The Unteachable Dark

 Pre-class Reading Response  1 Response »
Sep 172015
 

“But I believe that in most every intellectual endeavor, the extremes of its work come from an unteachable dark.” -Galchen

In an attempt to explain how writing can/cannot be taught, Galchen introduces this idea of the “unteachable dark” in reference to what we might consider natural talent. The idea intrigues me because the suggestion is that in order to reach “the extremes” (i.e. success/fame) one must tap into this unknown realm of greatness.

It seems that the conversation is always driven to the extremes. As if a simple understanding of how to write will never be sufficient through the eyes of the successful. As writers, we hold ourselves in such high regard. We talk about “the craft” and “the art of writing” like our shit doesn’t stink. But it does. It smells like shit.

I guess what I’m getting at is that the idea of teaching writing and the idea of teaching greatness are often blurred. Students who HAVE to learn to write are completely uninterested in “the unteachable dark”. We (teachers of writing and creative writers) look at writing under a microscope and often forget to take our eyes off the lens and adjust back to the world around us. I think that often we become part of the problem in allowing students of writing to tap into their own “darkness.”

INFORMATION OVERLOAD!!! Focus on your thesis! What’s with all the comma splices? Did you address the prompt? Dude, this isn’t 5-6 pages…

What I’m getting at is I don’t think we allow ourselves, at times, to step back and observe “the process.” Part of me (perhaps the cynical man I’ve become over the years) feels that the quality of writing will inevitably improve/diminish regardless of how much attention/feedback I give to the individual student. The other part of me (perhaps the writer that holds “the craft” in such high regard) wants to coddle each student and show them the intricacies of what they are doing right/wrong. But, either way, it is not within my power to access the “darkness” within them, if it exists at all.

 

Still not sure I’m doing this right…

My Two Cents on Felt Sense

 Pre-class Reading Response  2 Responses »
Sep 172015
 

The “felt sense” as something that is somehow tied into the physical sensation of a writer, a “bodily awareness” of some kind, doesn’t make intelligible sense to me.  In short, I can’t feel it in the way that it’s described in the Perl piece.  I can, however, reason with the ideas that drive the “felt sense” concept when they are contextualized as part of the vision and revision aspect of composition—something akin to intention.

“What is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ corresponds to our sense of our intention. We intend to write something, words come, and now we assess if those words adequately capture our intended meaning.”

Beyond who we are as writers, we should be able to relate to this sentiment because of who we are as conscious beings.  Intention—not a formulated plan, but an inborn drive or motive—feels like a pivotal and unavoidable step in the process of consciously, perhaps even unconsciously, communicating ideas.

If this is as close as I can get to the “felt sense” concept, I’ll take it, and I’ll run with the idea that intention is a vital aspect of the composition process for any writer.

Can intention, in this sense, be taught?  In simplest terms, no, I don’t think so.  But, I also don’t think it exists in such abstract terms as “body and mind before they are split apart.”

If we can experience intention and communication, then revisit the latter to “adequately capture” the former, are we not fundamentally moving toward sensational composition?

Optimism or Pessimism?

 Pre-class Reading Response  1 Response »
Sep 162015
 

For the purposes of teaching ENC 1101, I think us, as Instructors or GTAs, face the biggest challenge to the writing process: how do we get our students to give a damn? Sure, you can threaten them with the fact that their work will be graded, and that they need a C or above to pass the course otherwise they will be forced to sit through this “hell” again next semester. But what are we actually accomplishing in doing so? Are we inspiring them to consider and think about the issues that are important to them? Or are we simply forcing them to follow a formulaic method for writing an analytical paper?

I have to agree with Natalie in her discussion post, and Murray’s concept of 85% pre-writing. For beginning writers, the ART of writing must be explored, as well as the “formula.” On Monday I attempted to hold a class discussion on this very concept, in a field which I thought was applicable to my students: social media. However, rather than let themselves truly think about the topic at hand, they all tried to give me answers that they thought I would want to hear, which was, to say the least, counterproductive. In their minds, they are not writing these papers for themselves, or to reach some deeper level of meaning, but rather they are writing them for me, the “all-knowing authority figure.” And to be quite honest, I wouldn’t even know how to properly grade a paper with completely original thought yet riddled with structural, grammatical, and gasp! MLA errors. (Flashback to GTA orientation when a paper that was grammatically/structurally sound, yet not thought provoking received a higher grade than one with creative thought).

