In Response to Prompt 2 – How is seeing writing/communication as Artificial or Natural useful? 

Writing is, as Emig points out on page 124, a “primary technology”. A device through which an individual transforms their thoughts into a form that can be stored and reproduced by someone else. The whole concept is mind blowing when you really think about it. “I CAN PUT MY BRAIN ON PAPER!” It’s the earliest form of recording device.

But there’s still this distinct artificiality to it, at least when it’s done poorly. That’s kind of this underlying issue that a lot of these readings are trying to deal with. Bartholomae, when he talks about writing being caught up in culture, and of a need to be critical, speaks to a thought that I’ve had about writing ever since I started incorporating Engfish into my curriculum: some writing just feels… fake.

There’s a concept called the Uncanny Valley, which is a term coined by robotics professor Masahiro Mori. The idea is that humans are hardwired to recognize certain traits as being “human”. When these traits are replicated, we tend to accept them (and even find them cute) when they’re highly stylized. After a certain point, however, things become too realistic. You end up with something that looks extremely human, but is off somehow. On a bell curve, this creates a sharp dip in the response. Once things look 100% human, then acceptance levels spike back up. This creates a “valley” effect.

I’d argue that writing, particularly the writing that Bartholemae and Elbow are talking about, functions in a similar way. You have papers that are obviously just… bad writing. The person doing them is very young, or is new to English, or is just really bad at grammar. Or maybe they have this informal honesty to their writing, but they’re not quite college ready, yet. Up to that point, this may not be acceptable, but we accept the fact that the person in question is still learning.

But at the first year comp stage, the students typically have a functional grasp of language and grammar, and they’ve been exposed to “academic” discourse for the first time. They have an idea of what things are supposed to look like. They also have thoughts and opinions in their head, but may not know how to articulate them properly. So the end result is this kind of double translation. There’s the translation of natural thought and speech into text… but there’s also the translation of natural thought at speech into discourse, which is an entirely new language for most of these students. The result, often, is a text that looks correct to the student, but contains numerous flaws that inspire revulsion in the instructor.

This is where the problem comes in. These students should be able to think. They look like they can think, but that thought isn’t being articulated properly. The result is this idea that there’s some sort of mental deficiency in our students. That they’re incapable of thought, or caught up in social dynamics, or that there’s some sort of flaw in their logic. It ends up creating a situation where writing is like CGI in movies. When it’s done well, you don’t notice it. When it’s done poorly, it becomes the target of revulsion and mockery.

It would be more helpful to approach writing classes as a course on teaching students how to use an intellectual toolkit. We’re not some sort of department of Promethei that bring down the fire of Thought to the unwashed masses. Students can think. They just don’t know how to operate the machinery of the university yet.

As many have pointed out before me, using ideology in the classroom does not come easy.

While I was most excited to begin teaching this sequence of readings, my experience has been turbulent at best. I have had no issues with students not contributing to the discussion but rather the content of the contributions has left me disturbed and frankly, afraid. One of my classes, on reading the Epstein essay, came up with a solution to the HIV/AIDS crisis: tattoo people who have HIV so when someone has sex with them, they can see that they have the disease and not have sex with the infected person. The idea came from one person and was readily accepted by the class as a whole and quite enthusiastically, I might add. They are convinced that people with the disease will ALWAYS lie about it and NOT use protection. I found myself in an extremely tricky position; I wanted to scream and shout and yell at my students but I wanted them to listen to the problems that surround this ‘solution’. Four students emailed me later that week that they don’t agree with that solution but that is is still 18/22 students who think that tattooing is a viable option to ending the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

The same set of students, on reading Savage and Vaid, said that bullying is grossly exaggerated and they have never seen anything like the sort so it probably doesn’t exist anymore.

I can identify this as a lack of empathy in my students perhaps, but this battle of different ideologies is something I have not been able to fight. I have, to the best of my abilities, tried to get my students to see the gaping holes in their perspective; videos, and discussions about certain tattooing events of the past have not scratched the surface at all. Just earlier today, I had a student who said he/she supports LGBTQA people but if their child identified as LGBTQA, he/she would try their best to get them therapy as it is not ‘right’.

With this set of readings I am finding it extremely difficult to be detached from the reading material and the discussions that follow. The students don’t raise their voices or get angry; they just say things simply and that freaks me out.

I cannot figure out how to manage this set of opposing ideologies in the class; me versus them.

If within social-epistemic rhetoric we acknowledge that we cannot be free of ideology and try to incorporate it into our pedagogy, then one issue I foresee is that language will become the sticking point. If, as Berlin asserts, “[i]deology is. . .inscribed in language practices, entering all features of our experience” (479), then how are we as educators supposed to point out assumptions and attempt to overturn ideological frameworks as we ask the students to use an ideology-laden language in their writing? “Formal academic writing” is a term I’ve been using pretty willy-nilly recently on my student’s papers, because there has to be some sort of style presented that they can emulate, and yet how can I expect them to become meta-aware of that language’s limitations and assumptions when they are forced to learn to use because it is the only way I, as an “academic” and their teacher, will be able to tell that they “get it”?

