a call to action

In commemoration of my fields anniversary (i.e., it was three years ago today that I took and passed my special fields exam), I elected to spend the day reading an odds-and-ends assortment of workshop reports, reviews (mainly for new media and multi-media textbooks), and articles published in CCC and CE during the 50s, 60s, and 70s. Crowley’s 1977 “Components of the Composing Process” brought to mind yesterday's 486/686 (not surprising since we talked about a couple chapters of her Composition in the University). More specifically, the 1977 piece brought to mind a question raised at the end of that class. That is, if we recognize and find at all troubling the amount of time, effort and talk that is being (or has been) spent devising ways of “beating” or “circumventing the system,” so to speak, what does this suggest about the system currently in place? What other options do we have or might we imagine, work toward, etc.?

In “Components” Crowley reports on the results of an admittedly informal, three-semester long study. In an attempt to learn more about the processes students employed while completing papers for her class, Crowley asked her students to keep “composition diaries” detailing what they did, when, why, how, etc. Of these process accounts Crowley writes: “The sense of self-satisfaction seems to be what is chiefly lacking in my students’ accounts of their own process. When they write, they simply recount what they already know—which is why so many of them cannot bear to reread drafts of papers they’ve just written. They are not interested in, or even bored by, their own work. The composition diaries show that students take very little time or care in completing writing assignments, chiefly because they feel no real commitment to the writing beyond the need to finish a chore. They perceive the completion of a writing assignment in much the same way as they perceive an assignment requiring them to answer questions 1 through 5—one begins at the beginning and forges through to the end.”

In accordance with yesterday’s discussion about revision and draft-dodging, it seems likely the students involved in the study would have known how to beat this particular system. Insofar the diaries could count for course credit (i.e., Crowley notes that the diaries were “not required but could be submitted for extra points or as substitutions for other work”) I’m left wondering why students didn’t use the series of questions she provided them with and reverse engineer a series of process entries that might more closely resemble what the teacher-researcher expected or hoped to find?

As pertinent to yesterday’s discussion was the following call to action that just so happens to appear in the space beneath what i consider to be Crowley’s call to action. I was initially drawn to the last line of the invite, “We hope to be more on the side of action than suffering,” but the juxtaposition of these texts has come to interest me more than the final line of the invite. It seems to me that what was lacking in the process diaries—a kind of investment, interest, enthusiasm, pride, a sense of writing as more-than-chore—is assumed, if not required, with the second call to action. It is able to say (in ways that assignments don’t/can’t), “Hey, those who aren’t invested, worried, puzzled, wrestling, aware (whatever) need not apply.

While cognizant that there is a difference between the stuff one feels one has to do, is more-or-less compelled if not forced to do (i.e., writing for a grade, for tenure, to ensure a meeting takes place at the right day and time, to ensure that they don’t forget something at the grocery store) and the stuff one gets to do, is allowed the opportunity to do, and would do even if they weren’t required to (i.e., writing for a grade, for tenure, to ensure a meeting takes place at the right day and time, to ensure that they don’t forget something at the grocery store), I’m left wondering about other options and potentials for creating contexts for learning, for action, and (re)action, where “having to” and “getting to” aren’t treated as mutually exclusive terms.

not a part of the "happening" card collection

. . .but something kinda like one. Something that I forgot I had or (a more likely scenario) something I never knew I had or (also quite likely the case) something that I wasn’t even necessarily supposed to end up with at the end of a session . . . unlike the happening cards--they were texts I made sure that I got back at the end of a class session, texts that I have made a point of holding onto all these years.

Coming to this particular find: The members of the 486/686 course have been asked to read (along with two other landmark essays on writing process) Berthoff’s “The Intelligent Eye and the Thinking Hand” for tomorrow’s class. In this piece, Berthoff mentions her 1982 publication forming thinking writing and this, in turn, reminded me that I had that text on my shelf and hadn’t picked it up in a couple of years. More specifically, save for packing it up, moving it here and unpacking it, it was a text I hadn’t touched since the spring of 2004. I’m guessing that I had been reading Berthoff (or had been planning to) the day I met with the members of this particular presenting group. I also imagine that they handed me their list of “possible activities” having every intention of getting it back from me when the meeting was over but that one thing led to another and that I ended up using their text as a book mark for Berthoff. In any case, years later, the text drops from Berthoff’s text and what I want to say (but, of course, I can’t) is that the undated, anonymous text has, for the past three years, marked the space between pages 10 and 11 where Berthoff writes:

“Composing is putting things together. . .figuring out relationships, working out implications, drawing conclusions. . .Making sense of the world is composing. It includes being puzzled, being mistaken, and then suddenly seeing things for what they probably are; making wrong—unproductive, unsatisfactory, incorrect, inaccurate—identifications and assessments and correctly them or giving them up and getting some new ones.”

Finding this particular text (meaning the undated, anonymous one, not Berthoff’s), makes me think about all of the “like” kinds of texts I will not likely find. At all or at least anytime soon. Ironic that it never occurred to me to take better care to solicit and archive the texts students produced before, while or after working on the group presentation sessions since they have been, almost without exception, the most exceptional class sessions I have witnessed—sessions that, more often than not, provide course participants with opportunities to complicate, enrich and extend, largely by way of enacting the assigned readings. This, as opposed to what usually happens on non-presentation days when we discuss (blah-blah-blah-Zzzzzz) in class, as a class, the assigned readings.

Drift alert: The more problematic aspects of my in-class practice were first underscored for me by a student named Jason at the end of the spring 2000 session. At the end of his portfolio, he wrote about what “a shame” it was that the class had end up being so traditional. “Sure,” he admitted, “maybe the final products we produce and the processes we use to produce those products were different enough to get us thinking about traditional ways of composing. In the end, it was just too bad that this course had to be so traditionally-run in terms of having students read and then discuss the readings in class.” After reading this, I met with Jason and a few other members of that class. “What else would we do?” I asked. Their (more or less collective) response: We don’t know. You’re the teacher. But there have to be other options (meaning beyond talking and/or writing about readings), don’t you think? [Of note—the fact that I assigned readings was never an issue—or if it was, it was never mentioned.]

Problem is (and has remained) that class sessions during which students are not allowed to communicate through speech or writing are not (dare I say it?) efficient. They are frustrating, slow, cumbersome. Trading on images? Trading on song- or sound-bites? Trading on images and songs? Bringing in an object that somehow represents one’s response to an assigned reading? Fine, fine. But where do we go, what do we do, how do we make sense of it all (or make sense of it to each other) when we are finished looking at, touching these artifacts? Or maybe that's enough?

