric and rhetorical pedagogy is this: in the majority of examples offered, rhetoric is the study or the art of how one makes an argument.  And, as I suggested in an earlier post about "meta-discourse," that is something we can teach.  Or at least try to.

By the way, I think–I’m not sure–the above pic is the cover to the UK edition of the book Saint Morrissey.

Oh, and for those of you not into the Smiths:

1. First of all: shame on you.
2. Second: The Smiths have a compilation called Louder than Bombs.  Hence today’s crappy pun.
3. If you haven’t heard the Smiths, get thee to a music retailer and procure some forthwith.  I think a good place to start is the singles collection, but most fans agree that The Queen is Dead is their best album.  I demur in favor of the final album, Strangeways Here We Come, which was also the favorite of Morrissey and Marr.

::Woebegone sigh::

p. 151: "[. . .] scholastic [. . . .]"

I’d forgotten abuot this word, I confess.  I just want to highlight it as a possible contender for my replacement for "academic," which, loyal readers know, I want to repurpose in my discourse.

p. 157: "[. . .][If] ‘ideas’ can be represented on paper by ‘topics’ then the externally imposed structure afforded by the outline will insure that random or unconnected ideas are worked out into an orderly progression.  That minds, let alone discourse, sometimes flow into other channels, seems never to occur to authors of current-traditional composition textbooks."

While I hold this to be true, I have some reservations.

1. One of the things us new GTAs have had drilled into our ever-lovin’ heads is that freshman writing is often unorganized, and that one of our responsibilities as new comp instructors is to help the froshes learn how to organize their work.  But here comes Crowley seemingly undermining that notion (as, I find, Harris seems to at points).  How do we reconcile the assertion that discourse can be enriched by not slavishly following formulae while at the same time filling the expectations set for us (by the dep’t and the university) which might (superficially?) be at odds?
2. A sidebar that might prove relevant: In a recent class (I won’t name names, but the instructor’s name rhymes with "Barflack") we discussed how an argument is constructed not through its content but through its "meta-discourse": those words which signal relationships between ideas and allow the reader to tie figures together: but, however, contrary, et cetera.  [I think that’s how meta-discourse works.]
3. What we might see as our goal then, is to help student’s both think critically and generate ideas, even those that might not seem directly related to the subject at hand (see #2) above, and then using the meta-discursive apparatus available, contruct something resembling a sensible argument.
4. Which leads me, once more, to my rudimentary essay model in the previous post.