i … uh … ut … buh … enh
From the “If I’m Lyin’, I’m Dyin’” file:
Teh wordz. Dey fail mees.
ohhh-oh, those summer nights
News of my summer blogging gig has hit the Blogora.
The drive into Ithaca took about 9 hours, all told. Yes, I got lost a couple of time, but here I am at Cornell, safe and sound. I passed two Mennonite boys (or Amish or whatever they are round these parts) and one buggy on the drive in. Otherwise, the drive was fairly uneventful. Except for the whole getting randomly pulled aside and searched at the border crossing back in to these United States, that is. Ah well. Doing my part for democracy.
The plan is to post scholarly responses on the Blogora. I’ll link to those posts from here, but most of the SCT blogs here at FoolScap will be about life in Ithaca. Like, for instance: why oh why did I not essentially look for a room inside White Hall? Oh well.
Nearly collided with Amanda Anderson at the welcoming picnic. Hrm. Off to a typical start.
i’m a termite
doctor doctor give me the news
On the WPA list (to which I’ve subscribed to get a feel for some of the convos taking place outside of journals and what not), Dennis Baron points our attention to this article from the Chronicle. I’m still a novice in this discussion but the author’s comments feel tired and part of a much longer discussion that’s she’s on the periphery of. Three passages worth singling out:
Graduate professors think that their students got it in their undergraduate years; composition instructors believe that they don’t need to teach grammar because their students learned it in high school. How many students, do you think, are learning that an understanding of grammar, syntax, and usage is integral to clear expression of thoughts? That knowing how to write well is the most important skill you can develop, regardless of your career path?
Most students don’t think about argumentation after they get their required freshman comp course out of the way. They take this important course when they are overwhelmed by the newness of college and are least ready to learn about the complexities of rhetorical strategies. Composition 101 is probably the hardest class to teach; unfortunately, it is usually led by brand-new graduate teaching assistants. It’s no wonder most people don’t know how to make an argument.
Many students also never absorb the importance of writing outlines. I was reminded of that while looking over the grant application of a pulmonologist friend. Even though I don’t know him well, I didn’t hold back: This is terrible, I said. The structure doesn’t make any sense. It’s repetitive and redundant. Did you write an outline? He told me he didn’t have time to write an outline. I tried to be patient and to explain to him what he apparently never learned in school: An outline is a time-saving tool, not the exercise in busy work that it seemed in junior high.
Some disorganized responses:
- Who says comp instructors don’t teach grammar and syntax? I do, but I prefer to do it in the context of a student’s work rather than in mind-numbing drills in class.
- The second paragraph cited here has a bit more substance to it. Maybe freshmen aren’t ready for FYC, but for a number of institutional reasons (concerning both labor and disciplinary concerns among others) FYC has its own problems being justified, and shifting the blame from the course (or, rather, the institutional pressures keeping it in place) to the student’s unpreparedness for a course in argumentation (and here, implicitly, style) obscures the facts surrounding FYC’s other problems.
- That doesn’t mean, however, that the author is entirely wrong about FYC. A number of scholars have suggested its elimination (Crowley, Smit, Downs and Wardle most recently) or its radical reformulation. I don’t know that it it is the “hardest class to teach” (I would say Basic Writing is, from my my experience), but she is right about the labor force that supports massive compulsory enrollment in FYC (although she does overlooks the role of adjunct/temporary/part-time faculty here). Of course, this in turn raises the question whether the GTA/adjunct faculty is necessary for supporting FYC, or whether the reverse is true: that we need such massive sections of FYC to justify the continued (over-) production of PhDs in English, when revising what FYC is and does could mean a significant contraction in the size of doctoral programs in English and Writing since there would be no need for a mass and inexpensive labor force to teach FYC in its new guises.
- Regarding the miraculous outline … Well, let’s just read Crowley’s Methodical Memory shall we? The outline is no more necessary to writing (in fact it’s a fairly recent invention, as Crowley demonstrates) than is, for example, stylus and wax tablet.
One thing that fascinates about the FYC debates is that it ties in, in many ways, to my other interests and concerns about the managed or corporate university: it raises questions not just about how, what, and why students are taught what they are, but also draws in disciplinary questions (What is the field’s relationship to the course? Do we need FYC to justify rhetcomp to the department or university?), labor questions (see above) … definitely something I will be returning to throughout my career I imagine.
and as a PS: I dig Kathleen Yancey’s response on the WPA list: “Indeed–and she confuses writing like a doctor and writing like an academic doctor: not the same beast. <sigh>”