I digress: I think all of the “possible activities” listed on the handwritten text above actually made the final cut for the group presentation. I filmed portions of this group presentation session and I do not recall nor do I see on film any other additional activities going on here. The handwritten text was composed during the preplanning stages of a group presentation that took place on April 22, 2004 and that was based on two articles: Wendy Bishop’s “Steal this Assignment” and Hans Ostrum’s “Grammar J, as in Jazzing Around.” Motivated in part by the readings (specifically so, the notion of play-work or “plerk” coupled with ideas about what it might mean to radically revise a “standard” text or practice) and in part by their classmates’ desire to have class on the quad before the semester ended, the presenting group decided to create an obstacle course that would be nearly impossible for their classmates to accomplish should they approach the obstacles in customary or usual-routine ways. Otherwise put, in order to successfully accomplish the obstacle course groups would be forced to radically revise their usual strategies for jumping rope, hula hooping, carrying an egg on a spoon across a stretch of grass, etc. Facilitating the changes to practice/strategy was this: Each component of the obstacle course needed to be accomplished while the team member performing the task held a plastic cup full of water. In this way, choosing who would do the hopscotch event was not simply a matter of deciding who was the best hopscotcher but a matter of determining who might be the best (quickest) hopscotcher and (steadiest) water-holder. After each event had been completed, the person who completed the event needed to write a couple of sentences about the event and/or the strategies that were employed for the event before the team could move on to the next event. In this way, the ability to think of something to write and to write it quickly was also crucial.

As one might expect, certain obstacles were easier for one person holding a cup of water to accomplish (at least unaided by others) than were others. Rolling in the grass (as pictured here) or hula hooping with a full cup of water, for instance, proved difficult (if not impossible) until groups began to discover that there was more than one way to roll from point a to point b with a full cup of water (somersaulting quickly proved impossible) or to make sure that the hula hoop “made at least three complete rotations around the body.” Since the only hard and fast rules had to do with writing two or three sentences about each component of the obstacle course after it had been completed and making sure that only one person (i.e., the person who was technically performing the obstacle) held the full cup of water, groups quickly learned that having someone stand still holding the full glass of water while other team members rotated the hoop around his/her body was not cheating but improvising, radically re-visioning what it meant to hula hoop. It became and remained a question, however—one that actually made it impossible to declare which group, exactly, won—if taking water into one’s mouth during an event and then spitting it back into the cup when the event was over was or was not cheating. Otherwise put, while the presenting group members intentionally wrote the directives for each task in ways that were, or could be, open for interpretation and improvisation, no one thought what to do had one of their classmate’s attempted to revise the system in this way. Given my fondness for class sessions where we end up discussing readings, writings and in-class activities, my favorite part of the session (next to not being picked for a team which, in turn, allowed me to film most of the session. . .although I'm not sure if not picking me to be on a team was an oversight, a result of my having the camera and/or a deliberate strategy for those invested in winning) was the discussion that followed the doing of the obstacle course proper. A few students stressed how excited they were (at least initially) at seeing the obstacle course, getting (finally) to have class on the quad, etc., and how that excitement was tempered a bit after learning about the “catch” of having to keep the glass of water full and having to write something about the obstacle and/or strategies employed after completing each event. Finding that the obstacles were neither as easy nor as fun to accomplish as they first thought they would be was something many found frustrating, something that would, at least initially, make the session feel more like work than play or plerk. Yet after inventing ways to work with (or around) the directives the presenting group provided them with (and perhaps more importantly, after realizing that this—meaning revising strategy and improvisation—was not only okay but encouraged in this context) the writings and the full cup of water especially became more accepted/acceptable aspects of the session.

no thanks

The grocery circulars arrive on Friday, and since my scanner is still out (as I've not yet finished archiving my collection of happening cards) and since I'm still feeling bored, restless and unfocused, I thought I'd change things up a bit in terms of the way I typically interact with these kinds of texts. Instead of looking for, and then noting on my shopping list, the things I want or need to buy, or (for those times I am especially broke) instead of playing the if-you-could-only-eat-one-thing-featured-on-this-page-for-rest-of-your-life-what-would-it-be? game, I thought I'd chose one thing in one of the circulars that I definitely wouldn't purchase even if it were on sale or part of one of those "buy one, get one free" deals. This one is a kind of "three-fer." I would not purchase the lemon meringue pie or the chocolate one or the coconut one. triple-yuck.

the work done by author image and book design

I find myself drifting from text to text today. Frustrated because I'm unable to really commit to focusing, finally and for an extended period of time, on this or that or even that. I think the drift has to do, in part, with just feeling plain-ole restless and not having any hard-and-fast, in-the-next-day-or-hour deadlines looming. Another thing facilitating the drift, I suspect, is not having begun with (or not having found along the way) a purpose for my interactions with the texts I have selected for today. Good reading/research/idea days, at least for me, are more likely to occur when I bring to (or find within) texts a question, or, better yet, a series of questions about how the texts might be taken up to complicate, extend, clarify or even confirm whatever it is I am thinking about and/or hoping to accomplish at the time. Different things appeal (and appeal in different ways) depending on whether I’m in class prep mode, proposal mode, book mode, article revision mode, new article mode, blog mode, website mode, grocery shopping mode, and so on.


A small good thing: Before I decided to cut my losses and turn my attention to a text that holds a different kind of appeal for me (read: I am apparently in American Idol results show mode), I came across the James Marshall’s reading of the pic of Macrorie on the back of Uptaught. Of the photo that “graces the back cover of [his] 1970 edition of Uptaught” Marshall writes:

“[It] represents to me everything that Macrorie was back then, when I was preparing to teach. He is sitting informally on a bench, back to a brick wall. His posture is friendly and open, his shirt and tie informal and rumpled. But it’s the look on his face that’s important because it’s a look that says, ‘I don’t believe you.’ A look that says, finally, 'No.' it was, I think, what Uptaught was about—'No' to dishonesty, 'No' to 'Engfish.' 'No' to uptightness generally. And that 'no' was somehow captured iconographically in the photograph. . .a refusal to go along with old ways of running the country or of old ways of teaching writing.”

Drift warning: Sometime last year I arrived at my office to find that someone had thumbtacked an index card-sized puffy-ish sticker on the bulletin board outside my office door. On the sticker was an image of a pirate that was made to say (by use of an additional sticker) something like, “I hate pirates!” If memory serves, whoever tacked the sticker to the bulletin board, took care to type out (maybe in a times new roman font) and then affix to the bottom of the sticker a thin strip of paper containing a single question, “What work does this do?” That the pirate sticker was placed there by a former or current student I had little doubt because: a.) I vaguely remember saying something about pirates at some point in time in one of my classes. In my defense I doubt that I said that I "hated" them since I do not personally know any pirates. That is to say, my comment was likely based on my “not getting” the whole pirate craze: “Not getting” why some people seem to like to think about pirates, talk like pirates, dress up like pirates, watch pirate movies, and so on (and) b.) Because the words I use most often throughout the course of the semester are, “What work does (or can) this do?”

