Dear Naomi:
I think that you will agree with me that the most enjoyable, useful, and classroom applicable texts that we’ve read in WAC 630 are Williams and Bean. Certainly Bean has struck upon some great ideas and furnished us with critical writing concepts that we can utilize or implement in lessons for our classes. Nonetheless, I was a bit put off by his assertion that “traditional writing instruction . . . leads to a view of writing as a set of isolated skills unconnected to an authentic desire to converse with interested readers about real ideas” (15). To me, this seemed like an outrageously bold assertion, and one that as a writer I would be afraid to make without much documented evidence. Question #1: Did you feel as insulted as I did? What was your take on this? Does Bean imagine that he has a patent on thinking about ideas or on using writing to explore and express ideas? The real danger in writing is not an obsession with mechanics nor an inability for the writer to tell us what he really thinks (Bean 17). The danger is that we write what we think the teacher wants to hear—at least in academic writing.
Later in Young, when I read the first student essay on “My Utopia,” (6) I realized that I didn’t want to read anymore about what Young had to say, but instead I was seized with a desire to sit down with Thomas and talk about his Utopian ideas with him because despite the mechanical errors in his paper, it was the flawed ideas and (sorry to say and I wouldn’t say it to Thomas) shallow thinking that I would want to discuss. Of course, any human designed Utopia will be flawed, but I wanted to help Thomas develop his ideas. In other words, Bean is not the only educator that wants to talk about ideas in writing. By the way, why did Thomas’ instructor limit the amount of time the students should spend designing their Utopia? Not a good idea, either although I understand it was a writing to learn assignment.
Question #2: How would you as a teacher have handled Thomas’ paper? How would you have marked Thomas’s paper on his utopia? Would you have discussed and questioned his ideas in the margins? Would you have corrected his mechanical errors first, last, or not at all?
I was, however, in complete accord with Bean’s idea of a first draft as disordered chaos that must be brought to order. Put another way, when one starts to write an essay or a book, he or she is out at sea and will remain there until direction and order is found. Question #3: What did you think about Bean’s idea of a first draft as chaos, a vortex, a cauldron, that must find order with a plan? Should we call our first drafts “Chaos?”
Young’s book recounts his experiences conducting interdisciplinary workshops on the problems and possibilities of writing in various subjects. He organizes his workshops into two divisions: writing to learn & writing to communicate.
Naomi, my dear, my letter is already gettin long here, so I will just list the rest of my questions and please feel free to respond to the ones that you want to respond to.
Q: How do you feel about writing assignments divided up into two, not mutually exclusive, camps of Writing to Learn & Writing to Communicate (Young 9)? Are these two camps more heuristic than anything else as Young claims (12)? Are we ever really done writing to learn, or to put it another way, how often do we truly know that a piece of writing is finished?
Q: Are you, like Bean, afraid to call writing communicating? (See earlier Bean reading page 3.)
Q: Do you see this blog as a Writing to Learn or as a Writing to Communicate assignment? Or do you view it as both, neither mutually exclusive?
Q: Can you divorce yourself from the idea that you are being graded even in a Writing to Learn assignment? I cannot. How does one free one’s self from the compulsion to speak teachereez (Young 28)?
Q: Please expound on the connection between a chaotic first draft and an initial writing to learn assignment. Consider this question an overlap between Bean & Young.
Q: What kind of writing to learn assignments might you include in your classroom? Journals? One minute essays?
Q: Do you think that creative writing as a writing to learn strategy in a science course could lead to creative solutions to scientific problems (Young 19)? Or were Edison’s poems simply a diversion and a recreation for a mind much occupied in scientific matters? “Would writing creative poetry in a course “make a valuable contribution to students’ understanding” as Young believes (23)?
Q: I felt the note exchange in the electrical engineering class was a useful technique (Young 23-7)? How did you feel about it?
Q: Please comment on this Bean tenet: “We thus need to help our students see that academic writing involves intellectual and often emotional struggle . . . and that the writer’s thesis is a tentative, risky proposition in response to that problem” (Bean 19).
Q: on page 245, Rose denigrates an early twentieth century educator, Grace Ransom, for her study that asserts each student has a “vocabulary of errors,” i.e., a student repeatedly makes the same mistakes over and over until study & correction fix the problem. Is this really such an outdated notion? It makes perfect sense to me. What do you think?
Q: Considering Rose’s essay in general; are we really prepared to do away with grammar exercises? Is drilling and memorization of facts nothing more than a dead end? In my opinion, we had better think twice before we completely adapt an exploration of ideas approach that does not take time for simple rules of grammar and punctuation. Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater! (Third time I’ve blogged that phrase this year!) What do you think?
