You've Gotta Fight...

Brannon & Knoblauch: I'll start out with a quote this time around: "The more we know about a writer's skill, the more we have read of that individual's work or heard of his or her reputation, the greater the claim to authority. This claim can be so powerful that we will tolerate writing from that author which appears to be unusually difficult, even obscure or down-right confusing." (p 157) I agree with this completely. This explains why I forced myself through Orlando by Virginia Woolf. I hated it immediately but kept trudging through, just because it was Woolfie. What a waste.
I have to admit that I'm glad I read this before I started teaching. It's true that even when I peer review, I don't attribute much authority to the text of my peer and so I probably go in there with the preconceived notion that there are mistakes to be unrooted, problems to be solved. I would say that the descriptions of the Paternalistic teacher who swings to the conservative or the liberal is shockingly similar to the differing views that Bartholomae and Elbow have of student work. I would be so frustrated if a teacher gave me a bad grade and then told me that I really meant to say this or the other. I remember speaking to an unnamed student who had an unnamed professor who actually made a vocabulary change on the student's rough draft. It was something like changing the word "work" to "toil" or something as ridiculous. When things like that happen, the whole work stops being the student's.
The Lindbergh Ideal Text thing was crazy, but I can see people reading something like what that student wrote and making those comments. It's nuts, but it's happened before. What is profound to some is absurd to others.
I guess the answer to finding some sort of middle ground between the conservative paternal teacher and the liberal paternal teacher is really just that...take the middle road. Negotiate with the student. Talk to them about their work or better yet, ask them about it. Don't assume it's wrong if it doesn't neatly fit predetermined conventionality, but don't assume it's groundbreaking and has some sort of artistic agenda behind it.

Someone used the phrase, "Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater" the other day and I thought of the Lindbergh baby. Maybe that's what really happened to him.

Attention: Suppression!

Lauren: I thought this was great. It reminded me of when I was in high school and my crazy nutso World History teacher would give us sets of 50-70 identifications to do each night for homework. She wanted us to go through our antiquated history book and define whatever names or terms she had as identifications. I would do them for an hour and then start making stuff up. I remember I described Lloyd George (the Prime Minister of England right after WWI) as being the androgynous lead singer of the 1980's band, Culture Club. I did this with a ton of the identifications, as well as writing hidden messages such as "Tabatsko, I'm going to kill all of your ferns before the semester is out." I received an A on all of my identifications.
Anyway, yeah. this thing that Lauren did reminded me of how some teachers just look at format and the very basic clues as to what makes a good paper (1 inch margin, title, cited sources, topic sentences for each paragraph, etc.). I thought the whole thing really spoke to a teacher's awareness of student writing and maybe their attention focus on individual papers.
I did have a problem with the poorly graded paper. One of the teacher's comments was "Yuck" about a transition. Absolutely, the particular transition the student makes is not a great one, but I would be destroyed if a teacher wrote "Yuck" on my paper. Maybe I'm touchy on this because I have notably terrible transitions. I could just be overly-sensitive in this arena.

Bartholomae eats Elbow pasta for lunch.

It's been a considerable amount of time since I've read this...I fell off the good blogging wagon. :(
Bartholomae: I like this fellow. I suppose I don't really get what's so wrong about teaching academic writing. If it "passes as currency in the academy," (p 62) then teachers would be wrong to pass out Confederate dolla dolla bills (y'all) in lieu of skills that hold value in a community that students will be a part of for at least the next four years. Like it or not, academic writing is something that has proven itself to be useful to students in the past. Is everyone excited about it? Heck no. I happen to kind of like writing academically and even I don't respond "I get to write a thesis statement and support it with reliable, documented sources? Color me PUMPED!" I think Bartholomae is sort of arguing against the "tricking" of students into thinking what they are doing is not academic writing. Kind of like the vitamin pill in the twinkie, so to speak.
I have to agree with what he says about the work of Jane Tompkins and Mina Shaughnessy in that they are advocating (maybe?) that the work their students are doing is more authentic than academic writing. "The danger is assuming that one genre is more real than the other ( a detailed, loving account of the discourse on domesticity found in 19th century American women's magazines) - in assuming that one is real writing and the other is only a kind of game academics play."(69). Word, St. Bartholomae. "True" that. One time in class, Shipka was reading a list about what some people considered qualities of good writing. One that kept popping up was "honesty." Like, "I felt they were writing from the heart." or "Their writing was so completely honest." What does that mean? Does that speak to the authenticity of the piece? Who is writing inauthentic texts that we need to be so concerned with how "honest" something is? I'm confused by this whole idea, I guess. (I feel like I've blogged about this issue before, but I don't feel like going back and checking. You'll have to deal with my repetition.) Last word on Bartholomae: "You have to learn to write like E. B. White before you can learn to write like Gertrude Stein. Picasso couldn't have been a cubist if he hadn't learned to draw figures." (70) Yeah, totally. That's what I've been saying!

