To be perfectly honest, I find it difficult to respond to Yancy's article/speech. Not that I don't agree with Yancy; I do. I believe composition courses need to catch up with the times. Our students certainly do write in many ways in today's society: websites, texting, blogs, emails, etc. And we should incorporate these things in the classroom in order to prepare them for future jobs. Yes! Composition courses should be a synthesis (to use Kara's term) and incorporate different genres of writing to fully prepare students.
1. But, as we have discussed several times in class and outside of class, most of our students (unlike many of us) already know how to do most of these things. They have grown up with technology. While it is still helpful (and I think Yancy's ideas are absolutely fascinating and would be great way to make students excited about composition again; I would love to teach a class like that), I don't think we can totally forget about writing formal, boring essays, arguments, analasyes--I know Yancy isn't completely advocating this, but I think it's important to make the point nonetheless. Because, I believe that alot of the writing we have them do is more than writing. It is also about learning through writing, writing to learn. To learn to think critically. In short, I think this kind of writing also prepares them for the real world, helping them prepare for social and work conflicts/debates/experiences.
2. But, while one of freshmen compostition's goals should certainly be to prepare students for writing in the real world, are we not also responsible for preparing them for future course work? I understand Yancy's point about student retention, and I find it frightening that so many students enter college and never graduate. There should be something done. But, perhaps retention is also an issue because we are not fully preparing them for future course work. Students may be required to complete powerpoint presentations and other multi-media projects in future classes, but they also most definitely will be required to write papers, formal papers and essays. So, I don't think we should short change them. Give them the best of the both worlds I guess.
I'm not really sure if there is a solution to any of this, and I know that debates are occuring around the university about these types of issues, but I felt I needed to get these things off my chest. I feel it is my duty to accomplish or at least to attempt to accomplish the things Yancy discusses and encourages, but I also wonder why it seems to always fall on the shoulders of Composition instructors. When does History, Science, and Math begin to take responsibility too?
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Literacy Heritage
My literacy heritage begins with an old woman who wanted to be an English teacher more than anything, and her dream was never realized: my great-grandmother. Growing up, my mother told me stories of this woman I never met, a woman who would read the letters her grandchildren wrote to her, would correct the grammar, and would send them back with a response. And because, in my child's mind, this woman was great enough to be admired by mother, who I admired greatly, I too worshiped her.
My mother and father never graduated from high school and never went to college. And I don't remember a lot of books in our home. But I do remember watching my mother write letters and learning to write letters at our kitchen table. So when I began to learn to read in school, I came home everyday to sit at the table with my mother and read aloud to her. She would then read stories and tell stories to me. Still, reading remained something I did for school. It wasn't a part of my life.
In third grade, my mom took me to the library for my first library card. Because we had no tv and she worked all day, she wanted me to do something productive, and she wanted me to be more educated than she. I read a few books, but nothing really struck me as particularly interesting until I read a Babysitter's Club book. It was the first book I encountered that I related to: the protagonist's parents were divorced. I had never read a book where the parents were divorced, so I read more.
I began to consume books like food or air, checking out several books at a time. By the time I was in sixth grade, I was reading books like Jane Eyre, Little Women, and Gone with the Wind. And I kept reading. Reading was no longer something I did for school or to please my mom or to live up to my great-grandmother's wishes for her family. It became who I was. And now that I think of it, maybe it began for my mother with her grandmother, but for me, it really began with my mother who, after a double shift, still found time to write with and read to me.
My mother and father never graduated from high school and never went to college. And I don't remember a lot of books in our home. But I do remember watching my mother write letters and learning to write letters at our kitchen table. So when I began to learn to read in school, I came home everyday to sit at the table with my mother and read aloud to her. She would then read stories and tell stories to me. Still, reading remained something I did for school. It wasn't a part of my life.
In third grade, my mom took me to the library for my first library card. Because we had no tv and she worked all day, she wanted me to do something productive, and she wanted me to be more educated than she. I read a few books, but nothing really struck me as particularly interesting until I read a Babysitter's Club book. It was the first book I encountered that I related to: the protagonist's parents were divorced. I had never read a book where the parents were divorced, so I read more.
I began to consume books like food or air, checking out several books at a time. By the time I was in sixth grade, I was reading books like Jane Eyre, Little Women, and Gone with the Wind. And I kept reading. Reading was no longer something I did for school or to please my mom or to live up to my great-grandmother's wishes for her family. It became who I was. And now that I think of it, maybe it began for my mother with her grandmother, but for me, it really began with my mother who, after a double shift, still found time to write with and read to me.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Performing Literacy
High School curriculum and teachers seem to understand the importance of performance in the literacy and writing classroom. As I studied educational and literacy theories while completing my undergraduate degree, I remember my instructors drilling us on new ways and methods of teaching literacy to our future students. While performing Shakespeare now seems trite and overdone, there is validity in having students act out scenes and even re-write them in their own words.
