Well, thanks to all of you who have taken the time to read and comment on my musings. I probably should apologize for the length of my entries, but I won't. I will explain my refusal, however. First, women too often apologize for speaking, and I refuse to perpetuate that silliness. Second, I find that the writing helps me sort things out and makes what I get clearer to me and helps me to see what I really don't understand. So, I'll continue to write a lot, and I hope some of you will continue to read and comment on what I've written. A lot of the time I learn more from the conversation than the reading.
A few things:
My grammar fetish. I think we discussed in class how I reconcile it with a liberation pedagogy. But I've been thinking about it, and I want to repeat what I think I said and perhaps add a little more. First, I control myself. I don't focus on grammatical and/or mechanical errors. Content and ideas are more important to me. Second, when it does come time to address grammatical issues, I let students take the lead, insofar as I can. Two classes before the class on grammar, I ask students to bring in a sheet of paper on which they've written or typed two questions they have about grammar. That is, I ask them to provide the content. I pick the three issues they most often ask about, and that becomes the grammar lesson. Before we actually begin addressing the grammatical stuff, we have a discussion about why they have to know this "crap." I try to present grammar as a means of having power over words, of making the words do what we want them to so that other people will understand them as we want them to as writers. I know this is way too simplistic, but I'm not introducing Derrida to Comp 101 students. Then, as I grade the paper, I consider only the grammatical stuff we went over. I note what other errors I see consistently across papers, and that becomes the basis for other lessons.
Critical thinking: I used the wrong phrase. I mean critical consciousness. And I'm not sure that putting composition in the service of developing critical consciousness is different in kind from putting it in the service of devloping good citizens. But I do think that the development of critical consciousness is prior to good citizenship, and it has the advantage of allowing one to inquire for oneself what one's relationship to society is and ought to be instead of having "good citizenship" defined for one. There is a disconnect here, though. See my next comment to Jess.
Jess, I agree completely that language only creates language. It makes perfect sense to me. To claim that it does more is to continue to embrace a modernist teleological epistemology. What I mean is that if we claim that language creates knowledge, then we are, in a sense, saying that language has a purpose (which is to reify it in a way), and that knowledge actually exists (which is to reify it!). I feel much more comfortable talking about (rationally justified) belief than I do talking about knowledge. I'll address this issue more fully in my dissonance blog. I think. If I don't, I'll come back to it, I'm sure.
The Kant thing: Kant claims (in essence) that we are born with innate organizational categories imprinted in our minds by God. Now, being an atheist, I have some trouble with that. But I do think that perhaps language does provide analogous categories which (we use to) organize experience, thought, lives, values, more language etc. My view isn't as determinist as Sapir-Whorf seems to me, but it's similar.
Technology: I absolutely agree that we shouldn't and can't ignore technology and the ways it's transformed and transforming composition studies. Nor do I want to. Believe me, I much prefer computers and the internet to typewriters and bibliographies. I just want to be careful about the degree to which we let it mediate our interactions with other human beings and with the world. I absolutely agree with you, Dr. Jablonski: We do have a responsibility to prepare students for the kinds of writing situations they are likely to encounter when they leave the academy. It's unfortunate that it's so difficult to reconcile this goal with the institutional goals and parameters to which we must make our pedagogies conform. Because you're right, Dr. J. There're very few venues in which any of us will write any kind of essays outside the academy. Even if we do do, it's unlikely that anyone will call them "essays"!
Technology does raise interesting questions about identity and subjectivity, doesn't it?
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1 comment:
Ah, this is what happens when I don't read the earlier posts first! First of all I love that you commented on comments. I think I might have to totally copy your idea and do this myself. It allows for conversation to happen (which is difficult via computers) and it also allows for increased meaning to be made. I said this, you said that, now I say this. I actually had my students do a small in-class activity to create this situation. Basically what I'm trying to say here is that it is important to push towards communicating no matter if it is in person or via computer and I think you are doing a fantastic job of it. I hope to learn from you and appreciate, as always, your challenging of the status quo :)
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