Process

My process is thusly: Pace. Stare out the window. Smoke cigarettes (not recommended). Drink lots of water (recommended, writing or not. It is hot here. One gallon per person per day). I also like unrelated reading materials around, perhaps a news site minimized in the browser. This is why the unrelated reading material: When a person looks at stars, the more she stares at a specific star, the dimmer it becomes. However, by shifting the gaze to the left or the right increases the apparent brightness of the target star. I don't know why this is so, but the same principle works for writing. If I get gummed up, I look to the left or right of the task at hand. Sometimes, by not thinking about a solution directly, a solution appears. Curious, Alice, curious.


Process for a comp course is very important, too, I think. But I also really like Donald Murray, so, you know...Naturally, there comes a time when we have to judge student writing, and we should not let a student's amount of effort in the process shade our evaluation. I have had to fail students who busted their butts in the process. And, while I praised their efforts, those efforts did not translate. So, in that way, I make it clear that process can only help with the product. It is the means to the end of producing strong writing. It is not the goal in itself. Though I do think that, regardless of grade, the experience is valuable. It should be at least.


Nonetheless, I couldn't help feel like a process approach was misleading. It's nice to coach and coach and teach and root for our students, but the fact remains that, sooner than later, we'll have to assess and judge, say yea or nay.


But to do otherwise is to reward effort alone. That's a dangerous road to travel. Without the discernment we have to exercise on student writing come evaluation time we are essentially a nanny service, and the benefits of process in writing devolve into busy work.

Voice Goes to Market

I would say that voice, whatever exactly that is, should enhance academic writing. To explain why, I think it's useful to move outside the realms of composition, which will also address my belief that we can be successful academics precisely because we cultivate a distinct voice.

In my secret life, I'm a messy thinker about the relationship between science and religion in contemporary ethics, especially when it comes to bioethics and how those questions relate to quantum physics, the origins of the universe, and whether or not there exists room for a prime mover, an unacted upon actor, and the other phrases we use to demystify the idea of an intelligent force who is solely responsible for our existence. You know, the whole God, gods, Goddess question. Semantics! Semantics!

Regardless, I offer the opening passage from Leon R. Kass' "The Wisdom of Repugnance" to illustrate a few key points:

Our habit of delighting in news of scientific and technological breakthroughs
has been sorely challenged by the birth announcement of a sheep named
Dolly. Though Dolly shares with previous sheep the “softest clothing,
woolly, bright,” William Blake’s question, “Little Lamb, who made thee?”
has for her a radically different answer: Dolly was, quite literally, made.
She is the work not of nature or nature’s God but of man, an Englishman,
Ian Wilmut, and his fellow scientists. What’s more, Dolly came into being
not only asexually — ironically, just like “He [who] calls Himself a Lamb” —
but also as the genetically identical copy (and the perfect incarnation of the
form or blueprint) of a mature ewe, of whom she is a clone. This longawaited
yet not quite expected success in cloning a mammal raised
immediately the prospect — and the specter — of cloning human beings: “I
a child and Thou a lamb,” despite our differences, have always been equal
candidates for creative making, only now, by means of cloning, we may
both spring from the hand of man playing at being God.

Whatever we may think of the content of the paragraph, it's clear that there is a speaker, a voice articulating and warming to a theme of some pretty heady ideas in accessible, fluid prose. There can be no doubt that Kass is a real live human being with real live thoughts and that he wants to get something he feels important across to us, non-theologians and non-scientists. The sentence structure is varied, complex, and aids our eye-flow; the word choice is careful; and the tone is appropriate to the gravity of the situation without sliding into mind-numbingly technical or jargonified distancing techniques. Is this not good voice? Are we not entertained? It is and we are. In fact, I am sure it is so clearly intriguing that I have the link to the rest of the article here.

Here's another paragraph. This time, it's from badass atheist and Oxford professor Richard Dawkins and his book The Blind Watchmaker:

Pretend as they will to scientific credentials, the anti-evolution propagandists are always religiously motivated, even if they try to buy credibility by concealing the fact. In most cases, they know deep down what to believe because their parents recommended an ancient book that tells them what to believe. If the scientific evidence learned in adulthood contradicts the book, there must be something wrong with the scientific evidence. Since all radiometric dating methods agree that the earth is thousands of millions of years old, something obviously has to be wrong with all radiometric dating methods. The holy book of childhood cannot be, must not be, wrong.

In this example, the voice is a bit more pronounced, a bit more scathing even. However, in both examples there is a distinct voice speaking. While I find the voice in Dawkins to be a bit too flippant, I don't know that I'd fault a student's writing for that too heavily, especially in light of the paragraph's obvious strengths.

True, both authors have earned their stripes. They are accomplished, respected, and widely read by specialists in their fields and layfolk alike. So, perhaps we argue that they can use voice in their professional writing because they've achieved a certain amount of acclaim. But I think they achieved a certain amount of acclaim because they used their voice in service of their research, their writing, and the advancement of ideas and arguments.