Elbow: Is Peter Elbow adorable? I just have a feeling he is. (Shipka, if you know the answer to this...don't tell me. Let a girl dream.)
Why is there a conflict between the role of the writer and the role of the academic? What defines an academic? Constraints of assignments or goals? Need for focus? How is that different from the definition of a writer? To me, even writers are working under the constraints of many things...language, background knowledge, audience, maybe publishability (who knows?). I guess I don't get why there has to be a stark contrast between these two roles or why they have to conflict at all. I feel like Bartholomae and Elbow really want to have them not conflict, and yet they insist they do. Elbow has a good point about approaching texts "We must try to come at these strong important texts: - no matter how good or hallowed they may be - as much as possible as fellow writers - as fully eligible members of the conversation: not treat them as sacred: not worry about "doing justice" to them or getting them dirty." (74) Point well taken. I agree with the "conversation" metaphor as well, and I think that academic writing can accomplish this.
I'm going to conclude this, because I don't know what else to say that hasn't already been addressed in other blogs. It looks like Bartholomae wants to tell his students to understand that they are just a small drop of water in the big, wide literature ocean. You know, be aware of your own ineffectuality. Elbow insists that students should believe themselves to be the next T.S. Eliot or something, that everything they write should be with the notion that it is utterly groundbreaking. My thoughts about student writing fall somewhere in between. Somewhere waaaay in between.
P.S. I found a note I wrote to myself when I first read this back in March. I was reading it at my local pub and I was overhearing conversations all night from the people around me. Here goes:
"Since when did the phrase 'Being real' replace 'Being yourself?'" If anyone can answer this, I'd be grateful.

This is sort of related...

I'm doing observations for my education class and during my last observation there was a period of boredom while students were quietly working on a worksheet. I took this opportunity to look at the textbook they had been using in the classroom, so here are my notes:

The book is Adventures in American Literature, Pegasus Edition. It is broken up into time periods and literary movements. At the end of the book, in Modern Nonfiction, there is an essay from James Baldwin on "The Creative Process" and William Faulkner's Nobel Prize acceptance speech. The end of the nonfiction pieces feature study and discussion questions, as well as prompts for further research. Also, at the end of the book is a section titled "Reading and Writing about Literature." The first objective of this section is for the student to "develop skills in critical thinking." The students are guided through a close reading with the story "A Game of Catch" by Richard Wilbur. Following this is a piece titled "Guidelines for Reading a Short Story." There is also a guided close reading of a poem by Elinor Wylie with "guidelines for reading a poem." The same occurs with a play. After all of this is a section called "Writing about Literature: The Writing Process." The section seems to be geared towards answering exam questions and answering an essay question. Evaluating and revising papers are also covered here. (Just looked on Amazon.com to get an image...the text is from 1989! Can't get an image...you can find it here: http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/P/0153348542.01._BO2,204,203 )

So there it is. It's not much, but I was thinking of this class as I was looking over the book and I didn't put these notes in my paper, so I thought I'd just go ahead and post them here. I also thought it would be interesting to see an actual textbook that is actually being used in a school this semester. The school is Dulaney High School in Timonium.
P.S. I have an inner ear infection that has given me severe vertigo. I am officially Liza Minnelli on "Arrested Development."
Love,
Lucille 2

Pomo Blues w/ a splash of nonfat, zing of honey, and no lid

It's so depressing to sit down to the computer again. For some reason, I thought I already responded to this, but I then realized that I was rereading my blog about Connors, not Carroll. Hup, two, three, four:
Carroll: Man, I hate to talk about postmodernism when it's been so nice outside, but I suppose it must be done. The fact that all writing assignments can be placed under a handful of categories is a little disheartening, but pretty accurate. I was sort of agreeing with Carroll all along until the story about Alex and the "true meaning of Christmas" came up. She presents Alex's two versions of the story and then says "neither version of Alex's story is necessarily more authentic" (922). Yeah, I guess, but if Alex volunteers that the "mood" the one narrative contains is closer to his actual feelings of the event, isn't that one more authentic? Was it Runciman that pointed out the pleasure one gets from finding exactly accurate phrasing to say what one wanted to say? Doesn't that make that particular piece (or at least sentence) more authentic than other ways of saying it would be? Obviously, there is a problem with what is "authentic writing." I forget what Shipka was reading in class the one time, but it was something about judging good writing and that it was based on how "honest" the writer was. I mean, that's a doozy, right? How is that something that can be either slated "yes, honest" or "no, complete bull crap"? Sorry, moving on...
Aha, here we go: "the best essay is not the 'truest'; it is the one that rings most true for the readers" (924). Okay, so there we encounter another problem with authenticity...the reader's perspective. Holy Geez, Pomo is such a headache sometimes.
Overall, I thought the essay was well done in it's application of postmodernism onto freshman composition writing assignments. The student yelling "IT'S ALL TRUE!" at the end of the piece seemed like an easy out to me, but I suppose she was right. Also, it's pretty appropriate in keeping with the theme of postmodernism being something that everyone can be blamed for, but no one can help.

