Issues of Power and Powerlessness

Issues of Power and Powerlessness

Shor, Mitchell

As I sit to work on this theme, I realize that I don’t really know what it means, or at least what it will achieve that my work with feminism and multiculturalism didn’t already accomplish. As such, I’m only going to look at Shor and Mitchell, but in a question on this topic would probably also bring in some of the people I’ve already talked about.

Ira Shor

In When Students Have Power, Shor experiments with making his classroom more democratic in an attempt to defeat the dreaded Siberian Syndrome. He allowed students to negotiate some of the course policies and how classes were conducted, and even created an after class group (ACG) of students who would tell him how he did and what he could do to serve them better. The result of the experiment seems overwhelmingly positive. Shor explained that more people than ever were invested in the course and its content simply because they had some say in how it was run. He even reached some of the students who began in Siberia; they didn’t move, but they were more engaged in the class than they probably would have been otherwise. The implications of Shor’s research are that when students have some of the power, they are more invested in the course and engaged in the content. They’ve been conditioned to sit in a subordinate position within the classroom their whole lives, but Shor gave them an opportunity to level the playing field and take control of some aspects of the classroom.

Candace Mitchell

In Writing and Power, Candace Mitchell argues that academic power lies in the ability to write in academic discourses. Students who are not given access to the genres and skills required to craft an acceptable academic essay are denied the opportunity to grow through writing, and their chances of succeeding in college and beyond are lowered. Implicit in this systemic hierarchicalization is the notion that if one does not become a good writer, it is the individual (not the institutions) who is at fault; a further implication is that failure stems from the misapplication of skills or failure to work hard enough. Such mindsets are dangerous for students (usually underprivileged or foreign) who think this way. It can cause them to drop out, thus continuing the cycle of keeping power with the few elite (usually white) who have mastered the dominant discourse. Thus, Mitchell argues that comp teachers need to reflect critically on our practices and assumptions (a la Hillocks) to ensure that we do not perpetuate a cycle of marginalization.

How I would answer a question on this theme

As I said earlier, I would incorporate Shor’s and Mitchell’s explicit notions related to power into a larger cultural discussion that could include such authors as Pratt, Hawisher and Sullivan, and Elbow. Including these three sources could lead to an interesting discussion about where power is located in the university and how the comp classroom can serve to deconstruct, decenter, redefine, or displace it.

Influence on my Composition Pedagogy

How these readings have influenced my approach to composition pedagogy

McComiskey, Bruffee, Berlin, Shor, general self-awareness (via Hillocks)

I will undoubtedly be asked a question about how all this reading has influenced how I approach pedagogy. I will bring up McComiskey, Bruffee, Berlin, and Shor, as well as discussing the general self-awareness I have gained (via Hillocks perhaps).

McComiskey, Bruffee, Berlin: writing as social epistemic and social process

While doing these readings I was struck by something so obvious that I have always been aware of but have not really put much consideration into: writing is social. I have been doing assignments with my students for a few years where such an assumption was the basis of the project, but had never thought through just how important those assignment are or could be to helping students realize that writing is not just about coming up with what to say, but also saying to others and spreading knowledge.

McComiskey argues that we should teach writing as a social process of cultural production (the creation of social values), contextual distribution (the contexts of cultural values), and critical consumption (the social uses to which readers put their interpretations of produced and distributed cultural values). The example he gives of how this process plays out in the composition classroom involves college viewbooks (brochure-like booklets that promote universities and colleges). Each viewbook propagates its own cultural production of specific values: diversity, educational standards, campus appearance, etc. Then, contextual distribution refers to where the cultural values are presented to audiences: this can be socio-economic class, education level, gender, etc. Finally, critical consumption refers to how the audience interprets the values manifest in the viewbook, such as that the college as a beautiful campus with diverse students and faculty bodies as well as top-notch educational programs. McComiskey has students analyze these viewbooks, looking for both what they show and what they leave out: what cultural values are encoded in these viewbooks and how are they manifested? But what I find most interesting about McComiskey’s argument is that he does not end any of his projects with analysis. Such critique leaves students with the helpless feeling that their world is less than perfect and that there is no way to change it. So he adds an additional step. For the viewbook assignment, he has students make their own viewbooks and comment on how and why they represent what they do the way they do. In another assignment, students analyze a problem on campus then write a letter to campus personnel suggesting how that problem can be solved. I have my students analyze various cultural artifacts, but I have never had them produce their own artifacts or written letters suggesting solutions. It is a useful exercise because it shows students the importance of their writing and how it can impact the world in which they live; it shows them that they can make a difference while teaching them how to address a broader range of audiences. Importantly, it also gives them a sense of closure by allowing them to voice their opinions in the public sphere.

