Throughout the majority of our course readings (the Timbur piece for this week specifically), I’ve noticed that composition scholars do a lot of worrying over the writing classroom’s position within a democratic society. Timbur claims that the books under review “all locate their concerns in relation to the much publicized literacy crisis in American education,” a crisis that is often and easily correlated if not equated with/to “a cultural crisis that runs deeper than declining test scores…the problem of literacy is equivalent to the problem of democracy in contemporary America and the practical political task of fostering the rhetorical processes needed to negotiate differences within a divided and unequal citizenry” (108). Put practically, many of these authors are concerned not only with figuring out how to teach students to write (as a ‘practical skill’) but also with the perhaps hidden social and political agendas that get smuggled into and reinforced within the composition classroom. The focus on the “cultural politics of literacy” (109) makes perfect sense when framed within the social turn in composition research, and as someone who wants to spend 2-7 years of her life focused on learning how to teach writing, I obviously think it’s very important and agree with the article’s (and authors’) sentiments. However, I’m curious as to why we (by ‘we’ I mean people who are composition nerds) automatically conceive of teaching writing in such grand, influential terms. Does Math and History research paint itself as changing the world, too? Or is this a hippie-dippy English major thing? (P.S. This is not a criticism but a question about composition research in context of other fields, as I am a proud hippie-dippy English major.)
I found the Kent book fit in nicely with classroom conversation and my last discussion question (I asked if there was an overall “Theory of Writing”). On the very first page of the introduction, Kent writes “Post-process theorists hold – for all sorts of different reasons—that writing is a practice that cannot be captured by a generalized process or a Big Theory” (1). Further, at the beginning of Dobrin’s essay, she quotes Kent’s claim that “[n]o course can teach the acts of either reading or writing” (132). It seems that my question about an ‘overall writing theory’ has been, according to prost-process scholars, answered. Dobrin’s essay in particular did a nice job of articulating the invisible problems that “process pedagogy” (139) necessitates; I also found the assertion that the practical pedagogical “translations” of post-process research are not “possible yet” (147) helpful (I was having a hard time finding anything ‘practical’ in regard to teaching writing and felt like I was missing something, but, apparently, I wasn’t). Again, this is not a critique – the answer to my question about a big theory seems to be that more work needs to be done, that maybe all there ever is is work to be done, and that’s perfectly okay with me.
However—I hate to use this terminology because it annoys me—but what are the ‘practical’ implications of this book we’ve just read? Many of the articles (Dobrin and Foster stand out, here) talk about practical stuff in overarching, theoretical terms, but I can’t quite figure out their research means in regard to teaching composition. Statements like “moving beyond examining structures that affect users of discourse to a critique of how individual moments of communicative interaction create the illusion of those structures” (Dobrin 146), or facilitating “a classroom structured around conflict as a mode of being, rather than one developed to use conflict as a dialectical strategy (Foster 162) sound nice, but I don’t know what to do with them. I get that both of these authors make it a point to not put forth any pedagogical strategies, but, still, how should/could this affect my classroom? To put it very dramatically, how do I continue to teach writing and reading when the pedagogical scholarship in my field tells me that such things are unteachable, and that it isn’t interested in or capable of providing ‘practical’ advice or “translations” (Dobrin 147) for the composition classroom?
I found the Kent book fit in nicely with classroom conversation and my last discussion question (I asked if there was an overall “Theory of Writing”). On the very first page of the introduction, Kent writes “Post-process theorists hold – for all sorts of different reasons—that writing is a practice that cannot be captured by a generalized process or a Big Theory” (1). Further, at the beginning of Dobrin’s essay, she quotes Kent’s claim that “[n]o course can teach the acts of either reading or writing” (132). It seems that my question about an ‘overall writing theory’ has been, according to prost-process scholars, answered. Dobrin’s essay in particular did a nice job of articulating the invisible problems that “process pedagogy” (139) necessitates; I also found the assertion that the practical pedagogical “translations” of post-process research are not “possible yet” (147) helpful (I was having a hard time finding anything ‘practical’ in regard to teaching writing and felt like I was missing something, but, apparently, I wasn’t). Again, this is not a critique – the answer to my question about a big theory seems to be that more work needs to be done, that maybe all there ever is is work to be done, and that’s perfectly okay with me.
However—I hate to use this terminology because it annoys me—but what are the ‘practical’ implications of this book we’ve just read? Many of the articles (Dobrin and Foster stand out, here) talk about practical stuff in overarching, theoretical terms, but I can’t quite figure out their research means in regard to teaching composition. Statements like “moving beyond examining structures that affect users of discourse to a critique of how individual moments of communicative interaction create the illusion of those structures” (Dobrin 146), or facilitating “a classroom structured around conflict as a mode of being, rather than one developed to use conflict as a dialectical strategy (Foster 162) sound nice, but I don’t know what to do with them. I get that both of these authors make it a point to not put forth any pedagogical strategies, but, still, how should/could this affect my classroom? To put it very dramatically, how do I continue to teach writing and reading when the pedagogical scholarship in my field tells me that such things are unteachable, and that it isn’t interested in or capable of providing ‘practical’ advice or “translations” (Dobrin 147) for the composition classroom?