Take on Take 20

One of the most important commonalities amongst those interviewed was a seemingly fundemental humaneness in their various reflections. I don't know that I agree with everything said but everything said was steeped in what can help us overcome any of real or imagined shortcomings in the classroom. Namely, a general sense of compassion for our students and interest in their development.

In my experience, the most rewarding moments are not with those who love writing, who sign on wholesale to the goals of our course. Rather, it's when persistance and commitment on my part whittles down a student's indifference or active hostility toward the class. For me, that usually came with the returning of their first drafts. Because of a near-tragic flaw in my small motor skills, I do not write very clearly. It's more like this: "ths gdafdfad fdsafadf. Expand?" So, when Take 20's professors were talking about commenting on student work, I noted that the importance of good commentary tailored toward the student and the goal of the draft should be seen as a natural extension of the classroom time. So, my chicken stratch actually works in my favor; if students know or suspect that I took time and care with their work, they'll want to know what I wrote. Which means this: office hours. It was here, with their work tattooed in my ink, that I could interpret the scrawl while expanding my commentary. And I was sometimes surprised by which students were concerned with more than the grade.

Take 20 also reminded me that Raider Writer is not the only way to teach comp. While I respect the relative merits of an attempt to provide a more standardized experience, I think this comes at a high price. I do not know my students names. I do not know their writing. I do know what matters to them. So, while much of the video speaks to the potential for a genuine foundation in liberal arts education, one that goes a touch beyond grammatical concerns and correctness, this opportunity is made more difficult by our current system. Surely, a comp course should not focus on haiku, to use an example given in class, but I will not accept that, with an honest, earnest instructor at the helm, the students would leave that class with nothing of value to show for it.

Thus have I heard, Ananda begs alms in many ways. Such that, with the general humane and compassionate views spanning Take 20, we can, whatever we're covering, whatever our course goals, take a nick out of forgivable ignorance and indifference.

Prompt: Why do we teach first year composition

I like stuff that works and stuff that makes other stuff work. WD-40, for instance, is a really good sort of stuff. A high-grade steel blade on a pocket knife is good. AWD in snow is similarly useful. That's the same way I see teaching composition. We are their WD-40, their scrimshaw-handled pocket knife, their AWD in the blizzard.

Or, we're not. Maybe we're place holders until they matriculate with a shrug and get handed off to their employers, to the rest of their lives. I subscribe to the first view touched on above but have seen the second held in the private thoughts of many overworked, underpaid, and underappreciated composition faculty members.

For years, we've heard about grade inflation, barely literate college graduates, and potential employers bemoaning their young recruits' inability to think or write clearly. Those employers, reasonably enough, pass the blame back toward the colleges. In their turn, the colleges blame the high schools; the high schools point to the middle schools, which point to the grade schools; the grade schools, in their defense, then say that parents aren't involved enough. The parents, say school admins, are pawning off their responsibility to help educate their children.

All this probably has some truth to it. However, when was the last time students at the college level were called out to take up their own cause? They are, after all, not required to be in college. No one's forcing them; as adults, they've made a decision. And I believe first year composition courses, in addition to providing the opportunity to learn portable skills we're all familiar with, should challenge students to cut their teeth on the world. It is entirely possible that many of our students just aren't cut out to cut their teeth at the college level.

There's no shame in this. Somewhere along the line, the idea has perfumed our culture that a college degree is a foregone conclusion for anyone willing and able to pay the tab. What this means, though, is that previously respected and valuable careers are now deemed undesirable. This is a classist view that not only demeans any number of careers available to non-degree holding adults but pressures college systems to accommodate students who are, while deserving of the chance to receive their degrees, unable to make it work. There is nothing wrong with this fact. College ought to be hard; it ought not to be for everyone. It is important that, while we support and actively work toward providing opportunities to achieve a degree, we do not confuse the chance for with the promise of.

Take the converse of the argument. Growing up, after abandoning my hopes for a starting position as a Green Bay Packer defensive back (Bye, Brett!), I wanted little else but to raise goats in the mountains or be a stone mason. However, know-how and genetics conspired against me. I did not--still don't--know how to raise goats. As for stone masonry work, I get winded lifting bricks. No one suggested that they make stone masonry work easier in order to accommodate chicken-armed folk like myself.

The same should be true for the why and the how of teaching composition. If the skills in our classes can't be developed, can't be honed and built upon and adapted to the learning which will help our class succeed as students, employees, and humans, then it's possible they missed the point, that they just might need to find another, equally important and meaningful , goal for their lives.

In that way, in addition to FYC's set of learning goals, we are gatekeepers. And while we should keep the hinges well oiled, I am also sure to keep it shut tight when need be.

For another voice addressing some of these similar ideas, click here for an insightful article from The Atlantic about teaching adjunct night classes at the university level.