Q: On pages 349-352 Rose spends time worrying the medical roots, political ramifications, and possible psychological harm (Young 11) of the word remedial. In 1975, in my first year of junior college, I was placed in a remedial English class called Fundamentals of English and a basic composition course. I bear no scars, and, in fact, I was happy that I got the chance to remedy some defects and to develop new skills. What do you think of Rose’s fear of remedial? Is it justified?
Well my dear Naomi, all things must come to an end. The Nile Rivers ends and so must I. My flight to Miami Beach leaves out of Newark on the hour and I must hasten to it. Ahhh, these sun filled days of leisure. Where would we be without them? Please forgive this lengthy missive filled with importuning questions. As I said, pick out the ones that you would like to answer. And so . . .
Fare thee well, my dear,
Love & kisses,
In response to question #1 I believe that there is merit to what bean is saying about writing as being thought of more as a mechanical act then a creative one. I do not think that any assumption can be across the board about all English teachers in general because most English teachers have their own process in their classrooms. I do agree with him to a degree that over the years a great emphasis has been put on grammar, spelling, tense, etc. when it comes to writing. However I think that in only the past 10 years has there been a change in direction as far as that goes. Personally I am not insulted because that is not the type of teacher I see myself as. I consider myself to be a bit more progressive then teachers I may have had growing up. One example that comes to mind is a teacher we only heard speak on the very first day of Freshman English ion High School. After that first day we were to silently enter the classroom go to the open file cabinet drawer, remove a book , read the assigned chapter and answer the 5 questions on the black board in our notebooks. We were writing and composing but never were we asked for an opinion just facts from the novel. So no I do not believe that conveying the color of the Pigmans shirt was a good way to get me to write critically or objectively which is what we ask our students to do today. I believe that Bean is talking about a specific type of teacher and I do not feel that this type applies to me so no I was not offended. And not for anything you are not that brand of educator either. As for that part about writing what the teacher wants us to write I believe that that is true of high school students but that is the polar opposite for college students. I remember having a difficult time writing my opinion and actually being afraid to disagree with the professor when I first started college.
ReplyDeleteQuestion #2- As for Young’s Thomas if it were me grading his paper I would have to take the circumstance into account. First of all I remember being a college freshman and writing what I though m y teacher wanted to hear perhaps this is what Thomas too is doing. His paper seems to be a bit chaotic in that it seems to have just beginning thoughts and nothing is very fleshed out. Much like Beans theory of first draft, there seems to be a bit of chaos in his writing. I do agree with you that they should have had more than an half hour to write the piece. Each student has their own pace and for that I believe that only in class writing should be timed and that is because you have only one period with which to work. As for how I would have graded his paper I would have asked prompting questions in the margins to show him where he could clarify what he is saying and expand. As for4 commenting on spelling errors, in this day and age every computer has spell check so I would encourage him to use that. As for his grammar I would see if it was just him who was having grammatical trouble or if other students needed help. I wouldn’t waste to much time marking grammatical errors only because I believe that they need to be explained and practiced not just jotted down in a margin. For me the most important thing to remember when graded a first semester college freshman is that the difference between them and a high school senior is about two months.
ReplyDeleteAnd at this point in my response I too can see that my response is getting a bit elongated so I will try to answer questions that I feel have brief answers before we get a reputation for being that long winded team
As for writing being divided up into two camps agree that they can potentially be exclusive however I don’t think they always are. I believe there to be a lot of overlap with these two camps.
In regards to Bean and his fear of calling writing communicating I believe that it is a form of communication but then that all depends on the definition you subscribe to. Personally I believe it is most definitely communicating.
Do you see this blog as a Writing to Learn or as a Writing to Communicate assignment? Or do you view it as both, neither mutually exclusive? I love this question. I see it as both in that we can be learning through questioning and answering however there is an air of friendly correspondence which to me would be writing to communicate.
ReplyDeleteAs for divorcing oneself from the idea of being graded no I don’t think that we truly can because as adult students it has been drilled into our heads that even if you are not receiving a grade you are indeed being judged in some way. We have be taught that this judgment is just as important as a grade in that it creates an image of you as a student. I think that the ideas of speaking teachereeze, or writing what you think the teacher wants to hear also goes along with that idea of image and expectation that we feel we always need to monitor for our own feelings of accomplishment or success.
I would love to go on but I fear that this response could go on forever so I will stop here. My friend once again great insight it was an absolute pleasure discussing this with you. I look forward to our next blog!
Much luv,
Naomi