My approach has also been influenced by Bruffee and Berlin, both of whom argue a social constructionist/epistemic approach. Bruffee argues for a social construction pedagogy that recognizes that thought is internalized conversation and, since writing is externalized thought, writing is re-externalized conversation; thus, students must work collaboratively in order to both refine thought and practice conversation, therefore leading to better writing. Most importantly, collaborative learning also challenges authority by revealing that is a social artifact; in other words, it shows students that knowledge is negotiable: it can be challenged and changed through conversation with others. This plays right into Berlin’s social epistemic approach. He argues that knowledge and truth are constructed socially via dialectic, and that such conversations determine reality and knowledge.

The notions of McComiskey, Bruffee, and Berlin have inspired a new project my students will work on next semester in ENGL 104. In the last five or so weeks of the semester, students will work collaboratively together to use expertise from their major field to solve a problem on campus. In groups of 3-4, they will identify and analyze a problem or shortcoming they find here on campus, perform research on it, and suggest how to solve it. The example I’ll give them is that an engineering major, business major, physics major, and environmental sciences major could work together to argue that the Huskie buses should be replaced by more efficient biodiesel or hybrid buses, drawing on each other’s expertise to show the cost benefit, environmental benefit, and other benefits their field’s knowledge can bring them. In the process of this project, they will present their research at the Showcase of Student Writing. The final product will be a research proposal in which they will target someone on campus to whom they can appeal with their solution to the problem or shortcoming. Thus, they will gain a greater understanding of how their writing is part of a social process and that their knowledge is socially constructed.

Ira Shor

Another resource that has influenced my pedagogy is Ira Shor’s notion of making the classroom more democratic. He worked with the students in his class to negotiate course policies in an effort to get them more invested in the class and to alleviate the Siberian Syndrome (the name he gives to some students’ penchant for sitting in the far reaches of class in an effort to, in some small way, challenge the authority of the teacher). Shor also implemented an After Class Group (ACG) to meet after each class session to discuss how it went and how he can do better. I’m really interested in this idea of giving students more power in the classroom in order to help them become more civically and democratically engaged citizens beyond the classroom, but I’m not yet ready to give up as much power as Shor did. After reading this book (near the end of the semester), I altered my approach to preparing students to write their semester reflections. I engaged them in a discussion (with some light reading) on what reflection is, how it benefits them, and what kind of rhetorical moves a good one should make. Then, as a class, they came up with a list of 10 questions an effective reflection should be able to answer. Then, they negotiated the criteria on which I would grade them. The result was some of the most interesting reflections I have ever read; the students were clearly invested in the assignment because the guidelines were more transparent, and they had a hand in determining every aspect of it. As Shor cautioned, not every student was on board and invested, but more students put more effort into a usually hastily completed assignment than I had previously experienced; I’m excited to see next semester if this was just a one-time fluke or if it is a consistent pedagogical success.

General Self-Awareness (via Hillocks)

The most important influence on my pedagogy is a general increase in my self-awareness as a teacher. It was genuinely fun to read these works and discover how the assignments I’ve been doing (many of which have been inherited from ENGL 600) fit into the map of pedagogical approaches out there. For instance, ENGL 103’s arch from personal to public draws on elements of Expressionism’s writing to express oneself and Social Constructivism’s/Epistemic’s notion that knowledge is produced socially and that writing needs to be adapted to various audiences. Assignments like the visual analysis draw on a Cultural Criticism approach, while the blog project draws on aspects of digital composition and new media. I obviously knew that these assignments were valuable to students, but now I know why they are useful and have resources on which I can draw in order to perform the kind of critical reflection Hillocks calls for teachers to do. Hillocks says that we must reflect on our teaching constantly (both in the classroom while teaching and out of it) in order to assess how we are helping our students and how we can do it better. I’ve already started making changes to my course curriculums based on the readings from my list and will undoubtedly make more as I reflect on my teaching and adapt it to help my students as much as possible.

