Blog #10

Priebe: Although two or three of the most important ideas of the course are embedded in Gee’s What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy (namely that learning is anxiety producing but that anxiety is also excitement and that learning is social), the three texts which I think will be the most useful in my own teaching are Bean’s Engaging Ideas, Young’s Teaching Writing Across the Curriculum, and Scorcenelli & Elbow’s Writing to Learn; Strategies for Assigning and Responding to Writing Across the Disciplines. These three are the most useful to me as a teacher because they are the most practical. Of the three, the runaway favorite for me is Bean’s Engaging Ideas. This book is filled with excellent advice and guidance on how to come up with exciting assignments that will get the students writing and thinking, which is, of course, as Bean notes, the same thing.

Already this past week, I have assigned my students some reflection paragraphs (93-94), and I graded them using the minus/check/plus system (116). In fact, reading all the different ways there are to keep journals was very enlightening for me. Next semester, I will be undergoing one independent study in which I will be reading and keeping a journal, and reading about all the different methods for keeping a journal led me to the belief that I probably know more about journaling now, then the professor who will be asking me to keep a journal (just a guess). In any event, Bean is exhaustive with his ideas for journals.

Another idea that I used today and will use tomorrow in my Social Studies class is that of frame assignments (126). Bean writes, “Frame assignments are analogous to those old dance lessons for which the instructor pasted footsteps on the floor” (126). As instructed, I will provide my students with a short simple thesis in which they will write two paragraphs giving two different arguments in each. In one, they will pretend to be a entrepreneur who argues in favor of laissez-faire economics (no governmental interference in business) and in the other, they will pretend to be a blue collar worker arguing in favor of the old mercantile system (governments restricting trade to protect their own industries). Now when we studied these last week, I realized that they were diametrically opposed ideas, but Bean gave me the idea of setting up the scenarios and supplying the students with ideas with which to argue each particular case, in effect, pasting the dance steps on the floor for the students to follow.

I, also, found very useful the idea of low stakes and high stakes writing that I read about in Elbow and Scorcinelli, and I have been using this, too. For example, I used it in my Proof and Practice assignment, and I use it in their personal response and exploratory writing. It only makes sense; why grade hard when the students are exploring new ideas and finding their way? Later, after they have worked on two drafts and have gone through the process, then, bring out the big guns and grade with stricter criteria.

Finally, I found Young very pragmatic also. I enjoyed his take on writing to learn and writing to communicate. I particularly enjoyed his example of Thomas Edison’s notebooks or journals. This great inventor thought things out in his diary entries. He used writing to help himself sort out his thoughts. That “writing is thinking” is perhaps the greatest WAC principle there is, and this conviction, the greatest gift of these three books and of the course itself.

Thaiss: An intriguing paradox in the history of WAC has been that most programs have been funded because of deep and wide concern about the quality of student writing; nevertheless, few programs have systematically studied just what is wrong and what is good with that writing, nor prescribed in detail what is needed (308). . . . Hence, while some powers that be (presidents, boards of regents, state legislatures) may be calling for more rigorous assessment, we need to keep in mind that such accountability always carries with it the risk of making programs and instruction obsolete by making them inflexible (309).

Priebe: Professor Thaiss, you reveal more about your desire for WAC survival than you reflect any real concern about student writing. You seem totally unconcerned that the very need that launched WAC in the first place has never been adequately addressed. Do you not find it ironic that the organization whose future you are so concerned with has never done the job it was created to do? Worse, you want to hide behind a spectrum of WAC rationales and definitions in order to escape political and academic accountability. This is a Catch 22 in case you haven’t noticed; if we don’t define ourselves then they can’t hold us accountable and possibly bring our program to an end if we fail. This is kind of pathetic. I am willing to give you the benefit of the doubt that you believe deep in your heart that WAC is producing good writing and that a multiplicity of definitions for WAC renders it unassailable, but why can’t we face these writing problems head on if we are so convinced our WAC programs are good ones? Also, you spend a good deal of time talking about good writing as if it was something elusive and intangible, some grail that we can only seek after, and yet if you and I were to talk about The Great Gatsby, I think that we would both readily agree that this is good writing, and we could find agreement on many other novel’s and essays, too. Come, come, Professor, you and I both know good writing when we read it, and your essay, in which you remove one layer of onion peel after another in an attempt to define what we and many others would essentially know when we read it, is neurotic and tedious.

George & Shoos: The popular definition clearly links documentary to unbiased reporting, but the history of this genre places it far from unbiased reporting. For Grierson, already in 1932, documentary was the place where nonfiction film entered the world of art. In designating documentary as art, Grierson acknowledged its status as a carefully constructed form rather than a window to the real. Renov, of course, rejects the oversimplified notion of documentary as “fact” and argues that film documentary has at least four specific textual functions, any combination of which might be present in a given text.

1) to record, reveal, or preserve (realism)

2) to persuade or promote (argument)

3) to analyze or interrogate (discover meaning)

4) to express (Renov describes this function as “aesthetic,” the emotive function)

Priebe: Yes, you are both correct in stating that many of us come to documentaries with a mind set that we are about to get the truth on a subject. We believe that we are going to get the lowdown, and in many instances this is what we get; however, it is difficult for documentary filmmakers to keep their biases out. For one thing, many documentary filmmakers narrate the proceedings of their films. They begin with a bias. Also, the way they cut and edit their film can reveal biases. If they have juxtaposed figures in their film with iconic images or music, these all shape our perceptions and judgments. Camera angles and lighting will surely influence the viewers’ interpretations. Many documentaries are overlaid with the narrated judgments of the filmmakers. A pure documentary, as difficult as this might be to produce, would have no narrated value judgments, but would leave these judgments and interpretations to the viewer. Finally, your main point (in my opinion) is that images and documentaries and essays are only a starting point in an ongoing dialogue. I agree, but let us not be afraid of allowing our students to reach conclusions lest they become like our Congress, hopelessly muddled in ongoing debate and inaction.

Priebe’s discussion board reflection: I liked the discussion board activity. I enjoyed it because it bolstered my resolve and boosted my ego when my classmates would agree with me. It made me feel good. Vanity, vanity. As I have mentioned previously, I know that you, Dr. Muhlhauser, are always going to be looking over my shoulder and grading whatever I write, and I am very grade conscious, so it is hard to forget that and just let myself go. Still, even if you were not reading them a certain amount of decorum would be in order. I could see myself using this exercise if I had an academically accomplished class—something like an advance placement or honors group. It is sometimes necessary for me to force myself to give an opinion, not that I don’t have one, but that I don’t always want to share my opinion. I feel that I am too negative or cynical at times. I would rather not attack, but if forced to write, then . . . well, I have to write something don’t I? I also believe that many of the entries showed that the material had not been read. Overall, I would give the discussion board assignment a 7 because it was a good tune, but you couldn’t dance to it.