So, if Macrorie’s photo, according to Marshall’s read, “works” to capture, to illustrate/embody visually (i.e., through the use of an author-image), the message/movement/climate associated with Uptaught, I’ve often wondered about the work that this particular author-image does:

Had this image been placed on the back of the book (i.e., where it would arguably have functioned much differently than it does here, placed on the front of the book), I would find it a delightfully ironic, or else a downright foolish choice given the work the book, at least to my read, proposes to do, and the kind of pedagogical practice it advocates. Thus, that the photo appears on the front of the book suggests that this photo likely does the work of capturing, illustrating, embodying the pre-lessons-learned Tompkins or the pre-awakening Tompkins. Or maybe it works (not-so-simply) to complicate the point made here, suggesting that no matter how hard we try to change, or how badly we want try some new approach, we just is what we is.

And now for something that may or may not go over all that well but that I’d be game for trying: What if we (meaning folks in the 486/686 course) were to create cover art and/or author photos for our blogs? What I have in mind here is something different from (or in addition) to the customizing features and profiling functions blogger offers. Put otherwise the question is this: If the contents of the blog appeared in book form (or put still otherwise, if blogs had front and back covers) what would appear on the front cover and back cover and why? If an author-image were to be part of the design, what image would be selected (i.e., a photo, a self-portrait/painting, cartoon), and why?

a curious discomfort

Among the essays that tend to get the most play in the courses I teach are Lex Runciman’s “Fun?” and Richard Larson’s “The ‘Research Paper’ in the Writing Course: A Non-Form of Writing.” This said, Fishman’s study of Amish literacy is another that's showing signs of making its way onto the often-played list.

The decision to include Runciman and Larson (unlike Fishman’s "Because this. . .") hasn’t always been deliberate—that is, it’s not been my plan or intent from the get-go. Rather, they are the kind of things I’ll add, not last minute per se, but at the point at which it seems to me that the course or a component of the course seems to be missing something without them. Truth is, despite using it in my fyc course, my play theory course, my research methods course, and my teaching theory/practice course, I don’t particularly like the experience of reading “Fun?” (the first and final paragraphs make me cringe, in fact), but the points raised here (especially his reference to Harris’ study of one-drafters), tend to resonate with students. For my part, after rereading the piece, I do find myself being more cognizant of the decidedly battle- like or generally un-fun, un-fuzzy-feel-good, life-and-death-super-serious ways writing (practicing it as well as teaching it) is often represented in scholarship. Case in point:

At the conclusion of Composition-Rhetoric Connors writes, “The question of writing assignments is uncomfortable for many teachers because it presents such a clear mirror of one’s individual philosophy of education. It’s is easy to feel that one’s teaching is not striking a good balance between making writing meaningful to the student and making the student meaningful to the community. [on the reification of that binary i'm thinking: ‘oh no he just didn’t. . .!’] Debates over the last two decades between advocates of ‘honest, personal writing’ and those of ‘writing that gets the worlds work done’ [repeating again, ‘oh no he didn’t!’] will probably continue, because the seductions of an emotional knock punch are no less real for teachers than the seductions of a well-planned and carefully done research paper. [here i’ll just offer a big sigh, admiting that, put this way, or given only these two options, the 'carefully done research paper' sounds like the better deal.] The question of personal writing assignments forces us to take an implicit stand about what we think is important, for students and for society—and making important decisions is always uncomfortable. The continuing debate, tacit though it may be, indicates that we as a profession have not yet come to agreement about the larger purposes of writing in this culture. [word.]

22 prompts (or topics) for themes for which i should like to see interest renewed

1. necessity of attention to things as well as books
2. on ardour of mind
3. want of personal beauty as affecting happiness
4. how snow is removed in your town
5. the hind that would be mated by the lion must die for love
6. on attention
7. public amusements, splendid religious ceremonies, warlike preparations, and a display or a rigid police, as means of despotic power
8. on affectation
9. the golden rule and the subway
10. old things that have passed away
11. refinement, a national benefit
12. what I remembered when I was drowning
13. dogs
14. a real mechanic and his automobile engine
15. how to raise lettuce
16. cultivating flowers
17. a visit to the picture-gallery
18. what we did at our picnic
19. the largest fire I have ever seen
20. looking forward
21. how I caught the woodchuck
22. how to entertain a number of small children on a rainy afternoon

--from Connors' Composition-Rhetoric: Backgrounds,
Theory and Pedagogy

seventeen

sixteen

on "synaesthesia"

"Write an essay on one of the following terms in which your purpose shall be to reach a satisfactory definition. On the way to the final definition record all your trail definitions, and include all of the illustrations, examples, distinctions, exceptions that have come to you. A good beginning is the criticism of the dictionary definition, or of what is generally understood by the term.”

--from Scott and Denney’s Paragraph-Writing (1909)

fifteen

fourteen

thirteen

twelve

guess who

“Another class of exercises, well suited to develop invention, as well as to break up the stiff formality to which beginners are liable, is that of Personal Narratives. These narratives may either be real, giving an account of something the writing has experienced, such as an excursion, a trip into the country, and the like, or they may be fictitious, giving an account of some imaginary adventure. These narratives, whether real or fictitious, should be in the first person, and writers should be encouraged to give the narrative, when practicable, something of the dramatic form, introducing dialogue, telling what was said by the several parties introduced.”

--from J. Hart’s Manual of Composition and Rhetoric (1870)

eleven

ten

nine

eight

seven

six

five

four

three

two

one

(more) composing with new media

JS: Tell me what you’ve represented here.

DM: At this point, I had all my research done and I went home for Thanksgiving break. Here I’m looking at a bunch of different game boards, games. Those are vision lines. I just, I really had no clue how to, you know, put all the research I had done into a game board so I just started on one right away [based on Monopoly] and it just really, really didn’t go well (laughs) so I had to, I had to just start completely over.

JS: And you were looking at these games for—?

DM: Like, to model my game. Like, I wanted a model. I figured I could kind of just get the general idea of a game and then just kind of turn it into one of my own.

JS: And these were literally the ones you were looking at: Monopoly, Clue and Mousetrap?

DM: Yeah. Well, there’s some other ones, I just don’t know the names. I remember the one that I eventually broke in half started with Monopoly [as a model] but it just, it got too confusing and I had to just start all over. So I finally decided, I went back and looked at the Clue game board and that’s what I modeled my game on.

JS: Okay. Let’s talk about the process of making of the first board, um, or the game. How long would you say it took?

DM: Okay. The first game I did [modeled after Monopoly], I spent probably two days on that. Not straight days. Maybe like five hours a day on it. But it was a complete disaster so I ended up snapping it in two. And then I just kind of looked at Clue. I didn’t want to go through that again where I’d have to break another board. So I thought about it first. I actually took a piece of paper and, like, drew, drew everything. And then, of course, I messed up a few times on it. But I saved myself a lot of time by drawing it on the piece of paper. Once I had everything perfect, I put the paper here and I just copied it on the board.