The Jumping Dog and the Room Full of Clowns

I'm pet/housesitting for a few of my cousins while they're in Florida this week. You know what just occured to me? I don't know if I'm getting paid for these gigs. Oh man, I better be.

Alright, so today was the first day of my "checking in" on Mr. Peabody, my cousin's very small, very jumpy dog. I went after work tonight (around 9:30 p.m.) and was greeted by what appeared to be the Olympian high-jumping dog of the century. Right away, I took Peabody out which was kind of a treat because my cousins live in a development with lighted sidewalks and neatly paved streets. This is a stark contrast from my curvy wurvy road that leads to my family's giant hill, complete with barn (thankyouverymuch). Right, so I'm walking. Peabody's walking. We're having a grand ol' time. He does his busin-nasty and I clean it up. Homewards we go.

Clearly, I must feed this dog. I find the note my cousin Christy leaves on the counter for me, detailing the rigorous procedure I must follow in order to adhere to Mr. Peabody's needs. The note says brilliant and enlightened things like "Food in food dish." and "Give him water." Amazed at my cousin's innovative approaches to canine caretaking, I wander around the house to look for the aforementioned food dish. I can't find it. I even call my mother (who literally hasn't been able to walk for weeks due to some horrible knee problems. Needless to say that she hasn't been over their house in quite some time) to see if maybe she has any insight at all as to the location of Mr. Peabody's shite (not literally shite...I saw where that was. Outside, thank Jesus). You can all guess that my mother had no idea. Correct assumption, folks.

I should probably mention this before I go any further...I have a phobia. I have no problems with bugs, snakes, mice, or closed-in spaces. I am afraid of clowns. DEATHLY afraid of them. There is no logic to it, really no reason at all. Bottom line is that even as I typed the "c" word (twice!), my stomach did a dip. Shudder. Okay, on with the story:

At this point, I'm thinking Peabody's food and water could be anywhere. Christy told me that he likes to sleep in her room, so I thought it would make sense if she kept his stuff in there. The room was completely dark and I remembered that Christy told me to turn on her light by the lamp on her dresser (across the room) and not the lightswitch on the wall. Easy enough.

For all of my bright ideas and helpful memories of Christy's room and Peabody's sleeping preferences, I forgot the one thing that I have known about my cousin since childhood. THE WOMAN VOLUNTARILY COLLECTS CLOWN FIGURINES.

I want you all to take a moment and think about my thumb and forefinger clicking on that lamp. Okay, you can now visualize all of the blood draining out of my face and my inability to move my entire body.

They were everywhere!! On her bed, on her dresser, on her television, on her side table, on the clock, knitted on a throw pillow...and God knows where else. Because once my fear subsided enough for me to regain standing consciousness, I got the Unholy Hell out of Dodge.

Here's the best (or most ironic) part: I was supposed to sleep there, you know, as a part of the housesitting perks. Christy told me she put new sheets on her bed for me. Looks like she's going to have fresh sheets when she gets home because I'm safe in my office at home now. She's out of her Goddamn mind if she thinks I'm sleeping within a three-mile radius of that house.

So, where were the dishes for the dog? About three feet away from Christy's note, under the kitchen table. I'm an idiot.

I'm Bridwell-Bowles[ed] over. (Someone stop me with these titles...please)

