I felt like the focus for the class really came together tonight. It's like last week there was just plain too much information, but this week=> the focus on finding ways to teach writing that addressed "what needs to be taught and isn't" provided us with a way to get a more practical understanding of the many different tasks and materials I set up for us to "explore".
Data sharing
Class started with a (technolgically impaired) presentation on the data collection instruments, practices, and systems for sharing we are going to use.
Data collection instruments are posted as links to the right and include the following.
Language Assumptions: a set of statements about how you think language works. To complete this instrument, mark how you feel about each statement on a scale of 5 (strongly agree) to 1(strongly disagree). This is a pre/post measure of your thoughts/feelings/ understandings associated with writing. We might use it to see whether any of the exercises/analyses we do in class influence/change your attitudes about language/writing => and think about which changes put you in a more powerful position as a writer.
Oral Histories: a protocol for the interview we will take part in within the next several weeks. The hope is that this data (collected before we begin thinking in too much depth about writing relationships/how our languge reveals those relationships/etc) will be our primary evidence of Discursive patterns that reflect our relationships to writing. We can use this talk to discover/explore belief systems that we may not be aware of. After becoming aware of those belief systems (embedded in particular patterns for talk) => we can think about how to use some of the methods from the middle of the course to be able to relate consciously & differently about values/identities/writing practices that we see as "not what is helping us" be the writers we want to be.
Pennebaker Prompt + Pennebaker health record: The Pennebaker experiments have findings attached to them that identify certain patterns for writing/reflecting that produce "health" and other that do not. While these findings are not 100% endorses as "correct" = they suggest correlations between Discourse & health (and by association, "postitive" ways for writing). The Pennebaker writing will be a second source of evidence where you can look at language use that connects to your ways for "thinking" and "being". It offers a freewriting sample - and will illustrate what lands on the page when you "let yourself go".
Relationships to writing: will offer a pre/post course writing sample, with a focus on your relationships to writing. We will be able to analyze this data both in terms of form and content.. It will provide yet another kind of evidence for: 1) your relationships to writing; and 2) whether and how your experiences with the course open/re-direct/change your relationships to writing.
Where we are keeping data:
Shared google.drive and google.sites: user name ENG5030data.
Schedule for collection:
Oral history interview sign up list (at google drive). We will post the oral histories as they are completed. Deadline for posting: March
Do the Pennebaker writing NOW. It should be done before you read the essays. You do not need to post any of this.
Start posting completed Assumptions + Relationships data as you complete them. Deadline = 2/13
Why we are collecting data. As stated in class, we are collecting data on ourselves => relationships to writing that influence how we write, whether we feel good about writing, what we value about writing, and how we will talk about writing (represent what writing is & does, and how it works) to others. These relationships are part of our identities (Discourses) and as pointed out in the Gee discoussion => most of them are unconscious. They are embeded (and can be decoded from ) the ways that we talk about writing through using various tools for discourse analysis.
We will use our data to explore our particular relationships to writing, and to use those explorations to think about new ways to teach writing. Specifically, we will use what our data suggests about connections between our Discourses and our writing practices as a basis for thinking about which assumptions, values, beliefs & practicesallow us to do what we want with writing - and which ones get in the way.
After we have identified some "problems," we will use the analytic and teaching methods we look at in the middle of the course to try out or explore ways to: 1) set up writers to become conscious of the assumptions, values, beliefs & practices that can be counter-productive for their writing goals (so they can change them if they choose); of 2) find ways to "apprentice" or engage writers in "learning through doing" (like the Perl exercise) so that they can develop alternative practices that can re-shape their writing practices that are obstacles to their writing goals (without necessarily becoming conscious of how they are doing so).
If this still feels hazy - don't worry. We are going to go through it step by step, and as the language becomes more familiar, it will fall into place and you are going to develop truly exciting projects.
The following blog presents a discussion of the theory + pedagogical approaches we covered in class, and sets up what to do for next class.
Thursday, January 31, 2013
1.29 Gee, Perl, Yancey & What we will do for next class
During the second part of class we discussed 3 pedagogical approaches to teaching writing that address some of the issues on the "what's really important" list.
Gee's new literacies/language as saying/doing/being approach.
I discussed Gee's "Literacy, Dicourse, and Linguistics: Introduction" as a way to provide us with some of the ideas or "tools" that are central to thinking about writing as something more that grammar, proper word choice, well formed sentences, and appropriate genre choices (see the first post for this course for an introduction to "new literacies").
I started by defining some of the terms Gee uses in his discussion (quotes are):
discourse: language in use=> the ways we use language
Literacy "denotes fluency in a given practice" associated with reading, writing, or some related system for making meaning through the intrepretation of symbols (as being able to "read" social relationships in online communities, or the "digital information literacies" associated with being able to use search engines and access information in data bases); "literacies (plural)' refers to the ability to use and participte in "digital, electronic, musical, visual, oral, mathematical, and gaming litereacies, among many others ( from the glossary of Downs and Wardle's WAW text book).
practices: "socially recognized and institutionally or culturally supported endavor that usually involves sequencing or combining actions in certain specificed ways. Encouraging a student is an action, mentoring the student as his or her advisor in a graduate program is a practice" (from the glossary in Gee's An Introduction to Discourse Analysis.) Writing practices are usually associated with particular writing communities (classes, online forums, professions, etc) and often are used in specific parts of the writing process. For example, freewriting, clustering, listing, and detailed listing are all writing practices associated with invention (finding and organizing ideas) in composition classes.
discourse analysis = methods for breaking language into its parts, examining the relationships among those parts and seeing how the system (language) works.
The 'parts' include not only grammar, vocabulary, and grammatical relationships that contribute to making meanings, but also the assumptions, values, and beliefs, and the social, interactive relationships that surround and create (and are created by) the meanings we attribute to lanuage in use.
