Mary: 1:00
Lewis: 3:00
Heidi: 5:00
I have a voice recorder for Mary, Lewis has a voice recorder I loaned him, and I am hoping you are set with your phone, Heidi.
See you soon!
We started class with a discussion of Kenneth and Mary Gergen's article on constructionism. They advocate what they call radical relationalism in thearpeutic conversations. Below are my notes for the talk.
Assumptions/ideas associated with constructionism as defined by the Gergens.
1. The "world" and the experiences within it are socially constructed.
"what we take to be knowledge finds its origins in human relationships. . .[and what we believe] is brought into being being by historically and culturally situated groups of people" (65) => what we know is created through an on-going, recursive "chain" of interactions enacted through language with people who bring their past experiences and larger cultural connections to the interaction*
knowedge, reason, emotion, and morality reside in relationships (66) => not just knowledge, but also our processes for creating knowledge, for "feeling", and for evaluating what we know are created within and through social interactions.
"social constructionist ideas tend to support those who would speak out against the dominant discourse (66) => it is a creative ideology as oppposed to a conservative ideology
2. language and language rules are central to the creation of an intelligble world
Discourse is central to the creation of knowledge.
All knowledge is created through language and agreement on language rules
"As people coordinate their actions, a major outcome is often a system of signals or words. The words serve to name the world for the participants. (67)
3. Values are inescapably present within declarations of what counts as "fact" (objectivity as ideology). Constructionist values are concerned not with TRUTH, but with how a particular truth will affect its "useres" = what will happen if we believe in a given truth => "traditional issues of truth and objectivity are replaced with concerns with practical outcomes" (68)
There can be many truths=> depending on community traditions for meaning making. Constructionists are concerned with what happens to us - if we accept a given truth?
Questions for writing and writing instruction (paraphrased from the Gergens, 69=>Therapeutic communication in question)
What is it in writing/writing instruction that brings about change, learning, growth, new knowledge?
What precisely is it ablolut communication that brings about transformation?
What forms of communication (patterns for interaction=conversational patterns, relationships between writing and self, relationships to discourse and discourse communities) bring about transformation?
What forms of communication are invited in current teaching practice? how might we be more effective?
Constructionist critique of objective (current-traditional, post-positivist), subjective (expressivist), and strategic (transformative, critical pedogogical) approaches to therapy (teaching writing) (paraphrased from Gergen & Gergen)
1. Objective (current traditional)=> realist assumptions
words are (or can be) reflectors of the real
language can (should) provide accurate accounts of what is the case (good writing)
there is a "best"/ right way to solve a problem/write
individuals with expertise can classify and "diagnose" how best to solve problems
Problems=> "forgets" that declarations of the "true" are always located within relationships (discourse=> active instances of experience and language). Within these relationships there can be agreed upon realties, but "to tell a lie is not to misrepresent the world, but to violate a communal tradition "(70).
Problems for teaching:
this is a conservative belief system in that once a process is accepted as "right" it becomes difficult to challenge it (since challenges are "wrong").
It justifies the imposition of dominant belief systems on non-dominant belief systems.
2. Subjective (expressivist) => subjectivist assumptions
"words we speak are held to be outer expressions of the inner world, the subjective mind made manifest"
"observations must be shared to ensure agreement among subjectivities (objectivity=shared subjectivity).
Problems=> no one has yet been able to give a defensible account of how a person's words give us access to his or her inner world.
=> readers will never make authentic connections with the subjectivity of the writer = no escape from the standpoint oe brings to interpretation.
"subjectivism is socially corrosive" (71)
3. Transformative (critical pedagogical) = strategic assumptions
communication operates as a major means through which individuals influence one another's actions
language functions as a strategic implement through which we achieve our goals
Problems=> similar to problems for subjective assumptions=individual desires/will is essentially isolated (uncommunicable)
therefore "influence" become manipulation (the imposition of one individuals' perspective on another)
New possibilities for teaching writing achieved within a constructionist assumptions
The Gergens construct a model of communication as collaborative action that posits:
- Individual utterances possess no meaning
- Meaning is realized through supplementary action
- Supplementary action is itself a candidate for meaning
- Acts create the possibility for meaning but simultaneousely constrain its potential
- Traditions of coordination furnish the major potentials for meaning
- Meanings are subject to continuous reinterpretation
Re-casting the Gergens conclusions for writing pedagogy and process
There is no mental illness=>there are no bad writers
There is no therapeutic treatment in itself=> there is no one right way to teach= all teaching takes place between individuals/within collective conversations
Understanding a client is a form of collaborative action=>teaching is a form of collaborative communication
The effective therapist is a skilled coordinator=> the teacher is a skilled coordinator
In addition to these direct re-phrasings of the Gergens' discussion of the implications of constructionism for therapeutic dialog, we added the ideas that
- there are no teachers
- there are no students
- one major challenge in classroom conversations is to open up (re-explore) pre-conceptions about writing
- writing practices/processes/and ideas about writing and writing processes are subject to continuous transformation
- another challenge is bridging gapes between conscious meaning-making within writing and dominant discourses
- teaching writing will be continously transformed.