Bridwell-Bowles: I cannot stress how much I liked this reading. I think I may be getting into a good frame of mind for this class now...I hope I'm not psyching myself out.
Right, well. I'll admit that I'm that student who is afraid to go outside of conventionality when it comes to writing "academic" papers. For the record, this class has made me feel like I have to put everything in quotation marks - as if what I'm saying may not really mean what I want it to mean (such as "creative" or "voice"). I don't know if I can respond to this reading in any short manner (and I want to be short because I want to get to bed). I highlighted/underlined a lot of stuff. A lot of gems to be found in this reading, comrades!
Funny - Donald Murray came up again. Fancy that. Here's what Bridwell-Bowles has to say about him: "he argues for a distinction between 'academic voice' and 'personal voice.' They are clearly separate for him" (351). Chaka what now?? Um, isn't this the bloke that said ALL WRITING IS AUTOBIOGRAPHY. ALLLLLL WRITING! I don't know what to think.
What else? Oh, I liked Gearhart's comments about writing being like a "matrix" instead of an assault via argumentation. Incorporating, presenting, questioning, connecting...webby and good. I agreed with Carolyn Heibrun's assertion that "most women's stories about themselves are facades...artifices built of what the culture expects of them, including acquired modesty and humility" (356). That might be able to be stated for anyone of a status or social category that doesn't neatly fit within the public discourse. No one wants to be essentialized as whatever boxes they check off on their legal forms (gender, class, marital status, race, age, etc.) I don't think many people want to be a token for whatever category society has decided to put them in. This is evidenced by Bridwell-Bowles' section on "Sexual Orientation" where she says, "The topic is not safe enough obviously; while gay and lesbian students in my classes have written about the connection between their sexual orientation and their writing, they chose not to give me permission to include samples of their writing in this essay" (360). I thought about maybe why that is. Is it because they feel like they will be held apart as "the voice of the lesbian essayist" or something similar? It's the whole identity thing. Sometimes it's just easier to write "academically" or at least attempting some level of objectivity, even if only because it makes your personal choices/circumstances more anonymous. It's sad, but I can understand why people would prefer their papers to be read that way.

Blaaah. I think I'm going to add more to this later, but right now I'm tired and should get to bed because I've consumed 2 Yuenglings and will get approximately 5 hours of sleep. If I go now. No...now. NOW.

Personal Writing Assignments Response

Connors: The historical outline before the meat of Connors essay helped me out a lot. It was a good review for me, especially since I've been having trouble with these readings and the practice of teaching composition as a whole. Knowing where we've come from (in the most ancient sense) really gives me an idea of where we're going.
The "novelty" portion of Connors' address to personalism stuck out the most to me. Maybe that's what separates personal writing from academic writing, if any separation can be made at all. I don't know, I guess you can write for an academic purpose and make it new, at the same time. Hm, debatable.
It seems like we established in class the fact that there is no clear distinction to be made between the personal and the academic in writing. Writing can be glaringly one or the other, but will always contain elements of its opposite. Opposite is maybe not an appropriate term. Alternative...there we go. I agreed with Connors' conclusion: "...as teachers, we always have to encourage, even demand attempts at the next step - to go beyond merely personal accounts, either outside into encompassing the world in discourse, or inside into shaping our personal observations into the touching, deeply empathetic and finally metapersonal stuff of which the greatest writing is made" (181). AMEN! There can be a marriage of the two. Those kooky kids - Personal and Academic. They only think they don't belong together. We English teachers will be the high priests and priestesses that bring these star-crossed lovers together. High-five, Connors!
Okay, re-reading those last few sentences...it is clear that I have felt the full effects of losing one hour of sleep. Righto, nighto.

Planning Strategies and the Womanly Autobiography

I know it's taken me a while to respond. My time usually reserved for homework and posting has been taken up by me house-sitting and pet-sitting…this last week and upcoming week were/are impossibly busy.

Berkenkotter: This was a good idea for both Berkenkotter and Murray. I liked how she broke up her essay into the "methodology" and "results," along with other parts and then finally summarized. I'm going back and re-reading the transcription of Murray's thoughts/writing as I'm writing this…and, I don't know this man, but I like him better in this piece than I do in his own "writing is autobiography" piece. He really thinks of the audience, and I know that's something that I have difficulty with. I don't ask myself enough questions when I write, I think. I know these readings are meant to help us out with teaching writing, but this one (and a handful of others) kind of make me think about my own writing. I guess my one "note" to make about this piece is that…I don't know, maybe I'm alone on this, but I think that Murray's letter about death to the 11 year old was maybe his comment that Berkenkotter didn't give him a prompt he thought worthwhile. No? I could be wrong.

Flynn: "If women and men differ in their relational capacities and in their moral and intellectual development, we would expect to find manifestations of these differences in the student papers we encounter in our first-year composition courses" (182). Not necessarily. Not if what students are producing at that stage are slightly varied imitations of Lambert's (is it Lambert?) freshman "canned essay." Can that ancient model be gendered? I guess if it is, it's probably leaning towards the male persuasion. I did like Flynn's essay. There is a difference between women and men when it comes to writing…and Culler's right about the reading part, too. I think a lot of essays can be written similarly to this one. What about age? And socioeconomic class?
Hm. I wasn't a big fan of Flynn's examples. I think her arguments for anxiety, connection to nature, and individualism can be made for both sides.

Murray: In class, it seemed like people either really liked this piece or really hated it. I didn't dislike it, but I certainly didn't think it was all that great. A lot of the items Murray included in his essay seemed to be there to simply showcase his range and wit. Especially the previously unpublished poem that he just happened to include here (and thus, getting it inadvertently published). I agree with him to a degree. Essentially, yes, all writing that comes from an individual is through some sort of lens or filter and is, in that sense, autobiographical. But things like technical writing and ghost-writing (as Shipka pointed out) are anything but autobiographical. Wouldn't a better argument be "All writing is subjective?"...but that's probably too broad of an argument to make.

