Another good word: concatenation.
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.
Of course. Question your assumptions.
regarding generative ethos - that is not about appropriation. I borrowed appropriation from the Bartholomae essay. Generative ethos is the process of becoming. Allowing “things” to grow. in that sense, questioning one’s assumptions is a generative ethos as you allow your own ideological position(s) to shift. In a piece of writing, it is about not basing the writing on one fixed position. As an exploration of space, “The Eiffel Tower” might be a kind of generative ethos driving writing.
Comment by jeff — 26 September, 2006 @ 3:24 pm
Mitch Responds:
I know the generative ethos isn’t about appropriation. [I blame my faulty prose for the confusion.] I was trying to establish that we (Jeff Rice’s Fall 2006 ENG6010 students) are encouraged toward appropriating Corder’s generative ethos as our own. My concern, I suppose is not so much about the g.e. as how certain social constructs (i.e., syllabi, classroom behaviors, academia) encourage appropriation of certain thema even while analyzing and critiquing appropriation itself. If I have any confusion, I suppose it is in regard to the following question: Do we appropriate thema/ideology/whatever, or are we appropriated by them? Or is it some of both?
Comment by Mitch — 26 September, 2006 @ 3:44 pm
Well, both sounds pretty right to me. Or some of both.
I think the main reason for introducing appropriation is to present one method for generating ideas. It can’t be the only one, but it holds a nice meta-feeling to it. For a week about invention, a strategy for us (how to come up with assignments, focus, readings), and for students at once.
Comment by jeff — 26 September, 2006 @ 6:43 pm
So it seems that maybe the key to appropriating (as with many things in this class/life/whatever) is to not do it blindly without thinking? Or critically questioning or however you put it?
And by the way, I ♥ “concatenation.” It was dictionary.com’s word of the day a few months ago. I’m a dork.
Comment by Jenna — 27 September, 2006 @ 8:53 pm