Discourse: ways of saying(writing)-doing-being-valuing-believing that taken together create and identity or way of being in the world; "they are forms of life wihich integrate words, acts, values, beliefs, attitudes, and social identities as well as gestures, glances, body positions, and clothes. Small "d" discourse is one part of Discourse. (p 484 in the essay we discussed). We each participate in many Discourses.
Discourse community: a group of people who share a particular Discourse. Writing teachers, bird watchers, and so on are/can be Discourse communities. This term is defined in both broad ways where regional & ethnic groups, or groups associated by age cohort and gender can be thought of as Discourse communites where members share certain "ways of being,", and in more strict ways that specify more homogenious, more specific language features (see Swales, "The Concept of a Discourse Community").
Primary Discourse (and primary Discourse communities) = the discourse where, as a child, we first (unconsciously) take in "the way the world works". This primary Discourse is largely unexamined, and is both the produce of (past) experience, and our basis for interpreting experience. It constitutes our foundational patterns for "seeing" the world.
Secondary Discourses: "After our initial socializtion in our home community, each of us inteacts with various non-home-based social institutions (and groups) . . . Each of these social institutiosn comands and demands one or more Discourses and we acquire these fluently to the extent that we are given access to these institutions and are allowed apprenticeships within them (paragraph 10 in the reading).
After the definitions we had a discussion of Gee's "Theorems" - his logical extrapolations about how language learning works - particularly with respect to how and whether, once we are past a certain age=> we can become fluent in Discourses that are widely different from our home Discourses/primary Discourse.
1. Discourses (and therefore literacies) are not like languages in one very imporatnt regard. Someone can speak English, but not fluently (and still be understood). Hoever, someone cannot engage in a Discourse in a less that fully fluent manner. You are either in or you're not. (par 18)
The sorry conclusion of this discussion was that once you are past a certain age you can not acquire new Discourses sufficiently to pass for an insider.
Discourses are used as "gate4s" to ensure that the "right" people get to the "right palces in our society. . . ." (par 25).
2. Primary Discourses, no matter whose they are, can never be fully liberating lieracies. Fora literacy to be liberating it must contain both the Discourse it is going to critique and a set of meta-elements (language, words, attitudes, values) in terms of which an analysis and criticism can be carried out (a meta-language or language that is outside of the language to be critiqued). par 21.
This line of discussion leads into the 3 ways for being 'successful students' and for 'successful social change' =>"mushfake, resistance, and metaknowledge.
For our course, we are taking primarily the metaknowledge approach.
This is a much shortened re-cap, and assumes that you will draw from your notes/memories of what we talked about. We did not go over the example that makes up the last part of the article. This example illustrates (quite powerfully) Gee's point that reading and writing are NEVER taught outside of the Discourses that the learners bring to the classroom. In his example, unconscious understandings of what "stories" are shape the form of the talk and the ideiolgical message in the child's presentation of what happened at her birthday party.
Good learning from video games=> this is a learning through doing pedagogy where learners take part in learning communities in ways that instill the values, beliefs, and practices of the community. As an approach to teaching mainstream (dominant) discourses = it can be adapted as a model for supporting nonmainstream writers to gain using mainstream patterns. Although "motivation" is built into the structure of "games" => as Mary pointed out, motivation may be an issue when the game is "learning to write."
Building tasks handout: this is Gee's list of what language does + the kinds of questions we might ask of the structures that do those tasks. We will use these questions (and other related questions) to "interrogate" (ask questions of) the language data we collect. This kind of questioning can help us "unpack" the "identities" (assumptions, values, beliefs etc) embedded in the language forms each of us use.
I think those are the high points.
Perl - Heidi (thank you=> great job).
Heidi engaged us in a conversation to define "felt sense" => the bodily feeling of "knowing" what we had to say, whether we "knew" what we were talking about, whether we going it "right", and so on.
She then walked you through a modified (shortened) version of one of Perl's sets of writing prompts to "train" students to use felt sense as a part of their writing process. The prompts engage writers in both writing and watching themselves write, and direct their attention to how they are "feeling" as a way to help them know how they are doing with their writing.
You reported various responses to the process (not surprising), and yes, it is similar to yoga, and there does seem to be a balancing act between getting into your head and being interrupted by the prompts; it does slow and deepen the process - and class discussion also suggested that it shifts the writer's expectations (not so product driven?)
When we went back and looked at the "what we really want to learn that writing classes don't teach list" Perl's approach addresses some issues but not others.
Addresses
helping writer own his/her writing
acknowledging that some writing is for the self
being a compassionate reader of our own writing (maybe = we didn't discuss this, but maybe)
the unconscious is part of the writing process
This last point is perhaps the strongest contribution of "felt sense" in that it not only creates an awareness of that the unconscious plays a role => it helps writers learn to use and connect to unconscious processes. From my perspective, this is very important.
Does not really address
how to handle the struggle of writing and face the rejection of certain audiences
the socially constructed nature of language, understanding and writing process (is primarily directed to the writer's "internal" self = as if that self exist outside the language/social structures of culture)
does not (really) empower the writer to change/critique what feels "bad" about writing (or provide the writer with tools for critically examining those things)
Anything to add?
Yancey=> reflective pedagoy
As usual, I scheduled a little more than was possible to cover, so we did not get the whole way through Yancey.
Heather, Nikki, and Mary did an awesome job.
Definitions:
Reflection is both the processes through which we know and articulate what we have done, and the products of those processes.
In terms of writing pedagogies, it will include goal setting, visitng what you have done, revising, rethinking (retrospection) and saying what you have learned.
Types of reflection discussed by Yancy
Reflection in action: focuses on a single composing event, usually a single text that is in process. It may be public or private and the purpose is to make sense of the process used to produce that piece of writing.
Examples= writer's memos, talking to, & talking back writing.
Constructive reflection: includes several composing events, is often private, looks for patterns in writing process, and the purpos is to see the self as a writerr.
Example= goal building, setting a learning agenda for what the writer is learning
Reflection-in-presentation: public, linked to assessment, and the purpose is to reflect on (evaluate/assess) your own writing for someone else.