The idea in reading this essay was not to say "everything is relative" =>but rather to point out that: 1) our assumptions about what writing is and how it works; 2) our relationship to writing; and 3) how we talk about writing => shape what we can and can't do as writers and writing teachers in profound ways. (For examples of this => look back through the critiques of the objective, subjective, aind strategic perspectives on how knowledge is made).
Our purpose for taking up this question in this course is to think about how our assumptions affect what is taught as "writing"; the way writers "feel" about their writing; and how we talk about writing (teach it). We are re-examining these assumptions = so we can CHANGE them, if we choose to.
How this essay connects to your projects: This essay introduces the perspective (constructionism) which underlies the "tools" presented in the other chapters. The Gergens explain the assumptions + what the assumptions in this perspective can do. The rest of the readings in this book will provide us specific sets of tools for creating conversational interactions where ideas (writing) can be seen 'otherwise" => in new ways.
Your projects for this course will engage you in using these tools to explore an issue associated with writing. That issue might be:
- how/what writers can discover about their relationships to writing through using these tools (e.g. by analyzing material from the interview or some other set of data);
- what new features of writing these tools allow us to teach (e.g. data on applications in the classroom coupled with some measure of what students "learned" and why it is important);
- how the ways we talk about writing affects what we (can) do as writers (and how to revise those inner stories?)=>you might explore this reflectively, or through watching/analyzing data on other writers
- how to create/use writing instruction on voice, reflection, awareness of assumptions about how writing works, consciousness of our relationships to writing and deep details of individual writing processes
- anything that you feel is important to being a writer, falls outside mainstream pedagogy, and that you see a way (using these tools or others) to integrate into writing classrooms or writing practices
Lewis provided an overview of Writing as a Way of Healing. He pointed out that the thesis was that the art of writing can be personally helpful and healing. The book was divided into 3 parts:
1. writing as healing (overview of Pennebaker and the supporting theory for the approach)
2. a process program (a step by step outline for course work through which students produce a book)
3. writing about trauma - mental and physical= discussion of practical relationships (in terms of DeSalvo's writing agenda) between writing and healing.
He noted that DeSalvo presents writing as a necessity for health; as a fixer (as in photographic fixer in that it can "hold" experience in place); and as an invitation to share with humanity.
He then gave a brief overview of the main points within each of the sections, which I am hoping are in your notes.
Frustrations with this method included:
its assumption that art grows out of pain and trauma
its grounding in interpretations of other writer's lives as "healthy" or not = as justifications for her theory (the writers themselves may have experienced these periods in their lives quite differently - and their works are not so simply summed up)
its seemingly exclusive focus on healing from trauma as a central feature of the growth and knowledge-making that writing can accomplish (writing - as a kind of collaborative interaction with other perspectives => accomplishes many different kinds of thinking and feeling tasks, not all of which are associated with trauma)
the conflicts between being its instruction to be open and responsive to the self and to follow the (rather rigid) rules of the writing program presented in the book
its tendency to see the world through an (exclusively) subjective perspective
At the same time, we also noted that:
- the book addresses aspecst of writing that most mainstream pedagogies to not acknowledge
- writing through trauma is a real feature of what writing can do that is often overlooked - and rarely "taught"=> for that alone this book is a "pioneer" and valuable
- there were concrete suggestions about caring for the self and writing which may not be appropriate for universal generalization - but which were useful to note
- the book offered a framework for building a writing program that could well support "writing a book"
So we are making our way through this material - and developing some language to help give us a more clear feeling for the course objectives. Good work!
For next week:
Read: Shotter in Lock and Strong
Blog 4: Speculations about your research project - in light of the radical relativism introduced by the Gergens
In last night's class we did not get back to the "assumptions about writing" => so I would like to start class with a discussion of those assumptions - with some talk about how or whether they might have changed in light of our work so far, and what implications these assumptions have for writing/teaching writing.
After we pull that together, I would like to work on applying Shotter's method (finding points of entry, among other things) = and thinking about how it might work in writing pedagogy: how would we do it? what would it accomplishy?
So far so good - and see you next week.
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