JS: Okay. How about with these things [i.e., other parts of the game besides the hand-made playing board]. Where are these from?

DM: The dice and the players, I stole from another game. I’m not sure what game it was but I stole these pieces from another game as little players. And then the die I actually made with construction paper. I glued that on so I could have my little colored die.

JS: All right. And so you do the board first? None of the other stuff is done yet?

DM: No, none of this is done. I just had the board.

JS: Where did you get the idea to color-code your research-based question and answer cards [according to levels of difficulty]?

DM: While I made the board I had all these ideas, like, how I was going to play the game in my head. But when I actually played the game, I realized that I needed something, cause it just seemed too easy to just roll the dice and, you know, pick any question. I thought I would add another aspect to it, like, cause these are the degree of difficulty of the questions. Like, the orange is the easiest and black is the hardest. So I just wanted—it just seemed like I needed to add something else to make it more interesting, you know? Keep you on your seat a little bit.

JS: And did you do the drawings [on the game board]?

DM: Yeah. Unfortunately. I should have maybe had someone a little more skilled do the drawings on that. I thought it looked a little childish so that’s when I decided to print images off the internet, laminate them, and put them on the board to it look a little more professional.

JS: And how long would you say that this all took—not where you broke the board but starting with the new design. How much time did you spend making it, playing it, writing directions, making the pieces?

DM: That all took quite a while. I think I did the [new] board in one day. It actually took a while to type up the questions—there are a lot of questions here. And then to cut everything out and paste it. That actually took, ah, just as much time as making the board. So probably like 7 or 8 hours a day for, like, two days I think it took. The day I did the board I just remember thinking, “Man this is taking forever—I’m just going to quit and start tomorrow.”

JS: Okay. All right. Have you ever—in the past, in high school or whatever, did you ever make a game for anything?

DM: No. Never have. First time.

JS: Okay. What advice would you give, like, if somebody said, “You know what? I’m going to do a game for this class.” What would be your advice to that person?

DM: Okay, um. I’d say if you’re making a game, really plan out. Like, actually sit there and what I did, like, draw—take a piece of paper and draw the game first because you’re going to find flaws, you’re going to find a lot of flaws in it. And then even when you have the game you might want, like, on a piece of paper just want to try to like go through it in your mind. Like, “Okay, if I move here, and you are”. . .you’re probably going to find some flaws in the game. And just try to make it interesting. Try not to make it boring where the player’s like, “Oh, man, this is just getting repetitious!” you know? “I just want to end it,” you know?

composing with new media

SS: I decided to write it on a shirt just because I’d been [sitting in front of Abercromie & Fitch at the mall] when I got the idea. I ended up writing the shirt in my dorm lounge. I remember that it took a long time. People saw me and they would stop and be like, “What are you doing writing on a shirt!” (laughs) And I would tell them and some were like, “It’s such a weird class,” and some people were like, “I really wanna take that class.” So—a lot of mixed reactions.

JS: And did the people who walked by, did you know them?

SS: Yeah. Cause they live on my floor.

JS: And what, typically, would you say if somebody came by and said, “What are you doing?”

SS: Um, usually, I said—most of the time I was in a hurry cause it was annoying to write all this down. I said I was doing it for a class and then they always thought it was for an art class. And I said no, it’s my [fyc] class and most of them had [fyc] and they were like, “Well, I’m not doing anything like that!” So then I would have to explain what we were asked to do.

JS: If you were bothered by people stopping to ask questions, why did you go to the lounge to write on the shirt?

SS: It was bigger and cause I had a bigger table out there and I could stretch out on a t-shirt board and in my room I would have to sit on the couch and I didn’t have a table or anything.

JS: Um, from start to finish, about how long did it take? Do you recall?

SS: It took seven hours. I spent four on it the first night and three the next night.

JS: When you went into Abercrombie to buy the shirt, what were you looking for. I mean, did you have a sense of color or style or I wanna get a discount shirt—I mean, what were you looking for?

SS: I wanted kinda to get a discount shirt but then most of them were short-sleeved and I didn’t know if my paper was going to be too long (laughs) to put on a short-sleeved shirt so I decided I better go with the long-sleeved shirt. And then I decided orange just because when I think of that store I always think of orange and navy blue and dark green, so I decided to go with orange.

JS: And were there different styles of orange in long sleeve that you were debating between?

SS: No. There was just that orange one. They had a navy blue but the writing wouldn’t show up.
JS: Do you remember how long the typewritten version was? I mean, was size a factor too? Cause it’s interesting that you’re trying translate text on a page to text on a shirt.

SS: Yeah. I bought the size I could wear in case I decided I wanted to wear it.

JS: Did you say anything to the people in the shop about what you were doing?

SS: No.

JS: Can you show me this scene where you had to like lay it out? Like how you started, how you figured—cause it just seems so symmetrical that—

SS: I think I started. I think I just started here [points to left side front collar]. Yeah. And then I just wrote around. I know I did all the front first and then I wrote like this and then I think I did the back and then when I ran out of room on the back, I started with the sleeves. But when I got to the sleeves I didn’t want one to have a lot and the other to have none so I just wrote a sentence on either side. So you have to read it like this. [i.e., seeve to sleeve]

JS: Um, do you remember what kind of marker or what kind of marker you used?

SS: It was a Sharpie and I think I went through two.

JS: Did you have to put something in-between here so it didn’t bleed through?

SS: Yeah. Um, my roommate, she was an art major, and she has these like t-shirt boards cause she paints on shirts all the time so I used one of those. And it stretches it out so it’s easier to write on.

JS: Okay. Um, were you happy with the overall look of it? Like the balance and the symmetry or—

SS: Yeah. I wanted it to be, like, symmetrical cause I thought about just randomly writing it all over the shirt but then I decided it would look more structured and go along with “conformity” [the word she had researched] if I wrote it straight and, um, then when I looked at it I didn’t know if I should cut these sleeves off and just make it look like it was supposed to be a short-sleeved shirt or just leave them so I decided to just leave them because then the edges would be ragged and it wouldn’t look as conformist, I guess.

JS: Were there places where you, you know, made mistakes?

SS: Um. I remember like, there was always something I could fix. There might be spelling mistakes that I never caught.

JS: I imagine that writing on a different kind of surface can be frustrating. So one of the questions is did you have any practice material? And did you do any—when you looked at the actual typed text and you looked at this did you do any kind of mental blocking? You made the decision of whether or not to write it randomly or fairly linearly but did you do any other kind o blocking guess-timations?

SS: I remember when I got the first page of text transcribed on the shirt, I just looked to make sure it was all going to fit on there. And then, after I had the first page, I decided it would all fit.