Basic Writing Theories

Basic Writing Theories

Bartholomae, Sommers, Perl, Soliday, Shor, Smitherman

Sondra Perl and Nancy Sommers

Perl’s study looks at unskilled college writers to see what their revision process looks like. She used compose-aloud protocols in order to determine how unskilled writers write and if their writing process can be analyzed systematically. She found that many of her test subject could speak full, proper sentences but wrote partial, misspelled ones; part of the reasoning for this is when the subjects read the sentences back, they automatically corrected them. Perl found that the student’s writing processes were consistent (pre-, writing, and editing) and occurred in recognizable, sequential patterns. This suggests that the process was internalized. Some of the key implications Perl found were that teachers’ focus on fixing surface errors takes away the excitement of writing; as such, teachers instead need to find which aspects of each student’s process facilitate or inhibit writing and work to enhance or rehabilitate them.

Sommers’ study follows a year after Perl’s, and also looks at revision strategies. The student writers focused on rewording, which suggests that they believe the meaning is inherent in their writing and all they need to find is the “right” word. Also, students only recognize lexical repetition, not conceptual. They also believe that if their writing comes easily (if they are “inspired”), then they don’t need to revise; if they know what they want to say, there’s no need to change anything. Lastly, students lack strategies for global revision: they can handle local, but are often stumped on the larger picture. However, experienced adult writers see revising as finding the form/shape of their argument. For them, writing is a constant process of writing and rewriting. They can also view their work from the perspective of a reader and make changes accordingly. Finally, the adults tried to create/discover meaning through revision.

These two studies have implications for basic writing because they show how unskilled and inexperienced writers see both writing and revising. Both studies imply that we need to focus less on minute details of grammar and mechanics and instead treat larger global and conceptual issues first. Once the students have their thoughts organized, we can focus on the small stuff.

Geneva Smitherman

Smitherman explains the 1974 Students’ Right to their Own Language document. Its goal is to heighten awareness of language attitudes, promote the value of linguistic diversity, and to convey information about language variation that would help teach nontraditional students more effectively. This document has implications for basic writing because it makes it clear that students’ home dialects are allowed to be used in the FYC classroom; in other words, we as teachers need to be more open to language variation in our students’ writing. We need to respect (and even celebrate) their language differences.

 

Ira Shor

Shor’s book (When Students Have Power) is a personal story about when happened when students shared authority in his classroom. He emphasizes the individuality of each student and that we need to recognize that their backgrounds may not match ours. One of the most interesting points of Shor’s book deals with the “Siberian Syndrome,” which is the tendency for certain students to consistently sit as far away from the teacher as they can and disengage from the class as much as possible; this represents their subordinated and alienated position, as well as one of the few instances they have of exhibiting agency. They are defensive about the unequal power relations in the classroom (the teacher and the curriculum in which they have little say). As such, Shor wanted to distribute authority in the classroom. Beginning on the first day, he allowed them to negotiate the syllabus and course requirements (he later admits that he should have allowed them to negotiate the texts they read as well), then he expected them to talk a lot and produce a variety of texts in order to educate the teacher about their interests, levels of development, idiomatic diversity, cultural backgrounds, and thematic preferences. Short also created the After Class Group (ACG), a smaller group of students from the course who met after each class to discuss how it went and how Shor could better serve the students. In doing so, Shor created a democracy in his classroom because he consulted the students about policy and process, thus allowing them to develop as independent citizens. This means that Shor listened as much as (if not more than) he talked, and did not ignore, silence, or punish unhappy students.

Shor’s notions have implications for basic writing because often basic writers are misunderstood and underprivileged; they are used to being told they are not good enough and probably enacting the Siberian Syndrome. A democratic, power-sharing approach like Shor’s is a way to get them engaged in their education because they have a hand in creating the curriculum and standards to which the teacher will hold them. Such engagement would address a lot of inequality issues through the reinvention of power.