We can say we want papers with this type of originality, and that we should strive to teach our students this, but what rubric exists for grading an innovative thought process?

The Fifteen Percent

 Pre-class Reading Response, Uncategorized  No Responses »
Sep 162015
 

Prewriting is everything that takes place before the first draft.

Prewriting usually takes about 85 percent of the writer’s time…

Pre-writing may include research and daydreaming, note-making and

outlining, title-writing and lead-writing.

(From Murray’s “Teaching Writing as a Process Not Product”, pp. 2-3)

I am impressed and surprised to find these words in Murray’s article. This is often my biggest beef with writing instructors; I have rarely encountered any instructor who taught this concept to his/her students. So often the focus is on the act of writing–the act of typing words into the big blank white square of Microsoft Word. So often I’ve heard teachers say things like, “Start writing your introduction… just get your ideas on the page.” Or, “As you write, your ideas will come to the surface.” And on the listening end, students who are already hellbent on meeting the required page length start typing and writing hysterically, without ANY IDEA of what they want to say. Et voila! Le terrible paper.

As instructors we are so often focused on the 15 percent — the writing and the rewriting. “This is how to avoid a comma splice”; “You didn’t write in MLA format”; “Go back and make these edits”; “Work on your rough draft and we’ll go from there”.

When was the last time we spent even a full CLASS period, let alone Murray’s proportional “85 percent” of our instructional time, teaching our students how to “research and daydream…”, make notes, outline, brainstorm titles or leads?

I find this whole 85/15 thing a critical element in the current debate about what we should have students write about: readings they don’t care about, or personal passion areas? The reality is the latter topics are often producing better writing in part because the students don’t need the pre-writing phase (or at least to the same extent they do for the former). I.e., you don’t need to research and daydream and brainstorm about the benefits of deep sea fishing if you naturally take an interest in it–you’ve been organically “pre-writing” in your personal life long before you entered the classroom.

I could go on about this because I think the 85/15 thing is fascinating, but consider… If pre-writing is this important (and I think it is), how do we teach it? How do we drastically alter our pedagogy and our content to address the pre-writing phase? One might also argue that if instructors are largely unconcerned with teaching pre-writing, as they seem to be, what’s stopping us from moving into this heavier focus on personal interest areas in our writing courses?

 

I have not had my fill……….yet!

 Pre-class Reading Response  No Responses »
Sep 162015
 

The New York Times article, “Can Writing be Taught?,” should be more aptly titled: Can Talent Be Taught?

Dare I say, of course writing can be taught––I’m writing this right now, in this moment in time, and
perhaps, someone is reading it shortly thereafter (hopefully). I am able to write these words because I
was put through a grueling process: education.

As children: first, we practice letter recognition; then we practice tracing letters; then we go on to
write our own letters without the help of guided dashes; then our own words; then our own sentences; then
sooner or later we are reading comprehensively, and the basic seeds of writing and reading have been
formally sprouted.

The comprehension of the mechanical side of any procedure demands a teaching process, and on equal grounds
a learning process––the master imbues his mastery upon the apprentice and knowledge is spread. This is in
terms of the purely mechanical!

Rivka Galchen asks: “I wonder if we can really teach someone to be a biologist…will teaching really produce
the next Charles Darwin or Rachel Carson or Francis Crick?” Yes, we can force feed facts to students; and
yes, with a hard enough work ethic they can learn anything. But no, we cannot teach passion, nor can we
teach a student his/her own natural proclivities.

I consider myself a naturally gifted writer and it is a talent I have been honing since I was able to use a
pen all by my lonesome––but I can’t throw a ball to save a life, let alone my own. Now, if I was so
inclined: I could certainly learn to throw a ball in league with those who were naturally predisposed to do
so. Will I ever be as good as the naturally talented? Will I ever possess the same intensity of passion
as the naturally talented? That is another matter to weigh in another hand.