I am inspired by the idea that social-epistemic rhetoric responds to the notion that “the observer, the discourse community, and the material conditions of existence are all verbal constructs” (488), yet I am at a loss as to how a foundational, formal, academic writing style can even begin to critique itself. This type of rhetoric is so appealing to me because it appears to democratize the writing process and allow students “the means for self-criticism and self-revision” (490). However, it is constructed within and by a specific, restrictive discourse that I believe does not allow for the level of self-reflexivity that Berlin claims. “Question, question, question,” I tell my students: “never take anything for granted, overturn your assumptions.” And yet I’m asking them to do so within a very defined framework, the arbitrary rules and boundaries of “good” academic writing. Berlin critiques expressivism because that approach has a huge blindspot regarding whether students are truly able to “[challenge] official versions of reality” while still being products of that reality (485); yet through expressivism, students are able to at least feel as if their voices and experiences matter outside of an academic context. They are able to utilize a language that does not necessarily mimic an academic one. With social-epistemic rhetoric, though, I worry that in practice it is hard to truly push students to question everything, while at the same time saying “Do not question this. This language is best, this format is best, this mindset is most advantageous to accurately and succinctly proving your points.”

By seeing writing as artificial, we can treat it as unrelated to natural processes, which means it is a skill that’s possible to hone. This extends to general communication. Although Emig describes talking as an “irrespressible behavior,” it’s a behavior that can be improved. We can learn to be more eloquent and organized in our speech, just as in writing. Seeing communication as artificial can also prompt students to question what’s normally accepted as truth. When knowledge is viewed as subjective instead of inherent, it can be commented on and subjected to debate. Prompting this kind of critical thinking relative to natural assumptions is the ultimate goal of education.

After reading over others comments about the ideology in the classroom, I find myself wondering how exactly we can discuss ideology in a classroom. I understand that a classroom can be a place to discover oneself, face opposition to the ideas that you already hold, and hopefully, adjust to the new information and arguments a student or instructor encounters. However, in my class at least, I tend to avoid actually discussing the topics at hand, and I focus on the bigger picture: social activism and ways to go about it.

I choose to avoid these topics because, as Danielle pointed out, unless students have been affected by it, they generally don’t have an opinion, nor care. As a result, I try to open up the discussion to broader things. One of the best in-class writing assignments I did was to make the students create their own social activism campaign, a logo, and then tell about how they would go about implementing such an idea. I received a multitude of different campaigns (along with the ones where they just copy their friend, of course) that gave me better insight to the things they, maybe, care about. It was also very private. To talk about certain ideologies in classrooms, while holding your own ideology, is a difficult task when you have students that adamantly oppose you. For example, when talking about LGBT issues, what if a question is asked that only a LGBT person can answer? Do we let the unopposed idea stay uncontested? Sometimes we can give answers, but they taste unsatisfactory; as in, we can’t thoroughly answer the question because the experience isn’t ours. If that’s the case, the only way to get an answer from the question is if a student comes out, so to speak. At that point, it can be extremely awkward for the student, perhaps even embarrassing. I realize this is a highly specific example, but things like this do happen. To let the point stand uncontested, in a debate at least, means that the point is accepted.

What if the accepted point conflicts with your own ideology? Can you actually keep your own opinions out of the discussion? Instructors are the authority figures, and so the students tend to agree with you, at least vocally. One of the most surprising things to me, and to my students, this semester was when I told them they didn’t have to agree with the essay (speaking about Restak at that point in time). They believed that they must accept the essay as a Truth to learn. The same applies when you confer your ideology in the classroom. They will always agree with you. Even in their papers, differing from Natalie’s students, they agree with you, to the point where you can tell they don’t agree because of the language of the essay.

Perhaps I haven’t stated in a coherent manner the issue I was trying to take with the concept in the social-epistemic model Berlin talks about. Injecting your own ideology into the classroom is difficult to keep from doing; however, discussions about ideology can still be beneficial. I just find it hard to bring up these issues in class because of the students’ apathy to most of the issues and an innate anxiety about discussing the issues due to anger, awkwardness, etc. Trina’s suggestion about setting ground rules is something I can get behind, but I also find students can and will break those ground rules when in a heated debate. Since working at the UCEW, one of the hardest clients I ever had to help was not one where the student was difficult and resistant to any help, but one where I had to help construct an essay that directly opposed my own viewpoints and watch the student create and use “facts.” But they were facts I could have countered with others, divulging my own views. Creating a discussion about the highly contested issue would not have helped the student become a better writer, I believe; focusing on how the student can implement his or her ideas into the paper and then creating a logical structure helps more.

(Note: I love having ideological discussions and encountering all these new and opposing ideas, despite the above paragraphs.)