Writing and Knowing about Eyes, Hands, and Winds.

Bertoff: The title sounds like a Twilight Zone episode. When I saw the name "I. A. Richards," I thought I remembered him as being a New Critic. Since I already knew how he suggests people should read texts, I was interested to see how he thought people should write. He mentions a code...that sounds about right for Mr. Richards. Bertoff's comments about semantics and abstractions vs. actual "events" and how that ties into imagination and the "intelligent eye." I kind of want to put this into the category of the other essays that have high commentary on thinking, writing, etc. but don't really talk about how to implement that into the classroom...but I really liked Bertoff's essay. I simply mean that I enjoyed reading it. Funny stuff and anyone who mentions Buster Keaton in an academic text is alright with me.

Hairston: New paradigm. Cool, got it. So, here it is. Short and sweet. This isn't for me. I'm out. Done. I'm dropping out of the education program at the end of the semester. I don't know why I rationalized the torture I feel from going through my education classes before, but I'm not going to anymore. I'm miserable, I really am. I had a mini-nervous breakdown yesterday about doing full time work and full time school and about the prospect of teaching. I don't want to do it. Teaching was just going to be a job to get me through library science grad school anyway.
Sorry, I know I'm venting and you guys don't really care about my stressed out mental state. This does have something to do with the Hairston essay, I swear. I was re-reading through it last night to do my blog and I realized that I'm a traditionalist. Here is the sentence that stuck out the most: "Young adds that underlying the traditional paradigm is what he calls the 'vitalist' attitude toward composing; that is, the assumption that no one can really teach anyone else how to write because writing is a mysterious creative activity that cannot be categorized or analyzed" (115). THAT'S ME!!! I believe that, however wrong anyone else thinks it is. I wouldn't go as far as to say that it cannot be taught or that someone's writing cannot be improved upon, but I DO think it is mysterious. I don't like reading these essays because they try to de-mystify writing for me and I'm afraid that my writing is going to get screwed up in the "process." Maybe there should be a change...I don't know. I know I'm not going to be a part of it, though. Man, I hope Shipka doesn't fail me for writing all of this. She's right about the career suicide on this thing. I maybe just committed student career suicide.

Reither: I felt like Reither just kind of summed up what everyone in the field was doing, which was good for me to read at this point in the semester. I don't really know what else to say about this essay other than "gee, they really love their process." Also, Reither, I never thought that discourse community didn't mean knowledge community..okay? You've made that point a bit clearer than it needs to be.

Fun? with Understanding Composing

Perl: Sorry, how is "felt sense" not like inspiration? The picture to the left is a visual translation of Perl's notion of "felt sense" within the writing process.
Perl basically structures an outline for everything before "felt sense" and how we use it after we experience it...but it's really like using a Y-shaped stick to find water. Don't get me wrong...I personally love the idea of "felt sense" because I do think that inspiration exists. I was startled by its mention, however, because the last few readings have been about the formulaic structures of the writing process and how we're fools to believe in divine inspiration. I don't know. Maybe I can't properly use "projective structuring" to make all of you understand what I'm trying to say. Whatever, Perl.

Runciman: This essay was a breath of fresh air. I really was getting depressed about all of these researchers sort of throwing their hands in the air at the inevitability of not being able to completely structuralize the writing process so that it's teachable. (That sentence may not have made sense but I just feel like chugging along here, ok?) I seriously wanted to high-five Runciman, as dorky as that sounds. I loved this quote -- "Another pleasure, a recurring one though its frequency is unpredictable, lies in finding some accurate phrasing. This phrasing need not be particularly felicitous or pleasing to others; what makes it a source of pleasure is its accuracy" (204). For me, that's what is so great about reading text that's written by a talented writer. It's basically THE reason I enjoy literature. For instance, what do I have in common with a stuffed shirt like Thomas Hardy? Basically nothing, but some of his sentences perfectly articulate feelings I've had or ideas I believe in...it's relatability through the accuracy of his phrasing. Hardy's just an arbitrary example but I agree with Runciman that there is immense pleasure in finding the perfect way to say exactly what you want to say. There's so much pleasure, in fact, that it comes as a surprise that you were able to do it at all. I guess that's what Flower and Hayes found confusing about the term "discovery."