Examples= portfolio letters.
At this point, Mary invited us to take part in some reflective writing. W
For next week:
I will check in with your writing on your blogs and be in touch with some feedback. If you have not yet sent me your blog url, please do so.
We will begin class by talking through the reflective exercise (thank you, Mary, Heather, & Nikki).
Then we will discuss:
Assignments:
Attend your oral history interview, if you are scheduled.
Write: Complete the writing prompt provided by Mary.
Work on your contributions to the data base (see previous blog).
Blog 2: Do some writing to explore what you might be interested for your research project.
Read: Pennebaker handouts, MacCurdy handouts, DeSalvo Chapters 5 & 6. Contact Lewis to copy chapters + make them available at the Writing Center?
So great class and see you next week.
Gee's new literacies/language as saying/doing/being approach.
I discussed Gee's "Literacy, Dicourse, and Linguistics: Introduction" as a way to provide us with some of the ideas or "tools" that are central to thinking about writing as something more that grammar, proper word choice, well formed sentences, and appropriate genre choices (see the first post for this course for an introduction to "new literacies").
I started by defining some of the terms Gee uses in his discussion (quotes are):
discourse: language in use=> the ways we use language
Literacy "denotes fluency in a given practice" associated with reading, writing, or some related system for making meaning through the intrepretation of symbols (as being able to "read" social relationships in online communities, or the "digital information literacies" associated with being able to use search engines and access information in data bases); "literacies (plural)' refers to the ability to use and participte in "digital, electronic, musical, visual, oral, mathematical, and gaming litereacies, among many others ( from the glossary of Downs and Wardle's WAW text book).
practices: "socially recognized and institutionally or culturally supported endavor that usually involves sequencing or combining actions in certain specificed ways. Encouraging a student is an action, mentoring the student as his or her advisor in a graduate program is a practice" (from the glossary in Gee's An Introduction to Discourse Analysis.) Writing practices are usually associated with particular writing communities (classes, online forums, professions, etc) and often are used in specific parts of the writing process. For example, freewriting, clustering, listing, and detailed listing are all writing practices associated with invention (finding and organizing ideas) in composition classes.
discourse analysis = methods for breaking language into its parts, examining the relationships among those parts and seeing how the system (language) works.
The 'parts' include not only grammar, vocabulary, and grammatical relationships that contribute to making meanings, but also the assumptions, values, and beliefs, and the social, interactive relationships that surround and create (and are created by) the meanings we attribute to lanuage in use.
Discourse: ways of saying(writing)-doing-being-valuing-believing that taken together create and identity or way of being in the world; "they are forms of life wihich integrate words, acts, values, beliefs, attitudes, and social identities as well as gestures, glances, body positions, and clothes. Small "d" discourse is one part of Discourse. (p 484 in the essay we discussed). We each participate in many Discourses.
Discourse community: a group of people who share a particular Discourse. Writing teachers, bird watchers, and so on are/can be Discourse communities. This term is defined in both broad ways where regional & ethnic groups, or groups associated by age cohort and gender can be thought of as Discourse communites where members share certain "ways of being,", and in more strict ways that specify more homogenious, more specific language features (see Swales, "The Concept of a Discourse Community").
Primary Discourse (and primary Discourse communities) = the discourse where, as a child, we first (unconsciously) take in "the way the world works". This primary Discourse is largely unexamined, and is both the produce of (past) experience, and our basis for interpreting experience. It constitutes our foundational patterns for "seeing" the world.
Secondary Discourses: "After our initial socializtion in our home community, each of us inteacts with various non-home-based social institutions (and groups) . . . Each of these social institutiosn comands and demands one or more Discourses and we acquire these fluently to the extent that we are given access to these institutions and are allowed apprenticeships within them (paragraph 10 in the reading).
After the definitions we had a discussion of Gee's "Theorems" - his logical extrapolations about how language learning works - particularly with respect to how and whether, once we are past a certain age=> we can become fluent in Discourses that are widely different from our home Discourses/primary Discourse.
1. Discourses (and therefore literacies) are not like languages in one very imporatnt regard. Someone can speak English, but not fluently (and still be understood). Hoever, someone cannot engage in a Discourse in a less that fully fluent manner. You are either in or you're not. (par 18)
The sorry conclusion of this discussion was that once you are past a certain age you can not acquire new Discourses sufficiently to pass for an insider.
Discourses are used as "gate4s" to ensure that the "right" people get to the "right palces in our society. . . ." (par 25).
2. Primary Discourses, no matter whose they are, can never be fully liberating lieracies. Fora literacy to be liberating it must contain both the Discourse it is going to critique and a set of meta-elements (language, words, attitudes, values) in terms of which an analysis and criticism can be carried out (a meta-language or language that is outside of the language to be critiqued). par 21.
This line of discussion leads into the 3 ways for being 'successful students' and for 'successful social change' =>"mushfake, resistance, and metaknowledge.
For our course, we are taking primarily the metaknowledge approach.
This is a much shortened re-cap, and assumes that you will draw from your notes/memories of what we talked about. We did not go over the example that makes up the last part of the article. This example illustrates (quite powerfully) Gee's point that reading and writing are NEVER taught outside of the Discourses that the learners bring to the classroom. In his example, unconscious understandings of what "stories" are shape the form of the talk and the ideiolgical message in the child's presentation of what happened at her birthday party.
Good learning from video games=> this is a learning through doing pedagogy where learners take part in learning communities in ways that instill the values, beliefs, and practices of the community. As an approach to teaching mainstream (dominant) discourses = it can be adapted as a model for supporting nonmainstream writers to gain using mainstream patterns. Although "motivation" is built into the structure of "games" => as Mary pointed out, motivation may be an issue when the game is "learning to write."
Building tasks handout: this is Gee's list of what language does + the kinds of questions we might ask of the structures that do those tasks. We will use these questions (and other related questions) to "interrogate" (ask questions of) the language data we collect. This kind of questioning can help us "unpack" the "identities" (assumptions, values, beliefs etc) embedded in the language forms each of us use.
