You Can Get With This, or You Can Get With That...

I have been doing a lot of thinking on how to classify myself as a teacher into one of the four groups that Fulkerson set out in his article.  I feel that I am not one single mindset of writing instruction but rather a conglomerate of multiple.  I think the one I most align with is the social epistemic, because I find the process of peer response valuable.  I think it a good exercise for the students to go through-not only the act of writing the response but also seeing how the other students are writing.  I think students can learn more about form and style when they see how others are organizing and phrasing things in their papers, which will allow them as readers to decide what is working, what is not, and make adaptations to their own writing.  I also like some of the cognitive school of thought.  I don't know if i would go as far as to tape all the students and have them talk about their writing process, but after a paper is done I like to do a reflection which centers on process of writing the paper where they excelled/had trouble and also how they went about accomplishing what they did.  This can be useful to reorganize the material and have reflections done to share and discuss as a wrap up to tie everything together that they did in writing the paper.  I also feel that the other two models (formalist and expressive) are important as well but I would probably emphasize them less.  Attention to form is good, but I agree more with universal error approach rather than a count every error approach.  There has to be time dedicated to the formalistic apsect of the paper as well though.  The expressive is also important to build a convincing ethos and style.

In all I think that I use a bit from each, but conform to none of them completely, so I am going to call myself a mix of all.

...'cuz this is where it's at.

Clarity, Brevity, & Sincerity

Focusing on Macrorie's excerpt from "Telling Writing" and combining his ideas of composition with the ideas behind "clarity, brevity, and sincerity" can put Macrorie's perspectives in a new pragmatic light.  As a teacher if I were to implement free writing with focus as a form to promote expressive writing, I would emphasize the students to try to keep their writing clear, brief, and sincere.  I think this starts to happen when a good writing prompt that uses certain words/phrases within it to ensure expressive writing, but I feel if even if the prompt is perfect "clarity, brevity. and sincerity" as a requirement of their writing will help to avoid Engfish entirely.  I think that this works in parallel with the  two part grading system that focuses on grammar and content.  As part of the grammar component the term 'style' is often used as an umbrella term could be broken down to these three elements.  I am not trying to take the ethos training out of composition but rather have a 'style' and 'voice' component as part of the grammar rubric.  If the students are told that their writing should always consider the most succinct and clear way to phrase things it will in turn make it more sincere by removing the fluff that ultimately makes their ethos less credible to the audience.
These ideas are still being formed fully in my mind, but this parallel kept jumping out at me during Thursday's joint lecture.  I felt, even half cooked, that they could elicit some form of response on the blog, and that's what it's here for.

The Rutgers Video

The Rutgers video was an interesting watch.  I felt that it did a good job of showing us as teachers the types of challenges with teaching such a wide range of tuned in and tuned out students.  I remember that the video was brought up briefly in class, and a comment was made about having to stop watching it when they saw how the students were going out, procrastinating, and half completing assignments.  To me though that was the exact reason that I thought that the video really hit me with a reminder of the obstacles which composition teachers have to overcome.
I can say for myself that I was not always a star student and pushing myself to learn.  I felt the video at least gave a good insight into the freshman college students lives.  I have always been a firm believer of the idea the better you can understand the student, the better the student can understand you.  I am not speaking in terms of an individual student basis, but more of the entire body of the first-time-college-student-coming-from-high-school as a whole.  It has been a while ago for me, so I thought that the video was a good tool to watch as teachers in terms of relating to students, ideas for structuring lectures, and class schedule/assignment due dates (such as require them to turn in a rough draft a week or two before the paper is due could help procrastination).  What I'm trying to say is that I felt there was something to get from the video and was sad to hear that it was dismissed by part of the class.

Laudo Dissentiri ("I Praise the Dissenters")

The idea of a Composition course is a modern American course that is not taught in British or European Universities, as Horner points out in his article.  The idea for a class that is needed to ensure that all incoming students were on the same page when it comes to their ability to compose legible and organized prose, sprang forth from the Scottish and Dissenting universities of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.  As Horner shows, because of the lack of religious influence on these establishments they were able to accept a broader range of students and were also able to teach these students core material, rather than the pampering practices of Oxford or Cambridge Universities that were known for doling out degrees for the British aristocracy regardless of classes completed or attended.  It is because the lack of the required oath at these universities that allowed them to accept a wide range of people from the aristocracy, middle-class, urban, or rustic communities for those who had the ability and desire to seek out further education.  This took some of the British "class-ism" out of the requirement for degrees, and was one of the first steps to equal education (unfortunately women had to wait a bit longer).  Since the 'doors to better opportunity' had been forced open at certain establishments there had to be some way to standardize and equalize the students ability to write as a tool to ensure everyone was on the same page when entering other classes.  So, the Scottish were renowned for including elements of grammar, literature, writing, belles lettres, etc. into their courses no matter the subject matter.  They knew the importance of the students' ability to clearly relate what they have learned whether it be written or oratory.  This is where the Americans break off.  The American Universities use a composition course in English as a siphon.  We siphon every student through the same composition course to ensure they everyone has the same ability to correctly iterate ideas clearly.  The ideas are the same, but instead of every course including some composition, we have an entire course dedicated to it then assume it is rote.  The reason I think that this system is still popularized in America is due to our system of education.  It traditionally is not considered as "pristine" as a European education, but we open up college to a wider range of people.  In doing so the composition course has become vital to ensure hat all students are actually at the level of composition required when they arrive at college (as we know most aren't).  I would rather have an education available to more and require an extra course than to have education for few.