Maybe this isn't the place for my Oscars commentary, but people can stop reading at this point if they don't care to hear my thoughts about the Academy Awards. It's the one television program I refuse to miss, so I get pretty excited about it. I get emotional about it too, but let's not get into that. I'll just sum up my reactions in a few phrases. Paltrow's Zac Posen dress was my favorite. I felt bad that they wheeled out Peter O'Toole just for him to lose (though he's just an arrogant Irish dandy to me). Forest Whitaker's speech was fantastic and reaffirmed my love for that particular awards show. Why does the press use the word "size" a few seconds after mentioning the name "Kate Winslet"? Speaking of which, I love the fact that Meryl Streep told that tool, Ryan Seacrest, that she's a size 14 which matches her 14 total Oscar nominations. I predict that she's going to be the new female Jack Nicholson in the "ah, just screw it!" category of life. Finally, watching Scorcese win his Oscar was really a treat but it made me miss Stanley Kubrick a lot.

Unskilled Children, Discovery, and Experience

Graves: I'm just going to say it...the note "Stops, rubs eyes" is adorable. There. Now I can move on. Besides being bored with the tables and charts, the results in this text were interesting. I was intrigued by the gender findings, in particular. For the most part, the results were expected, though I'm not sure exactly why. I was not surprised that boys did better in informal environments than girls. I just assumed that girls did better with a structured environment and assignment. Turns out my assumptions were correct. What I thought was most interesting is that the "boys seldom use the first person form in unassigned writing, especially the I form, unless they are developmentally advanced." My guess is that the topics the boys chose for unassigned writing tended to be fictional stories that they were telling in third-person narration because they were perhaps used to that sort of story-telling.

Perl: I really don't like these readings. I can't stand the coding. I just want everyone to know that it's taking every ounce of self-discipline for me to plow through these. Anyway, I saw a lot of basic mistakes that I've found myself making in these "unskilled" writers. The "reading-in" part, especially. Always a good idea to have someone else proof-read for that exact reason, but I guess I don't need to restate that.
Perl hit the "rule confusion" nail on the head, I thought. I've screwed up my writing plenty of times by mistrusting my initial written response to a prompt because I've been paranoid to break a cardinal grammar rule. This is another case where practice makes perfect (or organic, if I haven't driven that term into the ground yet). Using correct grammar and punctuation, while allowing your thoughts to flow freely onto the paper requires parts of practice and self-trust.
I did like how Perl focused on the unskilled writer and what teachers can do to improve their writing, rather than another study on habits of good writers. She's got the right idea, that Perl.

Flower & Hayes: "Myth of romantic inspiration"? That statement ticks me off. Maybe I am a Romantic. I'm just sick of reading these texts where the notion of inspiration is completely ruled out. I really can't tell what Flower and Hayes came up with, either. It seems like they pointed out some differences between "experts" and "novices" and then said, "Yep, we need to teach novices how to handle assignments like the experts do." This was my least favorite reading so far, by far.

Sommers: I am no good when it comes to revision. I was comforted to read that Sommers found that "students understand the revision process as a rewording activity" and that they "list repetition as one of the elements they most worry about." I completely agree. That's exactly what I think of it as. This is why I get confused when a teacher tells me to go back and "polish" my essay. Do I need to make different vocabulary choices? Are my sentences unclear? Have I used an adjective too often and inappropriately? Just telling me to "polish" something doesn't really tell me what is wrong with it.
Sommers is right about the writing process being nonlinear, to some degree. Even the essays we've read before say that students and writers often go back and reread and rethink parts of their paper as they are writing it.
So yeah, if I look at my essay as a whole, then I need to start looking at revising it as a whole too. I realize this. I am not, however, going to call my writing a "seed." That is lame.

I'm sorry. This blog is pretty negative, now that I've gone back and reread it. I guess I'm in a bad mood. It's this weather, I suppose.

The Shining, Composing, & Competing Theories

I have to be completely honest here. After reading all of these pieces on the process of writing, I dreaded actually writing anything. Even a blog. To me, it was like thinking too much about how one breathes. I seriously almost had a literary panic attack.
I am certainly not implying that writing comes as naturally to me as breathing. I often struggle with writing, as I believe everyone does from time to time. Call me a Romantic, but I think writing should be processed organically. Even the term "process" makes me leery...though I do not know with what word I should replace it. So, onto the readings!