I think those are the high points.
Perl - Heidi (thank you=> great job).
Heidi engaged us in a conversation to define "felt sense" => the bodily feeling of "knowing" what we had to say, whether we "knew" what we were talking about, whether we going it "right", and so on.
She then walked you through a modified (shortened) version of one of Perl's sets of writing prompts to "train" students to use felt sense as a part of their writing process. The prompts engage writers in both writing and watching themselves write, and direct their attention to how they are "feeling" as a way to help them know how they are doing with their writing.
You reported various responses to the process (not surprising), and yes, it is similar to yoga, and there does seem to be a balancing act between getting into your head and being interrupted by the prompts; it does slow and deepen the process - and class discussion also suggested that it shifts the writer's expectations (not so product driven?)
When we went back and looked at the "what we really want to learn that writing classes don't teach list" Perl's approach addresses some issues but not others.
Addresses
helping writer own his/her writing
acknowledging that some writing is for the self
being a compassionate reader of our own writing (maybe = we didn't discuss this, but maybe)
the unconscious is part of the writing process
This last point is perhaps the strongest contribution of "felt sense" in that it not only creates an awareness of that the unconscious plays a role => it helps writers learn to use and connect to unconscious processes. From my perspective, this is very important.
Does not really address
how to handle the struggle of writing and face the rejection of certain audiences
the socially constructed nature of language, understanding and writing process (is primarily directed to the writer's "internal" self = as if that self exist outside the language/social structures of culture)
does not (really) empower the writer to change/critique what feels "bad" about writing (or provide the writer with tools for critically examining those things)
Anything to add?
Yancey=> reflective pedagoy
As usual, I scheduled a little more than was possible to cover, so we did not get the whole way through Yancey.
Heather, Nikki, and Mary did an awesome job.
Definitions:
Reflection is both the processes through which we know and articulate what we have done, and the products of those processes.
In terms of writing pedagogies, it will include goal setting, visitng what you have done, revising, rethinking (retrospection) and saying what you have learned.
Types of reflection discussed by Yancy
Reflection in action: focuses on a single composing event, usually a single text that is in process. It may be public or private and the purpose is to make sense of the process used to produce that piece of writing.
Examples= writer's memos, talking to, & talking back writing.
Constructive reflection: includes several composing events, is often private, looks for patterns in writing process, and the purpos is to see the self as a writerr.
Example= goal building, setting a learning agenda for what the writer is learning
Reflection-in-presentation: public, linked to assessment, and the purpose is to reflect on (evaluate/assess) your own writing for someone else.
Examples= portfolio letters.
Reasons why you might want to use reflection (class generated list):
- to create constructive/instructive comments regarding a piece of writing
- to check for accuracy
- to set preferences/goals
- to check communication
- to increase writerly authority
At this point, Mary invited us to take part in some reflective writing. W
For next week:
I will check in with your writing on your blogs and be in touch with some feedback. If you have not yet sent me your blog url, please do so.
We will begin class by talking through the reflective exercise (thank you, Mary, Heather, & Nikki).
Then we will discuss:
James Pennebaker (Andre, Wayne &
Robyn) excerpts from Opening Up. Pay
particular attention to his descriptions of the original "experiments," p.
29-37, and Chapter 7, "Understanding the Value of Writing" (reprints handed out in class). My copy of Opening Up will also be in the
writing center. For a brief overview see "Writing
about emotional experiences as a therapeutic process," as short summary of
some of the work from his book.
Louise DeSalvo (Lewis) Writing as a Way of Healing: How Telling Stories Transforms Our Lives. Available through Amazon for pretty cheap. Lewis currently has the only copy. For those of you scanning the book focus on chapters 5 & 6, practices for drawing on "felt" perspectives.
Louise DeSalvo (Lewis) Writing as a Way of Healing: How Telling Stories Transforms Our Lives. Available through Amazon for pretty cheap. Lewis currently has the only copy. For those of you scanning the book focus on chapters 5 & 6, practices for drawing on "felt" perspectives.
Marian MacCurdy (Luis +
Maria) The class will
focus on her essay, "From Trauma to Writing", (which I have copied and I handed out in class), pp. 158-200, in Writing and
Healing: Toward an Informed Practice.
Assignments:
Attend your oral history interview, if you are scheduled.
Write: Complete the writing prompt provided by Mary.
Work on your contributions to the data base (see previous blog).
Blog 2: Do some writing to explore what you might be interested for your research project.
Read: Pennebaker handouts, MacCurdy handouts, DeSalvo Chapters 5 & 6. Contact Lewis to copy chapters + make them available at the Writing Center?
So great class and see you next week.
Thursday, January 24, 2013
1.23 What we are doing, and where we go from here
This post was so long I decided I should publish it in 3 parts. So this part presents the introduction to the course. 1.23 Part Two discusses the presentations on the readings. And 1.23 Part Three is a discussion of how we are going to work on the data base. Links to Part Two and Part Three are also in the Blog Archive (on the right) and the text of these posts can be accessed through scrolling down.
Introduction:
I started class with a rambling introduction about how I got interested in teaching a class like this, and why such a class might be important. My experiences as reflective teacher-researcher set me up to wonder what it was that writing courses didn't teach - and to think about how teachers could help students with what surrounded the page (rather than with what appeared on it). Though they may have gotten lost in my storytelling, the points were the following.
1. New literacies approaches to language made clear that language (and therefore writing) is not only about saying, but also about doing and being. As illustrated by our lists of what we were taught and what we learned (mostly on our own) about writing, writing courses primarily focus on saying without providing students much support in dealing with issues surrounding doing and being.
2. My work with the student writer for my book project illustrated that when students use methods from discourse analysis and narrative studies to examine the stories they tell about who they are as a writer = they make important discoveries about their relationship to writing that they could not discover simply through telling those stories. In other words, the analysis of the language forms in their stories allowed them to discover parts of what they do and who they are => parts that were not obvious from the stories themselves.