 

Mina Shaughnessy

In Errors and Expectations, she emphasized that students must be acculturated to academic writing. She urged teachers not to see basic writers as somehow deficient, but as beginners who are just beginning to understand how to engage in academic discourse.

 

Mary Soliday

Soliday points out that college students’ literacy was not a point of conflict until the mid-70s when Newsweek started the fake literacy crisis; remediation at the college level was not widely recognized until the mid-80s. The shift in attitude about remedial English are in part a result of the increasing middle-class need for the institutions to be exclusive: a college education is the defining feature of its social class identity.

One of the Soliday’s key points involves her questioning the ways in which students’ need for remedial writing instruction has become widely associated with the need to acculturate minorities to the university. She works to disentangle politics from remediation, thus challenging the assumption that a politics of language use is equivalent to the politics of access to institutions. She also challenges identity politics: she points out that those who think basic writers are simply refusing to assimilate are mistaken; often the writers want to assimilate, but we don’t know or understand how to help them to do so. Soliday urges basic writing teachers to explore pedagogies of translation, wherein students engage in rhetorically aware code switching. This allows student writers to act and think as intellectuals who discuss issues significant to each other and to their families as well as to the teacher. This could lead to students and teachers using negotiation to create new knowledges and identities, possibly even to fuse different cultures. In fact, Soliday argues, when students can present their private literacies to a readership in a broader public framework, they are more likely become politically active, which will also lead them to be more open to critical thinking and a critical consciousness about different discourses. Soliday’s core argument is that the politics of language should remain central to classroom work.

David Bartholomae

Like Shaughnessy, Bartholomae believes listening to basic writers requires close reading. One of the key ways to help students develop their writing skills is for us to understand why they make the mistakes they do. He asserts that basic writers’ mistakes are intentional and catalyzed by a deficient understanding of (and inability to identify) how academic language sounds. Therefore, in a move that hearkens back to classical and nineteenth century rhetorical theory, Bartholomae claims that one way to help basic writers develop is for them to imitate the styles and voices of other writers.

Basic writers are often seen as pre-academic or pre-textual (like Ong’s orality), but they are really distinguished because they work outside the conceptual structures in which literate students work. He points out that since basic writers write sentences (however unconventional or incorrect), they are capable of thought; we do not need to “give” them sentences or thought, but only to help them understand how to translate or transform them so that they are more in sync with conventional expectations. Bartholomae’s call to action is that either the university needs to make its expectations clear for a univocal, common tongue, or it needs to accept that it is omnivocal and allow everyone to speak and write as they choose to. Most importantly, he asserts that writing needs to be taught as writing, not as sentence or paragraph practice. This methods allows them to realize that writing involves making choices, and they have control over which choices are made; thus, they begin to see the possibility for other decisions and options.

Interestingly, in contrast to Shor (who argues against all tests), Bartholomae suggests that an end of term 2-hour essay exam may be necessary for basic writers since a passing grade implies that they are ready for university-level writing. In order to pass, the writing must be reasonably error-free, coherent, and well-developed.

How I would answer a question on this theme

Only Soliday and Bartholomae actually talk about basic writing (the small bit of info on Shaughnessy came from either Soliday’s or Bartholomae’s book), so I would focus the most on them, despite the fact that their discussions of basic writing are so differently focused. Soliday looks at identity politics involved in basic writing, concluding that those who assume basic writers are refusing to assimilate are mistaken. She points out that often the want to, but do not know how to. Bartholomae studies the mistakes basic writers make, which could connect him to Sommers and Perl. All three have found that there is a systematicity to the writing of unskilled writers; they are not somehow deficient or pretextual, but are in the early stages of developing into more experienced writers: they need more practice and critical tools. Both Bartholomae and Soliday argue for basic writing to be taught as translation (code switching). This allows them to maintain their own voices, as per Smitherman’s explanation of the 1974 “Students’ Right to Their Own Language” document that is supposed make it safe for students to speak and/or writing in their own dialects while still being respected. One interesting comparison to bring up as well is between Bartholomae and Shor: Bartholomae gives his basic writers 2-hour exams at the end of the semester to determine if they will pass, but Shor argues that such tests are useless and punitive because they do not allow room for reflection.