FoolsCap

As the title says. . .

Then the daily work of students in class meetings and email lists is to use the readings, lectures, tapes, websites, as sources from which must be derived the instructions for completing the assignment.  Assignments usually include a required “guide” or recipe, collectively brain-stormed, that explains the “rules” for making that website, and the maker’s specific plans or proposal for performing the task.  (6-7)

and later:

[Writing on using students’ materials in shaping the widesite.]  Translate them into instructions to be applied to the details relevant to your own case. (23)

So a question for those readers more experienced with mystory.  Is the value of the mystory genre on the “instructions” or on the final product, the mystory itself?  (Of course, I acknowledge, they both have value, but I’m trying to establish where the value lies in case I ever want to teach the mystory.)

On one hand, Ulmer’s emphasis on heuretics makes me think that the invention/discovery (more on that pair in a bit) of the rules/recipe/guide is more important, since it is in the process of inventing those rules that the patterns between the fields of the popcycle are established.  Further, as our 6010 discussions about the mystory indicated, the actual written product of the mystory is not radically different from the traditional essay; it merely (again, a reduction) is organized through conduction rather than the other inference modes.  What distinguishes the mystory is the search for patterns, which is done before the writing of the essay takes place.

On the other hand. . .I think I’m maybe committing some of the errors that Trimbur warns us about in separating the composition & submission of the essay from the circulation of ideas that precedes it.  The writing of the mystory, then, has its value (as I understand it at this phase of the game) in observing how those details are organized and how they come together; context is as important as text.  Interestingly, Ulmer begins the construction of the widesite in Internet Invention by focussing on the Discipline/Career field of the popcycle; this is interesting to me because many of the mystories I’ve read start in the Family discourse and spiral outward from there (and I do think of the mystory as a spiral, I realize).  This distinction is valuable to me because it indicates more about how the mystory is composed on a practical level.  Although I don’t think Ulmer is saying you have to do it 1-2-3 in the order of the book, seeing that it is done (or has been done or can be done) 3-1-2 is of value to me.

I guess I’m so concerned about this because other instructors (GTAs, that is) who have the mystory on their syllabus seem to omit the instructions part.  I’m not criticizing them, by any means, I’m trying to figure out, as I’ve said, how to write the mystory so that I can teach the mystory.  So where/when do these instructions get brain-stormed?  In class?  Through the listerserv (as Ulmer suggests)?  My reading of Ulmer, as I’ve indicated, places as much emphasis on the “rules” as on the “product,” but I don’t yet understand how the work of inventing/dicovering the rules impacts my pedagogy.  Or is discovering/inventing the rules what happens as you write rather than before you write?

Once we have established the point of view of the project within the specialized knowledge of the Liberal Arts, the course unfolds as a narrative, with a basic narrative adventure structure (the myth of the hero) providing a literal and figurative outline and guide to lend coherence to the inquiry.  (7)

I’ve always said (though I may have stolen it unwittingly from a sharper mind than mine) that no one is the villain in the movie of their own lives.  Except me, that is, and maybe this is why I struggle with the mystory, since I cannot conceive of my actions in heroic terms.

On a less bizarre note, I’m hoping someone might help explain how the course becomes a heroic quest.  I understand the metaphor, I think, but not how it gets implemented on a practical level.

Students are not asked to “believe” but only to suspend their disbelief while trying the mystory as a genre for simulating the wide image.  Doubters have literally changed course in the middle of an email complaining that they fail to see any connection between one discourse and another, suddenly (in response to the sheer magic of writing) to be struck by a connection.  Is it discovered or invented?  Both.  That some pattern will emerge through the process is guaranteed due to the very nature of language and design: there will be repetitions.  A further guarantee is based on the fact that people’s lives have some continuity and coherence, some style, shape.  (8)

Leaving aside for the moment my doubts about Ulmer’s claim about people’s lives having shapes (’cos I certainly don’t feel mine does). . .So, in response to earlier questions above, sometimes the connections/rule of the mystory are generated through writing.  Fine.  What strikes me here is the fuzzy distinction between discovery and invention.  (Not fuzzy in a bad way like Ulmer doesn’t know what he’s trying to say.)

I am thinking here of the famous error people often make in saying Ben Franklin “invented” electricity.  Of course he didn’t, he discovered it, right–it existed as lightning and static electricity for billions of years before Ben flew his famous kite.  But his discovery also invented a new way of thinking/talking/writing about electricity and its properties. . .maybe something like that occurs with the mystory.  What begins as discovery. . .hey! there’s all these repeating signifiers!. . .becomes invention. . .I can write about them!  My difficulty in writing the mystory, though is that I find myself trying too hard to find the details, to invent the relevant connections between discourses. . .my attempts at mystory thus far have been suck-o-ramas.  Thus, I don’t want to teach the mystory until I feel more comfortable writing the mystory.