3. Research in discourse studies, narrative analysis, and social constructivist approaches in psychoanalysis provide powerful tools for examining our stories about writing, and these tools may be a good place to start our search for how to support students in discovering the "ways of doing and being" that they need to grapple with as they become writers.
What we were taught vs what we needed to know about writing.
As a way to check with our own experiences with writing. we did a class exercise where we created a list of what we learned about writing "in school" or through teaching. The list we came up with looked like this.
Introduction:
I started class with a rambling introduction about how I got interested in teaching a class like this, and why such a class might be important. My experiences as reflective teacher-researcher set me up to wonder what it was that writing courses didn't teach - and to think about how teachers could help students with what surrounded the page (rather than with what appeared on it). Though they may have gotten lost in my storytelling, the points were the following.
1. New literacies approaches to language made clear that language (and therefore writing) is not only about saying, but also about doing and being. As illustrated by our lists of what we were taught and what we learned (mostly on our own) about writing, writing courses primarily focus on saying without providing students much support in dealing with issues surrounding doing and being.
2. My work with the student writer for my book project illustrated that when students use methods from discourse analysis and narrative studies to examine the stories they tell about who they are as a writer = they make important discoveries about their relationship to writing that they could not discover simply through telling those stories. In other words, the analysis of the language forms in their stories allowed them to discover parts of what they do and who they are => parts that were not obvious from the stories themselves.
3. Research in discourse studies, narrative analysis, and social constructivist approaches in psychoanalysis provide powerful tools for examining our stories about writing, and these tools may be a good place to start our search for how to support students in discovering the "ways of doing and being" that they need to grapple with as they become writers.
What we were taught vs what we needed to know about writing.
As a way to check with our own experiences with writing. we did a class exercise where we created a list of what we learned about writing "in school" or through teaching. The list we came up with looked like this.
What we were taught about writing
Parts of speechGrammarSentence structureHow to use quotesDocumentationForms (five paragraph essays = genre)Global indications about whether YOUR writing is good or bad (as in grades on essays written on assigned topics)
Drafting is a necessary part of writing processWeb diagrams (clustering)Can’t start a sentence with and or but
Brainstorming is important (learned this as a teacher)
Leave the grammar until later in the writing process
Finding a voice is important (learned during thesis work)
Writing can be cathartic
There are effective ways to talk about writing (learned during work at writing center)
Writing can be collaborative
What plagiarism is
If we look at what we, as a class, were taught about writing, most of it focuses on features of writing on the page, or how to support an effective writing process. Nearly everything on this list falls into one of those two categories. In other words, most of what is taught in writing courses is about writing as "saying," with less instruction in writing as "doing" and "being".
We then made a second list. This list focused on what we learned about writing that was "really important".
Parts of speechGrammarSentence structureHow to use quotesDocumentationForms (five paragraph essays = genre)Global indications about whether YOUR writing is good or bad (as in grades on essays written on assigned topics)
Drafting is a necessary part of writing processWeb diagrams (clustering)Can’t start a sentence with and or but
Brainstorming is important (learned this as a teacher)
Leave the grammar until later in the writing process
Finding a voice is important (learned during thesis work)
Writing can be cathartic
There are effective ways to talk about writing (learned during work at writing center)
Writing can be collaborative
What plagiarism is
If we look at what we, as a class, were taught about writing, most of it focuses on features of writing on the page, or how to support an effective writing process. Nearly everything on this list falls into one of those two categories. In other words, most of what is taught in writing courses is about writing as "saying," with less instruction in writing as "doing" and "being".
We then made a second list. This list focused on what we learned about writing that was "really important".
What were the really important things you learned about writing?
How to own my writing + know my audience + how to meet it
How to write what is expected (in terms of forms) for professional communication
Writing is hard = I don't have to be disappointed or feel like a failure when it does not come easily
Writing is an intimate transaction ( it is important to the writer= feels like the self on the page)
Some writing is only for the self
Writing can tell you things about yourself that you may not know (it is evidence of a past self and you can learn about who you are from examining both what it says, and the forms it uses)
Collaborative/interactive writing is an important place where meanings are created “out there" = rather than in the writer or by the reader alone
Correctness in writing is subjective
Many important insights about writing come through teaching; teaching causes us to reflect and then to put those reflections into language=> putting what we know into language makes deeper knowingthe first draft is not the last draft
Being a compassionate reader of your work helps you to be a better writer (Elbow's believing game)=> don’t close down your ideas before you discover them
The unconscious is part of the writing process = it is a powerful resource
Writing takes timeWriting is powerWriting can be your career
This list contains many "lessons" about writing that are not taught or supported in writing classes. Most pedagogies do not provide explicit instruction in how to access and analyze "felt" (unconscious) knowledge, how to feel comfortable with criticism within the intimate transaction that is writing, how to be patient (set realistic expectations) with a writer self who may not be performing at the level demanded by the task at hand, or how to feel better or just differently about your relationship to writing.
Based on our talk, much of the "important" learning about writing came through experiences writing (not taught), or was discovered in writing relationships outside the classroom. And for some of these issues, we are still looking for ways to learn what we feel we need to know: how to be patient with ourselves when the writing is hard, how to receive feedback without resistance, how to let ourselves produce "bad" writing. Composition researchers are well aware that these are "problems" for writing, and pedagogies suggested by Elbow, Perl, Yancey and others do address these issues. One objective of this course is to see if some of the methods from new literacies studies of language, from narrative analysis, and from social constructivist perspectives in psychoanalysis can provide deeper insight along with some concrete "moves" for writers (and writing teachers) to turn to.
Part Two of this post addresses how we will review what other composition researchers have come up with in terms of taking a language as saying, doing and being approach to writing. your specific assignments and the due dates are posted there.