Tobin - First off, I really liked his frank style. I liked how he recognized the usual procrastination (on the end of the student and the teacher) on writing college papers, as well as the hesitation to teach composition. Tobin, as a professor, also had an extremely positive attitude towards the writing he received from his students. He said he looked for possibility and potential in his students' writings, rather than inspecting their papers purely for assessment. Ultimately, he joined the two ideas of process and product and acknowledged them as not having to be completly binary oppositions. I think that a lot of these pedagogies can be meshed for the benefit of the student and the professor.
Perl - I thought this intro did what it was supposed to do - it overviewed a lot of the different approaches and studies on writing and composition. I liked how Perl pointed out questions that have been plaguing the study of writing since the beginning of its research. I'm not really sure how to respond to her introduction, as a lot of the comments I have to make have to do with researchers or theorists she quoted throughout the piece. I liked that it was mentioned that writing is usually not a linear process, that if writing is seen as a problem then people make it into one, that writing is, on some level, a social activity, etc. Of course, I am paraphrasing a lot of quotes found within the piece.
Emig - What I got from Emig's essay is that people that society recognizes as great writers often cannot describe their exact processes when it comes to writing. What that tells me is that the composing process is really an undefinable thing. The quote from John Ciardi about riding a bike was an appropriate one, I thought. If you sit back and analyze something enough, it becomes difficult to actually execute it. In the spirit of me being open-minded, I will play devil's advocate for a second. Most likely, all of these writers who were interviewed were seeing their writing as an artistic expression. It must be hard for them to think of this artistic outlet as something that should or can be formulated. I could even go far as to compare writing to painting. A lot of painters start out with a pencil sketch, which I could liken to an outline. That makes sense, I guess. I think the type of outline and how formal it is should be left up to the writer and students who are writing should be in charge of making their outline as formal as they think it needs to be. None of this one-sentence-on-an-index-card routine like I was taught in high school.
Faigley - Yep, I'm of the Expressive school, it seems like. I think maybe during our online class it came across to everyone that I did not believe in room for improvement with one's writing ability. I wouldn't be going to school to be a teacher if I believed that. I think that writing may come to some people with greater ease than it does to others. Just like some are born with a runner's body and then others have Edwardian piano legs for gams (like me). The thing is, I sort of agree with the Romantics that there are things like inspiration and that "'good' writing does not follow rules but reflects the processes of the creative imagination" (152). Faigley points out that if this is the case, then every writer's piece should contain evidence of "false starts and confused preliminary explorations of the topic" (153). I disagree. Writing isn't purely a mirror to one's thoughts or imaginations...the writer is obviously capable of making change within his or her piece.
The Romantic idea of "self-actualization" is also an interesting one. I agree with the Romantics that writing should lead the writer to a certain level of actualization...it's a journey of discovery to some degree. I've written things before and have gone back and been surprised at what I have pulled out of myself (that sounds gross...it wasn't intentional).

I think that's all I had to say about those things. I've also just received a phone call from a beautiful man who was inviting me to go have drinks with him. This rarely happens, so wish me luck!

"This is my happening and it freaks me out!" - Z-man*

I don't know how to start out this blog. I guess I'll just start by saying that I thought some of the happenings were a bit kooky. I don't know how seriously I would take them if an instructor had me do these things in the classroom. It really sounded like a Drama class activity from high school. Also, for as free-thinking and "out of the box" as these supposedly are…they are all constructions by the teacher. All of these students were supposed to be manifesting the continual randomness of day-to-day life with these strange sayings and actions, right? How can it emulate randomness if they have received instructions on an index card? I had a hard time understanding exactly what the point was, I guess. If I was an instructor who wanted to have a happening, I would take my students on a nature walk. We would go for a walk and stumble upon a man with a wooden leg being chased by a nun with an ostrich on a leash. Did I hire them? The students don't have to know that. (Where am I going to get an ostrich? I should have thought this through…)
The silence activity was my favorite. It's really hard to know what sort of environment is writer-friendly for all students. For me, it changes with my mood. Sometimes I like to go to the pub with my notebook for writing and I can fully concentrate. Other times I need my surroundings to be as silent as a tomb. The silence reading was good because it seemed like no matter what type of writer the student was, they got something done. Kind of forceful productivity, it seemed like. But really, if a person stays silent for a long period of time, he or she is forced to at least hear his or her own thoughts. That alone can be productive for some students and can help whatever stage of the writing process they are in.
Masks. Good stuff. I was kind of embarrassed after reading this one. I know I've used masks in earlier things I've written. Lambert says something about the freshman writing in what he thinks is a mature style. That's very true, I think. Before I transferred to UMBC, I was a political science major and I wrote all of my papers in a very frank and clear style. When I first became an English major, I was convinced that I had to be Goethe in all of my papers. I think I've found a happy medium and I become increasingly more confident in my writing, but Lambert's right. I sometimes used to hear this dusty old voice in my head, narrating my words before I write them out. Maybe it was the Ghost of Papers Past. I don't know, but it was intimidating.
I sometimes wish my internal monologue would speak in an accent. I was thinking maybe an angry German man or a disappointed Yiddish woman. I really think I would get things done if I had that going on up there. Just a thought.

*Beyond the Valley of the Dolls

Wysock-it to Me!