JS: Um, did you have any back up plan? Cause this seems like such a huge risk—working with the medium. Did you have back-up plans in case it didn’t fit or you were writing too big or did you just think it would work?

SS: I just hoped that it would.

JS: Did you think about wearing it?

SS: I wore it once.

JS: Oh! You did? To my class?

SS: No, not your class. Ah, I wore it one day—actually, I don’t know if it was a weekend or a class day—I just remembering having it on in the dorm and in the cafeteria. And I don’t think a lot of people noticed it was written on. I think a lot of people just though it’s like the way the shirt came.

JS: Okay. Say for instance I did a class were it was required to write with Sharpies on a shirt. What advice would you give to people?

SS: Um, just to make sure they don’t write too big. . or too small. (laughs) And, um, just, I guess the size is a big deal cause if you run out of room, well, there’s not much you can do.

JS: Have you done anything else that is, um, not necessarily writing on shirts but that would make use of different materials?

SS: Mmm. No. I mean, I wrote on a pair of shoes once but that wasn’t like a paper that was for school. I just wrote on my shoes and wore them. It was in high school. I had these red boots and whenever I found a quote or something that I liked, I would just write it on the shoes.

JS: And they were shoes you wore?

SS: Yeah.

JS: And would you write on them when they were on your feet or off?

SS: Yeah. Like, if I was in class and I read something I liked, I would just write it on the shoe.

JS: Did other people do that?

SS: No. (laughs) I don’t think so. I don’t know why I did it. I always wore them. I wore them a lot. And so whenever I’d read something I liked and I wanted to write it down, I would just write it on these shoes and then whenever I wanted to use it somewhere else, I would just get out those shoes.

JS: So you’ve had a sense of what it’s like to write on fabric with marker or with pens. Any other clothes-writing experience?

SS: No.

(re)presenting difference

JS: Before we begin, I had a couple questions. First, can you describe your attitude toward or feelings about writing?

HL: Writing? Um, I think is mostly, it’s more brain-staking for me than—rather than having fun. Especially if it’s for school. It would be really pain-staking and brain-racking and it would, I would have to twist and turn and like torture myself to write something actually. I would rather do anything than write.

JS: Okay. And what, what is it about writing for school that you don’t like? What are you seeing is the big difference between what you’re asked to do in school and what you decide to do on your own?

HL: Well, mostly, I think maybe because of the subject. That could be one of the reasons but another is how they tell me to structure my writing. They give you a certain format, “This is how it should be: introduction, like, body, conclusion.” I’m like, “Okay.” And then writing suddenly becomes a chore. And from then on, I don’t really like writing.

JS: But isn’t it easier though, if somebody’s telling you what to do?

HL: That’s how most people think and that’s how I think originally when you asked me that question. And it is true that when during classes, when you told us, like, “You don’t have a certain format,” I was like, “Oh! How am I going to—why doesn’t she even give us something so we can start on it!?” That’s how I originally thought but then, later on, it gives you so much more opportunity and leeway to start something. I was surprised at how it turned out to be when I first thought it was going to be so hard but then it wasn’t.

JS: It was easier?

HL: It was easier.

JS: Okay. So if you say that it was easier, what if somebody said, “Well, my job is not to make things easier on you. I should have made it harder. Maybe you didn’t work that hard in this class if it was so easy.”

HL: I wouldn’t say that because the writing part is, was easier. But, um, the course—thinking about it, preparing about it, that’s, I think that took more time than it would have been for normal classes because for normal classes when I had to write a paper, I would just—to tell the truth—I would start on it the day before. Even if it was a ten page paper, I’d start the day before. But, for this class, I thought about it so much even to the point of, I thought about it once you handed us the, like, how we should do it. Like, the objectives and everything. When I received that, that was when I started thinking very hard. I would think, like, even if I’m doing something else, I would constantly be thinking about it, which I wouldn’t have in my other classes. So it was easier—the part when I’m writing but thinking-wise, it took more time.

JS: Okay. Okay. All right. The second question: Can you explain, like, how would you describe this project to somebody else not in the class? Like what, what is this history thing that you did?

HL: How would I describe it?

JS: Yeah, how would you describe. Like, if I said, “Oh,” you know, “what are you drawing about?” How would you use words to describe what you represented here?

HL: Um, well, I would say, um, like, a lot of people—they all have different thoughts in a class. Like, even in the same class they all have different thoughts and their experiences are different, their environment, their way of thinking. So even if we learned just one thing—the same thing—the way we receive it is all different. So, this, this history, I think, is trying to show that something like that [difference] exists. And the extent of it.

the (intentional) disruption of functional systems

JS: Okay. Talk to me a little bit about, um, the first day in the course, what you were thinking.

DM: Oh man! Ah, my initial thoughts were, “This woman is, ah, crazy! I don’t know if she even knows what she’s talking about!” Cause you just came in and you just started talking about, “Oh yeah, we’re going to do a history and we’re going to do an OED,” and I’m just sitting here. You know, for someone who hasn’t gone through your class, it just kind of blows your mind. “What is this woman talking about? A 'history of "this" space?'” You know?

JS: So the history task, in particular, was the most confusing?

DM: Yeah. The thing that sticks out is the first day of class when you told us about the history of this space. I was so lost. I didn’t even know where I was. I had no clue what you were talking about.

JS: Was it my language or what I did? I mean, it seems to me that first days of class, the instructors say what you’re going to be doing.

DM: Yeah. No. If you were to tell me now, “Oh we’re going to do 'a history of "this" space,'” then, you know, after going through your whole class, you know, it’s nothing. You know, you’re like, “Oh, okay.” But to someone that hasn’t experienced your type of teaching—cause when you get them the first day, they’re, they’re, you know, they’ve been told their whole life, you know, "you’re going to have these assignments, you’re going to do it this way." And once you get to your class, you’re talking about stuff we’ve never even heard of or never even imagined, you know? It’s like, “Wow, she’s actually, she’s actually going to let us do this?” It’s like your mind can’t really comprehend if you’re for real, you know? Like you kind of, we think you’re just kidding or something. I didn’t know what to think.

JS: Well, why didn’t you drop then?

DM: Just because. I don’t know. I never even really thought about it. It was my first semester of college. I didn’t think people dropped, you know?

JS: I mean, if you were feeling that this was weird—

DM: (cutting JS off) Beyond weird.

JS: Okay. (DM and JS laugh)

DM: It’s cause you’re thinking one way but our whole life we’ve been taught “let the teacher teach us,” you know? And to lay that out it kinda, I mean to tell us, “Hey, you guys are going to be teaching yourself” —it’s like giving a hockey player a football and saying, “Go play football!” (JS laughs)

JS: That’s a great quote. All right. Okay. So if you felt that it was beyond weird, were you sure other people thought that or were you (DM laughs) looking around? Did you talk to anybody after class? Did you—

DM: No, I thought I was the only one that had no clue what you were talking about. I was just sitting there and I was like, “Man!” Cause everyone else kind of seemed like—they were nodding their head but (JS laughs) now I realize that they were completely in the dark too. I just remember leaving that first class thinking I’m going fail out of this class so quickly.