Part Three addresses how we will work on creating a data base for our research. How to own my writing + know my audience + how to meet it
How to write what is expected (in terms of forms) for professional communication
Writing is hard = I don't have to be disappointed or feel like a failure when it does not come easily
Writing is an intimate transaction ( it is important to the writer= feels like the self on the page)
Some writing is only for the self
Writing can tell you things about yourself that you may not know (it is evidence of a past self and you can learn about who you are from examining both what it says, and the forms it uses)
Collaborative/interactive writing is an important place where meanings are created “out there" = rather than in the writer or by the reader alone
Correctness in writing is subjective
Many important insights about writing come through teaching; teaching causes us to reflect and then to put those reflections into language=> putting what we know into language makes deeper knowingthe first draft is not the last draft
Being a compassionate reader of your work helps you to be a better writer (Elbow's believing game)=> don’t close down your ideas before you discover them
The unconscious is part of the writing process = it is a powerful resource
Writing takes timeWriting is powerWriting can be your career
This list contains many "lessons" about writing that are not taught or supported in writing classes. Most pedagogies do not provide explicit instruction in how to access and analyze "felt" (unconscious) knowledge, how to feel comfortable with criticism within the intimate transaction that is writing, how to be patient (set realistic expectations) with a writer self who may not be performing at the level demanded by the task at hand, or how to feel better or just differently about your relationship to writing.
Based on our talk, much of the "important" learning about writing came through experiences writing (not taught), or was discovered in writing relationships outside the classroom. And for some of these issues, we are still looking for ways to learn what we feel we need to know: how to be patient with ourselves when the writing is hard, how to receive feedback without resistance, how to let ourselves produce "bad" writing. Composition researchers are well aware that these are "problems" for writing, and pedagogies suggested by Elbow, Perl, Yancey and others do address these issues. One objective of this course is to see if some of the methods from new literacies studies of language, from narrative analysis, and from social constructivist perspectives in psychoanalysis can provide deeper insight along with some concrete "moves" for writers (and writing teachers) to turn to.
Part Two of this post addresses how we will review what other composition researchers have come up with in terms of taking a language as saying, doing and being approach to writing. your specific assignments and the due dates are posted there.
This blog ended up being VERY long. If there is anything else I said I would write about that I forgot - please send me an email and I will update. Thanks for the good class and see you next Wednesday.
For next class:
Read: the text you will be presenting on;
Skim: Gee's introduction (sent as email); Language building tasks (handout from class); Perl, Yancey (in writing center, available electronically through Kean Library or Project Muse)
Blog 1: Reflections on what you do as a writer, what is most valuable to you, and what you have been "taught"; and what you haven't.
1.23 Part two: Readings and Presentations
Composition studies includes both schools of teaching focused on working with the whole student. These approaches, particularly expressivist pedagogies developed by Peter Elbow, Kevin Macrorie, Donald Murray and others prompt the student to be aware of how s/he feels as s/he writes, to allow the writing to grow (or cook as Elbow puts it), and to be mindful of how relationships to writing affect the writing process. So it is not like we are breaking into completely unexplored territory. At the same time, these pedagogical approaches have often been criticized for being too "touchy feely" or insufficiently grounded in theory. They primarily provide suggestions for classroom moves, or recommend practices for writers. While activities such as freewriting do have a theory to explain why they work, there is less theory (and practice) that provides us for how to take apart, understand, and use what we find in our freewriting in ways that helps us become more conscious, more powerful (and more comfortable) writers.
The purpose of our review of theory and practice from composition studies is to lay a basis in what other researchers have already established. Whether their findings are "right" or "wrong" is something we might discuss - but at least we won't start the course with the false assumption that we are breaking completely new territory.
Some of the pedagogical approaches that I have put out there as the most relevant to our project, include new literacy approaches to teaching writing, especially as engendered by James Gee's work; Kathleen Blake Yancey's work with reflection; Sondra Perl's work on felt sense, and the work of individuals who have developed pedagogies based in personal writing, especially personal writing associated with trauma.
Researchers whose work we will review (and names of sudents who will take the lead in class discussion) are listed below.
What to include in your presentation.
1. An overview of the ideas and practices central to this pedagogical approach. Define key terms. Direct us to where these ideas/practices/terms are defined.
2. Give us some interactive discussion or get us to work on some data or some writing so that we "do" whatever your theorist's pedagogy does. For example, for Yancey, you might engage is in using "talk to" and "talk back" reflections for a peice of writing, or you might have us analyze what is going on in the sample from Yancey's texts.
3. Engage us in discussion of whether and how well this approach addresses writing issues from our list of really important things we learned about writing. In this discussion we will want to pay particular attention to how this approach teaches the kinds of "moves" that we, as writers, would need to make in order to learn about our identities, our relationships to writing, our assumptions about what it is to be a writer, etc. You, as the discussion leader, are not obliged to have all the answers = just bring your ideas and be prepared to press us into deeply thought talk.
Texts for discussion 1/30/13
Texts available in the Writing Center are in the graduate student office. Ask one of the GAs, or the receptionist to get them for you.
James Paul Gee (presenter - Sally)
"Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics: An Introduction (sent to you as an email);
Language building tasks and associated questions that language researchers might ask (handout 1/23)Good learning principles from What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy (I will hand this out during class as part of my presentation).
Kathleen Blake Yancey (presenters Mary, Nikki, & Heather)
Reflection in the Writing Classroom, especially Chapters 1-4. This book is available as downloadable pdfs by chapter through Project Muse, in hard copy and as an ebook through the Kean library, and in the writing center.
Sondra Perl (Heidi)
Felt Sense: Writing with the Body. Available as a hard copy in the writing center. A short version of the prompts + discussion of Perl's work is available at Sondra Perl's Composing Guidelines.
Texts for discussion 2/6/13
The purpose of our review of theory and practice from composition studies is to lay a basis in what other researchers have already established. Whether their findings are "right" or "wrong" is something we might discuss - but at least we won't start the course with the false assumption that we are breaking completely new territory.