Wysocki – I generally liked this reading. As I said in class, I enjoyed the piece where Wysocki mentions how text is read differently depending on how it is presented, formatted, what the reader approaches the text expecting, predicting, etc. I actually tried to picture the text as scrolling up a computer screen, held within an AIM box. After our class discussion, I went back to the text and read some parts while trying to picture it as being laid out in an issue of Teen Vogue. You know, pink flashy letters at the top that say "NEW MEDIA" with a scribbly teal-colored question in the margin asking, "Is linear text really all that fair?"
Doing that seemed kind of joke-y to me, but really it calls to mind the supposed authority of the text. With that, I thought about visuals within a text. Wysocki asks us to think about the use of visuals within academic texts and how that makes readers value or devalue visual information in the context of text. For me, I feel that visuals are devalued in those situations. On one hand, when I turn a page of my textbook and I see a picture, the first thing my eye catches is that picture and I'll even read the caption underneath it before reading the lengthier text. It really doesn't matter what that picture is…in all of my education textbooks there are usually pictures of child reading a book while holding a pencil and looking contemplative. What does that do? Most of the time, the caption underneath is of some statistic of student performance or government policy. It rarely has anything to do with the child in the photo. That's the other-hand point I was trying to get to…kind of went off there (sorry.) Do these textbook companies have stock photographs of children thinking, smiling, frowning, playing, singing, and raising their hands? It seems that they must. That, to me, devalues the visual. Moving on to the Selfe chapter, I would have liked to have seen a visual for the story of David. Maybe not David's photo but perhaps his school, his university, an example of a webpage he created? That would have been a useful visual in that it would have helped me interpret the narrative while I was reading it.
Selfe – Okay, I get what she was saying. If we don't embrace new forms of literacy, then we are setting students up for failure by not recognizing their talents with new media…right? Maybe my paraphrasing is wrong, but I think I get it. I definitely agree. I think there should be a partnership between composition and new media. Use both to help each other, rather than one helping the other.
I had a problem with how Selfe presented the story about David. While I liked the interview format, I did not understand what the purpose was with including all of the "ums" and "uhhs." Maybe I thought about this more than I needed to, but I was thinking about reading an interview in Rolling Stone magazine as compared to David's interview. Is Selfe implying that in all other interviews in publication, David is the only interviewee who sometimes stammered with words during the conversation? I don't believe it. I guarantee that Alice Cooper has dropped an "um" or two in an interview before. (I didn't just pick Cooper arbitrarily…I really think he's quite eloquent.) I just don't understand Selfe's purpose, if she had any purpose at all. Was it supposed to drive the point home that David wasn't so good at using language to communicate? Okay, whew. I'm done with ranting about that. I really liked Selfe's mention of postmodernism as it applies to new media and the creation of personal identity. I think what she says is important because it certainly embraces things like social identity and digital community. Are these necessarily good things? I don't think I can answer that but it is wise for Selfe to be recognizing these things as potential tools for literacy and composition. Selfe is right, too, in pointing out that David is active and respected in an online community. He seems to be a leader in that field. That's important because that is where a lot of business is conducted now. More and more people get their information from an online source. So, good for David.

I heard the song "Freeze Frame" by the J. Geils Band on the radio yesterday. I was really sad to discover that it really is not as mind-blowingly good as I thought it was when I was little. Is getting older supposed to be like that? I'm bummed out.

Kicking Airplane Soldier

The title refers to the name of the band I wanted to form at the age of seven. I never got around to it, but it's relevant because I was thinking of voice in the most basic sense the other day.
I have an hour long commute to and from school so most of the stuff I post on here is going to be from my internal monologue created in the cab of my truck on 695. Don't worry...the thoughts mainly consist of school-related things.
As far as music goes, the voice is something that kind of keeps the composition all together. Neverminding instrumental music (which has a voice all its own, I suppose), I'm just thinking of a frontman to any basic rock band. I'll just use the examples of Elvis Costello and the Attractions and Queen. Both Elvis Costello and Freddie Mercury use their voices as instruments, rather than simply talking devices that churn out lyrics. More than this, their voices change to convey the emotion of the song being performed. Costello can go from endearing to snide with one guitar snap. It just depends on the rest of the song. Freddie could coo like a lounge lizard but also packed enough punch to fill any stadium.
My point is, voices change. Even the same voice changes. The question remains, "can voice in writing be taught?" I have no idea. I think you can help students find their own voice. Find out what rhetorical devices work for them. For instance, I like to make epic metaphors for everyday things. I can talk about squabbling with the local grocer like it's some kind of ideological warfare. But that's what teaching is, isn't it? It's not pure instruction...it's more like guiding students along. Suddenly, you and your students are in some campy '60s movie and you're walking with them while pointing out Las Vegas-style signs that say exciting things like "SIMILE" and "ALLITERATION."
Righto, well that's all I have for voice. I know it's a bit late (topic-wise) but I couldn't figure out how this confounded thing worked until 6 o'clock this morning. I'll respond to the readings tomorrow.