Teaching writing as a science

 Pre-class Reading Response, Uncategorized  No Responses »
Sep 152015
 

There is no singular way to teach writing because there isn’t an objective correctness to writing itself. Instead of memorizing a bank of information, we ask students to look inside themselves and write. To a new writer, or an experienced writer who has recently developed enhanced self-awareness, this is terrifying. Without a set of objective guidelines and a lens for self-editing, it’s hard to know what’s working. Students want some set of rules to hold onto, some box to check to say they’re doing OK. They don’t realize that writing is a creative process, with as many successful strategies as there are writers.

Teaching product may be a strategy for giving that sense of security. Similar to the scientific process of hypothesizing, testing and evaluating, we also teach our writing students a formula – read, discuss, analyze, pre-write, draft, revise, rewrite – with checks and criticisms at each stage. But these checks can have a limiting effect. Writing is already an intensely vulnerable activity, and critiques after a piece is done “does little more than confirm their lack of self-respect for their work and for themselves …” according to Murray’s “Teaching Writing as a Process Not Product.” The concept of teaching process is intimidating to both student and teacher in its vagueries, but breaking out of these confining routines may be more fruitful.

Writing is a Process

 Pre-class Reading Response  1 Response »
Sep 152015
 

Murray’s approach to teaching writing is similar to my own. I think that we as teachers have to show our students not just how to write but how to think of writing as a process. Writing doesn’t just happen; it is an experience (arguably good or bad, depending on your viewpoint) that is underrated, under-taught, and underappreciated. I have told my students many times to plan out their essays and thesis statement before writing. I believe planning is essential and can come in many different forms. Several of my students have showed me their prewriting with bullet points and little thought bubbles and I think they are good approaches to the essays.

I think Murray is a little off the mark when it comes to his assumptions on how much time students should spend on prewriting, writing, and rewriting. He states that prewriting should take 85% of the writer’s time, while writing and rewriting should take 1% and 14%. Even as a graduate student I have never spent that amount of time prewriting my essays. I think he’s really overshooting on this point. I think that writing should take the majority of the time, with prewriting taking the least amount. It is important that writing remains the writer’s focus.

 Posted by at 10:28 pm

The problem with bias

 Pre-class Reading Response  No Responses »
Sep 042015
 

To begin, I feel I must admit that I am highly biased in favor of Paulo Freire. The introduction, where readers are told both that Freire worked for the pre-coup Chilean government of Salvador Allende and that he went into exile following Augusto Pinochet’s coup, created a sense of sympathy within me that probably made me immediately more supportive of the ideas presented  within “The “Banking” Concept of Education”. Additionally, this idea of an “authoritarian” (Freire 7) style of teaching, that Freire labels as being “reactionary” (7), versus a “libertarian” (Freire 2) style of teaching (think more Joseph Dejacque and less Rand/Ron Paul with this term), which Freire defines as “revolutionary” (4), made me imagine a fictional world filled with desk-barricades. Needless to say, I am highly biased.

However, I feel that, in certain areas of teaching, a certain amount of “authoritarianism” (Freire 7) is necessary. For example, when teachers are discussing in-text citations. While there are multiple ways in which a student can acknowledge an author within the sentence itself, the author must but acknowledged. Additionally, there is only one acceptable location for a page/line number (seriously, this is bolded for emphasis). There can be no argument here, as it is either right, and the student is fine, or wrong, and we are forced to send the student to the Grammar Gu… I probably shouldn’t go there.

Freire, Hairston, and a new GTA lost in a paradigm shift

 Pre-class Reading Response  No Responses »
Sep 042015
 

I find that Freire and Hairston’s concerns about teaching come down to the same general anxiety: in the power struggle of educating, how do we allow students to be in control of their own learning? I personally had an interesting introduction to Freire; I had to read and write a paper on his theories for a sophomore composition course. Although I found it interesting, the teacher of the course seemed to take Freire’s words seriously. He was incredibly hands off in the teaching of writing – almost to a fault. Other than this one class, my experiences of being taught writing have been much more of the “old paradigm.” Typical examples include the use of fill in the blank bubble outlines, formulaic styles of paper development, and overly critical grammar Nazis who mark everywhere on your paper with little explanation.