JS: And did you have other friends who had been through or were going through [fyc] classes at the same time?

DM: Well, yeah. Yeah. I talked to them and they were, I was like, “So what’s your class like?” They were like, “Oh it sucks. We gotta write a, we gotta write a 10 page paper in like two weeks!” And I’m like, “At least you know what your assignment is!” (JS and DM laugh). I’m like, “I don’t even know what she’s trying to tell us. Talking about Christina Aguilera and stuff!”

JS: So how do these conversations about other [fyc] classes come up?

DM: I don’t know. It’s just me being so lost. Cause I wasn’t sure if, like, all the [fyc] classes were like this, you know? I was trying to get some insight on this class. I didn’t really know what to think.

JS: And so when they said that they had to do whatever, did that make you want to switch sections?

DM: No. It actually—it just made me kind of made me feel more lost. Everyone else—I felt I was the only one in my class that didn’t know what was going on. And then once I talked to other people outside the class, I was thinking that I’m the only one in the whole school that doesn’t know what’s going on, you know? (JS and DM laugh) Yeah. But after you go through it and you actually realize what is going on, um, you start to understand what you’re trying to do and it’s easier to understand what to do.

cream cheese snowman

JS: How did you get these people to help with the piece and who are they?

KB: Um, this is a girl who lives on my floor and this is my boyfriend. I think I just set up a time where, ah, they were both free. Brian helped me with it because I asked him to and Lindsay just didn’t have anything to do. Like I said, at that point I didn’t really have a script written but I knew how I wanted the story to play out as a parody about the cream cheese snowman.

JS: So they come over? Or do you tell them about the concept over the phone or something?

KB: Well, no. Brian was already over and I had told Brian before that I thought I was going to make the snowman with mashed potatoes. And so I was like, “This is what I’m going to do and if I’m going to take pictures of this little mashed potato snowman I guess I need mashed potatoes!” And so I remember one night at dinner we took a whole bunch of mashed potatoes—we found one night that they were serving them at the dorm. And we put them into our dining cups cause that’s the only thing we’re allowed to take out of the dining hall. And so (laughs), I felt really dumb but Brian was just like, “Okay!” And he had the dining cups and he had this huge plate of mashed potatoes and he was just like scooping them into there and people were like, “What is he doing?!” And I was almost like, “I don’t know what he’s doing!” I was just kind of sitting there. In the end, we ended up using cream cheese for the snowman cause I had a whole bunch of cream cheese in my fridge and I was like, “Duh!? Why didn’t I use cream cheese to begin with?”

JS: So it was that the mashed potatoes didn’t work or was it just that the cream cheese was plentiful?

KB: The cream cheese, um, I looked at it and I’m like this would work better cause the mashed potatoes would fall apart but the cream cheese, since it was in the fridge and it’s cold and it’s more like clay than mashed potatoes are. So I told Brian to come over again to help me with it. I think at that point I wasn’t even thinking about putting staged photographs of people in the book. I was just going to take this little mashed potato creation and take pictures of it.

JS: So you hadn’t thought about this storyline before getting the photo essay assignment? I mean, was this—had you been thinking about working with mashed potatoes and cream cheese prior to this?

KB: No. When we first had the assignment I thought to do a parody of a children’s book because when I was younger there was a book, um, something, something and the Stinky Cheese Man. And it was a parody of the gingerbread man but it was made out of cheese and, um, it was just a parody of all these fairy tales. So I was thinking about that book and how I could make a parody of a children’s story. And I, I don’t know why but I thought of Frosty the Snowman. I guess it had to do a lot with this other book—the parody of the gingerbread man but he was made out of cheese and—that’s probably what I was thinking about and I thought, “Well, what could I make him out of that wasn’t snow and that’s white?” Mashed potatoes. That’s where I got my idea.

board game

AR: And then this is the angel of the lord. (laughs) I’m in Osco. And, ah, I was like, “Okay, I need to get Candy Land.” (JS laughs) But, like, I don’t want to spend a lot of money. Oh shoot, I should put the price on it! Check this out. (draws in price) And ah--

JS: Oh my god!

AR: Yeah. I was looking at all the games and all the games are like 21 bucks and I’m like, “21 bucks for a board game!” I’ve never had a legitimate child, so I wouldn’t know how much a board game is. (JS and AR laugh) I mean, I wouldn’t know how much it costs to, like, buy kids toys or anything.

JS: All right. And the angel of the lord is on the box?

AR: Yeah. She’s, she’s watching over me. Um, or he—I don’t know.

JS: Okay, I thought that was on the box. Okay. So the boxes are all here?

AR: Yeah, yeah. These are all, like, the different boxes on the shelves and I knew I had to have Candy Land. I was sure of it. I was like, “I need Candy Land.”

JS: Because?

AR: Because Candy Land would work perfect for it. I wanted a game that didn’t have a lot of rules in it. I mean, I only have a certain amount of time to get this done and this is like something where you could easily pick up and draw on it. It already has the trail in it. It already has everything laid out really well so I can just put my own stuff over it. I was like, “This would be perfect.” And the strange little things in the game that complicate the game a little bit, like the secret passage, you know? I could just put, you know, ganja trail over it.

JS: So you knew immediately—from first you had this idea of getting to the palace so, like, Monopoly wouldn’t work?

AR: Um, Monopoly is so complex. Yeah. And Candy Land has the right amount of elements in it for me to be able to do this. Oh, and anonymous smoker is this guy here.

JS: Oh, okay.

AR: Yeah. I had like this picture. But, um, I went there to get Candy Land and I saw all these games and it took me forever to find Candy Land. I saw these games were all like 21 bucks and, like, you know Risk was even more expensive cause it has all those pieces and Castle Risk as well—it was like 35 bucks so I was like, “Oh no! How much is this going to cost me?” And then I see Candy Land, finally. And, like, it had a sticker for like 15 bucks and I was like, “Wow, I can do 15 and then I looked and there’s like a sign underneath it, it’s like, this week, you know, it was like 5.99. I’m like, “Oh my gosh! This is absolutely perfect!” So I knew that, you know, the angel of the lord was speaking. (laughs)

JS: Did you hear her? And wait. You’re saying “Yes, master to the angel of god,” right?

AR: (laughs)

JS: Okay.

AR: And then this is me, just on the computer, like, getting all my sources typed out and everything. You know, bringing it together. And then this is me assembling the project outside of the Allen Hall computer lab. And the reason why I say probably like 50 people have seen the piece is cause I was there all that night. As I’m assembling it there were so many people coming in and out of the computer labs. And everyone that came in, I was like, “Hey, come over—check this out!”

