R6: The Power of Language to Inform

Victor Villanueva’s “For the Love of Language” speaks to my heart as a teacher of the English language. I too have struggled to find ways to teach why I love writing to my students. I want them to experience the same self-epiphanies that would come to me while writing and rewriting, the same sense of accomplishment of learning about a minute aspect of a field in great detail, and a clearer sense of what I believe about my realities as a result of close critical writing and research. Villanueva’s six principles within his classroom are mine too, most especially the first one that language, and not just writing, is ontological and epistemological. He describes writing as “a precise way (though no science) of ordering thought, of bringing to light muddied emotions and fragments of ideas, maybe even the means to producing ideas” (260).

For me, these abilities are the power of the “word,” and rhetoric is simply the means by which we start a dialogue with others about our “ordered thoughts,” “muddied emotions,” and “fragmented ideas” so that we may share and improve our own perspectives. Other people’s responses to what we write function as mirrors to ourselves, propelling us ever forward towards better self-understanding. So using peer-editing and peer discussion to develop the dialectical conversations within the classroom would further ideas and perspectives, new approaches. All of research, company or university driven, is focused on better self-understanding and improvement of processes, communities, bodies, societies, cultures, relationships, and ourselves.

Using readings (which are finalized writing processes) opens up the dialectical processes as students discuss the authors’ intentions, purposes, and approaches to share key ideas. The readings would function as places to begin thinking and act as “finalized” models for how others have shared their thinking. I would need to stress that the class readings did not come from the pen in their perfectly channeled finished forms. By analyzing the rhetoric within the reading, we can analyze the approach taken to share a particular idea and how a good, effective finished product looks.

Though analyzing finished writing pieces is helpful in showing the end result, the writing process itself is messy, chaotic, and constantly narrowing down the idea to its cleanest, clearest form, which is why I agree that teacher feedback should focus on what and how an idea is being shared, not necessarily “justifying a grade” (263), of which I am guilty. I have “conversations” in my comments, but those comments are usually three words: “develop” and “cut wordiness.” I do ask questions and offer my own thoughts, but when scoring the same research paper assignment for 65 hours, I feel like resorting to rubber “comment” stamps. The written marginal feedback is too overwhelming, and since I offer rewrites to improve grades, I always grade the assignments with feedback that explains why the paper did not get the “A” or “B” or lower.   I focus on what needs to be improved, not necessarily what they have done well, though I do try to give one meaningful positive comment before sharing the negative. Even then, students do not necessarily read the comments.  For years I have been wanting a better way to grade writing.

Having time to focus on writing and writing only in a class allows me to offer feedback on drafts with the other students without having to put a number on it, which then reinforces the idea that these writing drafts are works in progress and that rewrites are not only normal but required for good writing, that students are not writing for the “grade” but for the means to communicate a bit of themselves, and in so doing, see themselves better. I will not be responsible for revising my students’ drafts; they will be after we have opportunities to discuss what and how they have written and shared an idea.

Both Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs agree with writing as a means to learn. Their thematic focuses on exploring writing as writing will always produce good discussions because the analysis of how and what we say is always interesting. Possibly their class readings o writing could address the “Habits of Mind” as seen in the Framework for Success in College Writing published by the Council of Writing Program Administrators (CWPA), the National Writing Project (NWP), and the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), but such habits of mind as curiosity, openness, engagement, creativity, persistence, responsibility, flexibility, and meta-cognition, are mostly experienced not while reading but while composing.  If I can help students maintain these mindful habits, their writing experiences will bring them the experiences I have had that helped me to realize that more exists to me than I had imagined.

Coxwell-Teague, Deborah and Ronald F. Lunsford, eds. First-Year Composition: From Theory to Practice. Parlor Press, 2014. Print.

 

 

R5: Meta-Cognitive assignments, composing and building awareness of audiences

While reading Alexander Reid’s commentary on writing, I nodded, “yes, yes. Writing is ontological.” To become a better writer one must write often in lots of contexts with an audience in which one has an affinity so as to be better motivated to write, for better writers are motivated writers. So true. Then I read Jody Shipka’s writing commentary and continued nodding “yes” as I read about her analogy that writing is like composing. Like the musician, one hears the inner music and then begins to form that music into themes, beginning with a hook, melodies, harmonies, building repetitions, intercutting and reconfiguring, reaching the climax, and ending with a resonance that lingers.

These skills of composing music from the inner ear to the final medium is the same as writing: an exploration of themes countered against and intertwined with melodies and disharmonies building together to an effective end that seems to resonate past the last word. Writing is composing, and requires an awareness of the whole self to see that writing is not a bunch of rules memorized and forms mastered that come together on paper but a process of exploring and shaping “melodies and harmonies” with “disharmonies” that stay within tightly controlled keys and themes for an audience of one or one million.

This composing analogy reinforces Reid’s beliefs that the writing never ends, just like the music. The writing continues, as he says for his professional writers, and that is true for the professionals. But most students in my E110 class or other writing class at the high school level will not plan on being professional writers. They must know how to read critically and express themselves coherently with academic tools, but they do not need to write into infinity. Writing more without meta-cognitive thought about the writing does not necessarily improve the writing; more writing just shows that they have more to say, not necessarily how better to say it.

So reading Jody Shipka’s examples of projects and assignments was refreshing as they focused on the meta-cognitive levels of thinking with simple assignments that had broad ramifications. She asked students to record every genre of writing they have ever done with great specificity so that students could become aware of how much writing they do. They are already writers. Then she asks them to record “This is How I learned to Read and Write,” again to develop awareness that they are writers continuing to improve skills. My favorite is to find six completely different mediums that focus on the same message or stereotype and analyze how these different literary mediums affect their audiences through their approaches. The project could easily be turned into a fun classroom activity as a group (I can increase the numbers of examples) that can lead into an excellent discussion about genres, audiences, approaches, and more. I loved that assignment. My only disagreement or difference in perspective with Jody Shipka is that this meta-cognitive understanding of writing begins not with the composing process, as Shipka states, but. I believe, with the study of language itself. Studying composition theories is wonderful, but only after the students have a good understanding of the nature of language. I believe students need a meta-cognitive awareness of words and their structures and how these structures limit their thinking if unaware of such structures.

By time I began reading Howard Tinberg, I was copying down example lesson plans for they work beautifully with developing a meta-cognitive sense of writing as an ontological tool: An essay of belief focuses on the power of writing to clarify consciously for oneself what one actually does believe. A profile of another after interviewing that person focuses on the key aspects or the interpretive thesis or “nut graf” of the person, which shows how writing helps to clarify new knowledge and its significance (particularly helpful when business managers must write up reviews). The trend paper, however, is awesome, for that paper requires personal insight, research for support, and ontological purpose for self and our society.

Because I mined Shipka’s and Tinberg’s commentaries for really good assignments that focus on the meta-cognitive nature of writing, I went back to Reid’s and looked up his assigned readings and began to read. Nichols Carr’s essay “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” is excellent for exploring writing, thinking, reading, and the larger matrix overall. These three writing professors have been extremely helpful in focusing a meta-cognitive, ontological approach towards writing with some excellent assignments I will be borrowing.

Coxwell-Teague, Deborah and Ronald F. Lunsford, eds. First-Year Composition: From Theory to Practice. Parlor Press, 2014. Print.