My concern as a new GTA becomes, then, how do I take these theoretical frameworks of shifting towards the new paradigms put forward by Freire and Hairston and put them into practical application? Hairston uses the phrase “untrained teaching assistant” (79) and teachers who feel “insecure and angry because they know they are teaching badly” (81). This describes me perfectly, but without external pressures to change this system, I don’t see how there can be a full shift away from the old paradigm. As a confused teaching assistant with little guidance in the practical application of teaching writing, am I not doomed to a) fail at my attempts to follow a paradigm that I don’t have experience learning from, and/or b) fall back on the old paradigm because it is the only one I know how to apply in the classroom, therefore pass these bad practices onto my students and the next generation of confused teachers?

Pre-Class Thoughts: Whatsa Matta with Narrative?

 Pre-class Reading Response  No Responses »
Sep 042015
 

Though on almost all points I agree with Freire (indeed, my own liberal, dialogue-based education allows me no other choice), I find myself most frustrated by his argument that narrative is antithetical to a useful, productive educational experience. I understand, theoretically, that he means lecture-based teaching versus dialogue-based, and I agree that the former can be mind-numbing and the latter can be vibrant and engaging. Perhaps it is my own love of narrative and of narrating that makes that word the sticking point for me, but I can’t help wishing there was another term he could rail against. Narrative, though it can be all the things that Freire rails against, does not have to be soul-crushing dictation.

Narrative can be lively, entertaining, useful, and still invite feedback. I believe this can be true in all disciplines. In composition, and indeed in most of the humanities, I see how Freire’s point seems sound. If true knowledge “emerges only through invention and re-invention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other,” then how are students going to learn without being able to vocalize curiosity and take part in a dialogue (1)? Rote recitation of grammar rules and agreement on the One True Thesis™ do not invite interpretation. Yet, I could imagine a scenario where information was offered narratively, as a story, information offered in a more traditional lecture form leading to a later discussion. Perhaps it is disingenuous of me to question whether a dialogue is really the most appropriate format for teaching the hard sciences, but even though Freire himself is not speaking of that, I worry for the students in those classes as much as for those in my own introductory composition course. I remember too well the dull, plodding info-dumps of Astronomy 101—a subject I actually have a genuine interest in. That class remains the only class in college I ever fell asleep in, my head nodding as my professor droned, in the planetarium, under the beautiful shifting stars. If, instead of mindlessly spewing statistics, that professor had instead taken a page out of Bill Nye’s or Neil Degrasse Tyson’s book and engaged us with a story leading to, perhaps, some open-ended questions for discussion….I would have missed that five minute nap, to be sure, but I feel I would have learned something more lasting.

When I try to come up with an analogy for the type of narration I am imagining, the scenario that comes to mind is a role-playing game. In the bi-weekly Dragon Age game my friends and I play, our Game Master calls the shots. He is the teacher, the imparter of information, the one who “cognizes” and then “expounds” (Freire 5). Yet we, the players, are not the mindless receptacles that Freire is so concerned about. Instead, we are active participants in the expounding, because our imagined characters have a real investment in the consequences of the expounding. And, when decisions need to be made (let’s imagine that the professor has posed a question, or brought up a sticky paradox), we are invited to react, in character. We add to the narrative. We tell the teacher what happens next.

I’m not suggesting that students should create imaginary personas and integrate them into a fantasy scenario in the classroom; however, I think that narrative can be a hook, a carrot dangled in front of the bunny, that draws students into the discussion. In short, though dialogue is perhaps an ideal, I don’t know that I believe it is necessarily always an immediate possibility in a classroom environment. I wouldn’t invite a dialogue about MLA formatting, for instance; however, I would show them what I know, and then raise possible issues, inviting students (after the narrative, let’s say) to comment on and discuss the problems they foresee, or challenges they might face.

 

 Posted by at 9:53 am
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