JS: Why did you work there and not in your dorm room?

AR: Um, I think so I could show everybody what I was doing. (laughs)

JS: Did you tell them what it was for?

AR: Yeah. Some people just walked up and thought I was just doing it for fun. Like, as though I’d be out there 2 in the morning, you know, making my own version of Candy Land for, you know, shits and giggles, like, the week before finals.

chicken-in-a-box

JS: Okay. Talk to me about what you’ve represented here.

MC: Okay, um, let’s see. This is supposed to be a chicken! (laughs). And an apple. Ah, I’m not really good at drawing stuff.

JS: When did you get the idea to write on the—I mean, when did you get that idea of writing on something that would decompose so even the writing itself would be lost? Where did you get that idea?

MC: That was pretty far in the beginning. Because it was in the sense of trying to make you lose something, you know? I was also trying to think of ways, like, to write things where it’s like they fade away and then maybe come back again or maybe fade away and never come back again like in mid-sentence. And then I was like, “Okay, how can I get this?” Like, “How can I make her lose this paper? Lose this writing? What’s a way I can do that?” And the only way I could think to do that was to have something that would self-destruct almost. You know what I mean? It would have to be something that’s alive so that it could decompose. And then, you know, it became a question of “Well, what is hard enough for me to write on that will decompose?” Okay, well, apples. Oranges would probably take too long, you know? So I was just going through different foods in my mind--da-da-da, da--but I was pretty much stuck on the apple. I knew an apple would work cause I’ve seen apples and used apples in my own creations before—not for decomposing reasons but just, um, for other reasons. I knew if you write on apples, well, the writing stays. And that might have been totally satisfactory but my brain kept going without my consent (laughs). It kept going and going like, “No, no, no, that’s not it; it’s got to be better than that!” It needs to be, you know, devastating. And then I’d think, “well, what’s so devastating about losing the words on an apple? Nothing!” Then, like all of a sudden it just popped into my head. I decided to use chicken. I made it so that there was lots of writing on the chicken but there was also writing underneath the chicken so like part of the objective was for you to keep the chicken for a long time until the chicken was totally decomposed which would, in turn, reveal other things.

JS: All right. With the—what kind of chicken did you buy?

MC: It was boneless breasts.

JS: Okay. Breast of chicken.

MC: Yeah.

the listening eye: reflections on the writing conference

" The writing teacher, because he is an English teacher, is usually considered to have a subject matter as do teachers of history and physics and mathematics and literature. He does not. He must learn from those who teach music and art and shop, for he does not have a vast amount of knowledge or information to communicate to the students. He does not have many concepts to develop. He has a few basic skills which he must communicate to the students repetitively, over and over and over and over again. . .The great danger is that the repetition of the same rule. . .may become boring both for the student and for the teacher. The writing teacher must develop many ways of saying the same thing."

--Donald Murray, A Writer Teaches Writing, 1968

the study (and use) of models

“A common assumption among teachers of writing is that a familiarity with good or great writing will enhance a writer’s own work. A more concrete pedagogical version of this assumption is that a developing writer learns from seeing what others have done and from imitating those forms and techniques. That is, in order to write an essay of a given type, the writer must first be familiar with examples of the type and know the parts of the type and their relationships. How could a writer produce a haiku or sonnet if the writer did not first know what a haiku or sonnet is? Although some studies have been conducted in the last twenty years have examined the effects of general exposure to ‘good’ writing, many more studies have concentrated on the analysis of models to identify specific qualities or features which students were expected to incorporate in their own writing. . .This narrative review can conclude only that the results for the use of models are mixed. . . available research does not permit fine discriminations among the effect of various types of models on students of various ages and levels of ability, or among the variety of ways in which they might be used.”

--text from Hillocks' Research on Written Composition (1986)

clock and flowers and crown, oh my

what's more

stepping around my new/temporary throw rug (aka. the opened copy of kaprow’s assemblage), i grab a copy of kitzhaber’s themes, theories, and therapy: the teaching of writing in college. saddened to find that this is one of the few passages in the book that actually makes the study’s findings, published in 1963, sound dated. in recognizing the various reasons students might have for pursuing a college degree, he writes:

“Many girls frankly want only a college-educated husband be cause of his greater earning power, and then plan to remain students just long enough to get one, then quit to go to work or have babies.”

(i wish i could also say that his use of the word “freshman” makes the text sound a little dated. but i can't.)

composition worth teaching

as i prepare myself for yet another round of intensive dental work (for which my new insurance plan covers a good portion but in the end not nearly enough), i find myself again wondering if, following geoff’s suggestion, the invention and perfection of new processes, the discovery of new materials, and the desire for radically new products are (really) the only things that “perhaps” make composition worth teaching. as a grad student i was certainly grateful for (and learned a lot about the potentials of composing from) students whose work would “send” me, and/or that would provide me with something i was “not used to.” sure, the stinky chicken in a box debacle pushed me a bit over the edge for a couple months back in 2003 but when that same composer managed to orchestrate and then deliver, along with the assistance of 7 or 8 other improv dancers (none of whom were enrolled in the course) a live, in-class, dance-based re-performance of an earlier class session, even that semester ended up ending on a pretty positive note. then again, even as a grad student, i was dealing with pretty significant dental issues and i felt strongly that i’d be better in class, digging this work and these potentials for composing still more, etc. if dental insurance happened to be thrown in to the mix. oh yeah. and better health insurance. oh yeah. and tenure. all these things would definitely, to my mind, “make composition [even more] worth teaching, perhaps.”

flash forward: the insurance is there. not great, but there. but here’s my question/concern. is it at all the case, again following geoff’s wonderings, that what students want, hope for, etc., from a comp class [or any other class] is the potential or opportunity to “make the world see the world their way”? if so—who and/or who many do? as it is constructed here, the choices are set up in terms of working toward that potential or else to continue insisting that “they [students] be made to show the world the way we [instructors, professors, people with bad teeth or good teeth, tenured or not], think it’s supposed to be seen.” don’t get me wrong—i’m still a fan of pedagogy as dare, still committed in my own no-more-composing-with-chicken way to a show-me-what’s-possible approach to learning and making, but i’m hard pressed to account for how, when, why or even if this works (well or even at all) when it comes up against an in-a-rush-so-just-tell-me-how-to-get-an-a approach to communicative practice. i mean, is it then just another instance of teaching, composing, learning, whatever, at cross-purposes in the academy?

process this

my all time favorite donald murray quote (illustrated by yet another reason why i really hate the digital camera i bought last year with my research funds):

"The writing teacher, because he is an English teacher, is usually considered to have a subject matter as do teachers of history and physics and mathematics and literature. He does not. He must learn from those who teach music and art and shop, for he does not have a vast amount of knowledge or information to communicate to the students. He does not have many concepts to develop. He has a few basic skills which he must communicate to the students repetitively, over and over and over and over again. The great danger is that the repetition of the same rule—be specific, be specific, be specific, be specific—may become boring both for the student and for the teacher. The writing teacher must develop many ways of saying the same thing."

reading kaprow’s too-big book

i am currently in process of trying to engage with a difficult text—one that is making me rethink my claim of preferring not (when alternatives exist to do otherwise) to engage with texts online. so. after settling back on my couch and reading a few of the essays in essays on the blurring of art and life, i thought i’d run up to campus and get a copy of kaprow’s assemblage, environments and happenings. that the text was housed in the folio section was, i suppose, my first clue that assemblage might afford as comfortable or familiar of a read as blurring or any of the other texts i had decided to work with over the weekend.