However, the act of performance and its obvious connection to writing and literacy have been little used in college composition courses. At least in my experience they haven't been taken advantage of. More and more, instructors are seeing the importance of multi-media writing, but even that is given less priority. Composition courses are meant to help students write essays so that they can "perform" in the "real world," right? Yeah, that doesn't make much sense to me either.
These are the types of issues that Fishman, Lunsford, McGregor, and Otuteye discuss in their article, "Performing Writing, Performing Literacy." The authors argue that
What an enlightening concept! On one of the most obvious and basic levels, in composition classes, we stress the importance of audience to students, but we rarely utilize the helpful analogy and strategy of audience in terms of performance: concerts, plays, movies, etc. Our students can relate to all of these types of performances, but we should show them the connection between these and their writing.
I saw the impact of performance in my own ENG 102 class just recently, though I did not realize fully at the time that I was using a theoretical strategy. As my students and I discussed the introduction to Graff's and Birkenstein's They Say, I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing, the students struggled with the concept. We tried applying and recognizing the "They, Say, I Say" moves in an actual academic article, but because the students couldn't get past their own initial reactions to the article and the fact that the author never explicity used the words "I say," we were really getting nowhere. One point in particular seemed to resonate with them from the text though. Graff and Birkenstein point out that in "the real world we don't make arguments without being provoked" (3). I initiated a conversation about "real world" arguments. Students began to comment that when in an argument with a friend, they use the other person's words againste them. Essentially, "you said (fill in the blank,) but that's not true...." So, I decided to use the concept of a "real" argument in the classroom. I split the students into two teams. Because some of them thought the author's argument was effective while others thought it was faulty, I gave one team the "effective" argument and the other team the "faulty" argument. I gave them ten minutes to collaborate with their team members and to research the text for moments that supported their argument. I gave them the instructions that they were required to use evidence from the text. They then debated their positions. Before I knew it, not only were the students engaging the text, but they were also engaging with one anothers statements and arguments, using one another's words. They were performing "They Say, I Say."
While I attempted to make the connection between this debate and their writing, I believe if I had read this article before the class, I probably could have done so more confidently. What the students took away from the exercise has changed the dynamic in the classroom though. They are discussing the material with me AND their peers, using evidence from the text at hand. I can't wait to try more exercises like this in the future, and hopefully, I am now better prepared to make those explicit connections between performance and writing.
However, the act of performance and its obvious connection to writing and literacy have been little used in college composition courses. At least in my experience they haven't been taken advantage of. More and more, instructors are seeing the importance of multi-media writing, but even that is given less priority. Composition courses are meant to help students write essays so that they can "perform" in the "real world," right? Yeah, that doesn't make much sense to me either.
These are the types of issues that Fishman, Lunsford, McGregor, and Otuteye discuss in their article, "Performing Writing, Performing Literacy." The authors argue that
Performance is a dynamic form of literate expression that is both fun and deeply serious. Immediate and face-to-face, performance encourages active participation and collaboration, and thus it models many of the qualities we value most in real-time new-media writing, while at the same time it brings renewed attention to talk and scripted forms of oral communication. A tool for innovation as well as a potential vehicle for helping students to transfer literacy skills from situation to situation, performance, at least from our perspective, stands to reinvigorate both teaching and learning in the writing classroom. (226-7)
What an enlightening concept! On one of the most obvious and basic levels, in composition classes, we stress the importance of audience to students, but we rarely utilize the helpful analogy and strategy of audience in terms of performance: concerts, plays, movies, etc. Our students can relate to all of these types of performances, but we should show them the connection between these and their writing.
I saw the impact of performance in my own ENG 102 class just recently, though I did not realize fully at the time that I was using a theoretical strategy. As my students and I discussed the introduction to Graff's and Birkenstein's They Say, I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing, the students struggled with the concept. We tried applying and recognizing the "They, Say, I Say" moves in an actual academic article, but because the students couldn't get past their own initial reactions to the article and the fact that the author never explicity used the words "I say," we were really getting nowhere. One point in particular seemed to resonate with them from the text though. Graff and Birkenstein point out that in "the real world we don't make arguments without being provoked" (3). I initiated a conversation about "real world" arguments. Students began to comment that when in an argument with a friend, they use the other person's words againste them. Essentially, "you said (fill in the blank,) but that's not true...." So, I decided to use the concept of a "real" argument in the classroom. I split the students into two teams. Because some of them thought the author's argument was effective while others thought it was faulty, I gave one team the "effective" argument and the other team the "faulty" argument. I gave them ten minutes to collaborate with their team members and to research the text for moments that supported their argument. I gave them the instructions that they were required to use evidence from the text. They then debated their positions. Before I knew it, not only were the students engaging the text, but they were also engaging with one anothers statements and arguments, using one another's words. They were performing "They Say, I Say."
While I attempted to make the connection between this debate and their writing, I believe if I had read this article before the class, I probably could have done so more confidently. What the students took away from the exercise has changed the dynamic in the classroom though. They are discussing the material with me AND their peers, using evidence from the text at hand. I can't wait to try more exercises like this in the future, and hopefully, I am now better prepared to make those explicit connections between performance and writing.
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