Some of the pedagogical approaches that I have put out there as the most relevant to our project, include new literacy approaches to teaching writing, especially as engendered by James Gee's work; Kathleen Blake Yancey's work with reflection; Sondra Perl's work on felt sense, and the work of individuals who have developed pedagogies based in personal writing, especially personal writing associated with trauma.
Researchers whose work we will review (and names of sudents who will take the lead in class discussion) are listed below.
What to include in your presentation.
1. An overview of the ideas and practices central to this pedagogical approach. Define key terms. Direct us to where these ideas/practices/terms are defined.
2. Give us some interactive discussion or get us to work on some data or some writing so that we "do" whatever your theorist's pedagogy does. For example, for Yancey, you might engage is in using "talk to" and "talk back" reflections for a peice of writing, or you might have us analyze what is going on in the sample from Yancey's texts.
3. Engage us in discussion of whether and how well this approach addresses writing issues from our list of really important things we learned about writing. In this discussion we will want to pay particular attention to how this approach teaches the kinds of "moves" that we, as writers, would need to make in order to learn about our identities, our relationships to writing, our assumptions about what it is to be a writer, etc. You, as the discussion leader, are not obliged to have all the answers = just bring your ideas and be prepared to press us into deeply thought talk.
Texts for discussion 1/30/13
Texts available in the Writing Center are in the graduate student office. Ask one of the GAs, or the receptionist to get them for you.
James Paul Gee (presenter - Sally)
"Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics: An Introduction (sent to you as an email);
Language building tasks and associated questions that language researchers might ask (handout 1/23)Good learning principles from What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy (I will hand this out during class as part of my presentation).
Kathleen Blake Yancey (presenters Mary, Nikki, & Heather)
Reflection in the Writing Classroom, especially Chapters 1-4. This book is available as downloadable pdfs by chapter through Project Muse, in hard copy and as an ebook through the Kean library, and in the writing center.
Sondra Perl (Heidi)
Felt Sense: Writing with the Body. Available as a hard copy in the writing center. A short version of the prompts + discussion of Perl's work is available at Sondra Perl's Composing Guidelines.
Texts for discussion 2/6/13
James Pennebaker (Andre, Wayne & Robyn)
We will be reading excerpts from Opening Up. Pay particular attention to his descriptions of the original "experiments," p. 29-37, and Chapter 7, "Understanding the Value of Writing" (reprints available in the writing center) My copy of Opening Up will also be in the writing center. For a brief overview see "Writing about emotional experiences as a therapeutic process," as short summary of some of the work from his book.
Louise DeSalvo (Lewis)
Writing as a Way of Healing: How Telling Stories Transforms Our Lives. Available through Amazon for pretty cheap. Lewis currently has the only copy. For those of you scanning the book focus on chapters 5 & 6, practices for drawing on "felt" perspectives.
We will be reading excerpts from Opening Up. Pay particular attention to his descriptions of the original "experiments," p. 29-37, and Chapter 7, "Understanding the Value of Writing" (reprints available in the writing center) My copy of Opening Up will also be in the writing center. For a brief overview see "Writing about emotional experiences as a therapeutic process," as short summary of some of the work from his book.
Louise DeSalvo (Lewis)
Writing as a Way of Healing: How Telling Stories Transforms Our Lives. Available through Amazon for pretty cheap. Lewis currently has the only copy. For those of you scanning the book focus on chapters 5 & 6, practices for drawing on "felt" perspectives.
Marian MacCurdy (Luis + Maria)
The class will focus on her essay, From Trauma to Writing, (which I have copied and which is available as a handout in the writing center), pp. 158-200, in Writing and Healing: Toward an Informed Practice.
The class will focus on her essay, From Trauma to Writing, (which I have copied and which is available as a handout in the writing center), pp. 158-200, in Writing and Healing: Toward an Informed Practice.
1.23 Part 3: Creating a data base
The list of data collection links posted to the right is a "draft" of the kinds of tools to collect "evidence" for how, whether or why teaching what "surrounds the page" is going to work. We will use these tools to document our writing practices, to reflect on our assumptions about writing, and to discover connections between the ways we use language and what we believe about writing. As we move through the course we may develop additional data collection instruments - but this is a place to start.
Data collection instruments.
Draft Oral History Protocol This protocol is based on the interview protocols developed by Deborah Brandt (for literacy narratives) and by Hawiser & Selfe (for new literacy narratives). It provides researchers with an oral history focused on the interview participant's relationship to writing. It askes for detailed "stories" that we can use for the anlaysis of both form and content.
Health history data (Pennebaker) These are the baseline parameters that Pennebaker used to document the health of his participants. His studies showed that after following the procedures set forward in the Pennebaker Prompt , participants' health (as measure by these markers) improved. It improved to varying degrees which - as illustrated in later studies -correlated with features of the way they responded to the prompt.
Ontological assumptions related to wriring This is a set of statements which you will mark as either agreeing with - or disagreeing with. You will mark these statements at the beginning of the course - and again at the end. This instrument is meant to measure any change in your assumptions about the way writing works.
Relationships to writing This is another pre-post survey, though the answers are meant to be more story-based than the questions about assumptions.
Plan for data collection.
Pennebaker writing, assumptions & relationships. For this week or as you have time, begin writing "answers" for the Pennebaker prompts, the assumptions, and the relationships questions, and save them as word documents. We will discuss where/how we want to archive our data in class next week. You should do the writing to the Pennebaker prompts BEFORE you read his essays/book.
Oral history interview. To get started on the oral history, read through the questions and let your mind run over some possible answers. It is also OK to do the interview "cold" = the interview protocol is designed so that you will certainly have plenty of opportunities for cycling back through your answers.
As I said in class, I will conduct the oral histories with each of you, but you will be responsible for recording and transcribing the interview. You may use your transcript as data for your research project, and we may use it as data for working through some of the analytic methods we will study in Lock and Strong, and in Gurbium and Holstein.
You may sign up for a date for your interview here. If you have trouble accessing or editing the document let me know.