“imagine,” wysocki writes referring to her own text, “that this book now before you were bound in leather or in large fish-like scales. imagine that you were reading this online. . .imagine that this book were 2’ on each side and printed with letters 1” high, facing you on a lectern in a dark wood-paneled room. imagine that this chapter were appearing paragraph by paragraph in an instant messager window. each of those changes in the material instantiation of my words would change your attitude toward this text, certainly, but would also (i think) do more than that.”

word. cause the (physical) problem i’m having with assemblage is that it’s big (approximately 11’’ high and 22-23’’ across when opened) and it’s heavy (approximately 6 pounds). too big and too heavy for me to interact with it in the way i typically engage with smaller, lighter texts. (i.e., sitting on my couch, holding the book up in front of me as i read. or, if my feet happen to be up on the coffee table, resting the text against my thighs as i read. or if i happen to be feeling especially lazy, holding the book up in front of me as i recline on the couch.) not for nothing: if assemblage were bigger and/or heavier, i might be able to stand it up on the floor, design a contraption for turning pages at a distance and still be able to read it comfortably while sitting on the couch. as it is, the text on the page is not big enough to read from across the room. bracketing off for the moment that library books that appear to have been around kinda skeeze me out (read: i don’t often like touching them, bringing them into my house, preferring instead to xerox the chapters, parts and passages i find most useful and bringing them into my house), the book is just way too heavy to experience in the ways i am used to interacting with printed-on-paper-and-bound texts. as an alternative: i considered placing the text on the coffee table, sitting in front of the table and reading the text from that position. this might have been the wisest choice. unfortunately the thought of doing so made me weary as i would have to make enough room on the coffee table for the text to open and this was something i wasn’t especially willing to do. as an alternative: i considered placing the book on the floor and reading it there but carpeting in not-so-new rental units tends to skeeze me out as much as (if not more than) library books do. additionally, i figured that reading the book in this way would end up doing more harm then good given the way the arms, neck, back needs be positioned to afford this kind of a read. as an alternative: i considered (although not really, not seriously or not for long) xeroxing the parts i was most interested in reading. unfortunately, the size of the pages and the weight of the book makes xeroxing (given that there were 50-some pages in particular i wanted to xerox and read) a difficult task. yet another not-for-long considered alternative: taking photos of all the pages i would have xeroxed had size and weight not been an issue.

this all said, i’m determined to get through the book. it’s just going to be really slow going. a page or ten of this text at a time, switching things up and dealing with something smaller, lighter and preferably my own then back again to a page or ten more of assemblage.

students who teach us: (bad) music day 2003

on wanting the "paragraph moment"

in what was likely the most convoluted, ill-formed prompt i’ve presented to students to date (and there have been many of these) i asked participants in my 486 class, the majority of whom are currently teaching or who plan someday to teach, what they hoped, expected, wanted students to get out of the time they (meaning the students) would spend working in their (meaning the 486 participants) classrooms. i asked the members of the course to consider the kind/range of attitudes, experiences, skill sets, etc. students might enter their classrooms with and where course participants (meaning the 486ers) might like to see their students end up at at the end of the year or semester. . .see what i mean about an in-class writing prompt gone horribly wrong? . . .as i recall, what actually came out of my mouth was much more unclear. even while recognizing this, i just kept talking and talking and making things worse.

in retrospect, i’m thinking it might have been more helpful to have instead placed the following quote from berlin’s “rhetoric and ideology” on the board:

“. . .a way of teaching is never innocent. Every pedagogy is imbricated in ideology, in a set of tacit assumptions about what is real, what is good, what is possible, and how power ought to be distributed” (492).

following this, i might have asked people to begin articulating what they take to be real, good and possible in the writing classroom (and why) and to speak to the issue of how they see power playing out or being distributed in that context.

no one asked me what i thought/wanted/hoped/expected from students. . .not that anyone should have, not that i was expecting anyone to. a few of the course participants have taken other classes with me so they probably have a sense of what I generally want/hope/expect to happen over the course of a semester. those who haven’t had courses with me have my course docs, and these certainly suggest something about my wants/hopes/expectations.

yet had someone asked me to respond to the prompt as well, this is likely what i would have offered:

for me, hands down, having an ideal semester would mean that everyone enrolled in the course would experience, at one time or another, and for however briefly, the “paragraph moment” i experienced at the start of the fall 1997 semester as a student in paul’s pro-sem. i begin (and could likely just as well end) with this because it’s been my experience that everything and/or anything else i could think of listing here stems from, or is otherwise connected to, that moment. for instance, i’d like students to consider if there’s really anything to it when i insist (as i often do) that inquiry ends with judgment and that putting off judgment and entertaining instead other options, readings, uses or potentials for a person, place, attitude or thing can lead us to some pretty interesting places. i’d like to see students become more cognizant of, and more able to speak to the impact of the choices they make (as well as those made for them) while engaging in a wide variety of communicative practices. i’d like students to leave my course with more questions than they had when they entered the course. i’d like students to leave the course with a perhaps different (i.e., a more complex, enriched or expansive) understanding of what revision and collaboration can and often do involve. to consider that revision need not always or only signal the act of perfecting a text but re-seeing and with this re-assessing a text’s potential to do different kinds of work with different people, materials, conventions, and spaces. to consider that collaboration is not always or only something we do when we are placed into groups with other people. that even when it appears we are mostly working alone, it is always still a joint effort, that we are collaborating with tools, conventions, genres, spaces, histories, memories of other people and experiences, and so on.


i want to students to be less concerned with coming up with the perfect title, transition, intro, or paragraph and to consider instead what titles, transitions, intros, or paragraphs/chunks might be comprised of and to consider how they might potentially (and/or currently do) function more generally, say for instance, across different media. in the case of transitions, how, for instance, does one indicate, read and respond to cues having to do with the process of moving on (moving back, forward, changing the subject, whatever) in paintings, in books, in lifetime movies, in songs, in diaries, in resumes, in credit card applications, in essays published in a specific journal, in a subdivision, or on a city street?