Data collection instruments.
Draft Oral History Protocol This protocol is based on the interview protocols developed by Deborah Brandt (for literacy narratives) and by Hawiser & Selfe (for new literacy narratives). It provides researchers with an oral history focused on the interview participant's relationship to writing. It askes for detailed "stories" that we can use for the anlaysis of both form and content.
Health history data (Pennebaker) These are the baseline parameters that Pennebaker used to document the health of his participants. His studies showed that after following the procedures set forward in the Pennebaker Prompt , participants' health (as measure by these markers) improved. It improved to varying degrees which - as illustrated in later studies -correlated with features of the way they responded to the prompt.
Ontological assumptions related to wriring This is a set of statements which you will mark as either agreeing with - or disagreeing with. You will mark these statements at the beginning of the course - and again at the end. This instrument is meant to measure any change in your assumptions about the way writing works.
Relationships to writing This is another pre-post survey, though the answers are meant to be more story-based than the questions about assumptions.
Plan for data collection.
Pennebaker writing, assumptions & relationships. For this week or as you have time, begin writing "answers" for the Pennebaker prompts, the assumptions, and the relationships questions, and save them as word documents. We will discuss where/how we want to archive our data in class next week. You should do the writing to the Pennebaker prompts BEFORE you read his essays/book.
Oral history interview. To get started on the oral history, read through the questions and let your mind run over some possible answers. It is also OK to do the interview "cold" = the interview protocol is designed so that you will certainly have plenty of opportunities for cycling back through your answers.
As I said in class, I will conduct the oral histories with each of you, but you will be responsible for recording and transcribing the interview. You may use your transcript as data for your research project, and we may use it as data for working through some of the analytic methods we will study in Lock and Strong, and in Gurbium and Holstein.
You may sign up for a date for your interview here. If you have trouble accessing or editing the document let me know.
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
1.14 Teaching writing as discourse
Changing ideas about what "writing" is: Most language researchers no longer think of writing as a a system for representing speech. As far back as the early 1980's language researchers including Brian Street and James Gee have posed approaches to the study and teaching of language and writing = reject the autonomous model of writing => for an ideological model of literacy. Within autonomous models, writing is seen as an entirely self-supporting mode of communication, where all the elements for meaning are included in and conveyed through writing itself. Language researchers including Jack Goody, David Olson and Walter Ong and others proposed theories for language and writing within this model. New literacy theories, social constructionism, and deconstruction have moved the teaching and study of language beyond autonomous models - to what Brian Street referred to as an "ideological model" = where literacies are seen not only as fixed codes or cognitive practices, but as social practices embedded within particular social situations within particular cultures, and within the power structures that allow and disallow particular meanings (Street).
To put this in plain English, new literacy approaches assume that writing "means" not only in terms of what the words on the page "say," but also in terms of readers' experiences and identities, and in terms of larger cultural patterns for making meaning. This means that your understanding of this blog is not only about the dictionary meanings of the words on this screen and the grammatical rules I used to combine them; it about your experiences with academic texts about language theory, the way you talk and think in terms of your home Discourses, and the way our different ways of thinking and being interact to create meanings In other words - communication through writing is always an interaction, and it will always depend not only on the writer, but also on the reader, the communication context, and the nature of the interactions that take place in that context.
How literacy studies can inform the teaching of writing: Teaching in most writing courses which emphasizes the importance of rhetorical analysis: thinking about audience, purpose, and form as a way of deciding what to write. Within this approach, writers are taught to consider their audiences' expectations about concepts, writing genres, and language use as a way to figure out the best "form" for their communications. As such, in its present form, writing is primarily taught in terms of how best to "say." But as emphasized by Jame Gee, the meanings conveyed by writing draw from not only from how language can "say" things. Communication through writing also depends on the reader's ability to connect to the writers assumptions/values/beliefs about the ways writing allows us to do things and be things.
Communication is certainly a primary function of writing, but as new literacy researchers have observed, language and writing also function to "build" things. In An Introduction to Discourse Analysis, James Gee points out seven building tasks of language. By building - he means the ways we use language to bring ideas, relationships, actions into being. What we "build" becomes real both in our minds - and in the world - in ways that they were not real before we put them into words.
Quote from Gee:
It is as if you could build a building by simply speaking words. While we cannot build a building by simply speaking words, there are, indeed things we can build in the world by speaking words that accopmlish actions and enact identities.
Let's take a very simple example. An umpire in a baseball game says "Strike!" and a strike exists in the game. That is what the rules of the game allow to happen. It is a strike if the umpire says it is. Similarly, the rules of marriage allow a marriage to happen in the world when a properly ordained minister or a judge says "I now pronounce you man and wife." Umpires actually make strikes happen and ministers actually make marriages happen. . . .
We make or build tghings in the world through language. . . . Whenever we speak or write, we always (often simultaneously) construct or build seven things or seven areas of "reality."
As you can see in the handout, Gee goes on to list what he names the seven building tasks of language, along with questions discourse analysts aks about the language-in-use (discourses) that build our language world.
What we are going to do in this course:
Our work in this course will be:
- to explore what college composition courses teach - and what they do not teach - that encompasses writing as "saying, doing, and being";
- to review pedagogies that seem to teach writing as a whole language, and to consider how we might add to their approaches;
- to explore related disciplines and their research methods for practices that might be relevant to teaching writing as "saying, doing, and being";
- to explore the usefulness of those practices through applying them to data and experiences from our class community;
- to pose theories and patterns that will be useful for creating college writing courses that teach whole-language writing.
While I have read research relevant to the focus for this course, I have not fully mastered the ideas we will be exploring. I am have a lot to learn. I predict that there will be gaps in my knowledge, conflicts in my "explanations", and "mistakes" in my recommendations for what we need to focus on. I am hoping our work together will be a collaborative exploration, and I fully expect that each of you will bring ideas and expertise that go beyond the ideas I have brought to the conceptualization of this course.
Thank you in advance for cutting me some slack.
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