Hi Carol,
You say that "students have to be able to master the sentence and
paragraph and even a short essay, ... before they can venture
into the complexities of argument and debate." A lot of people
share your view and it fits nicely into an academic taxonomy of
lower and higher order skills. I teach EFL composition at
post-secondary level in Saudi Arabia. I draw heavily on the AP
English Language and Composition curriculum developed by ETS.
That curriculum places considerable emphasis on critical
thinking, informal logic, and rhetoric/argumentation. While AP
courses are typically offered in high schools, they are not for
"basic writers," although, we may have some problem here
discovering what, exactly, a "basic writer" is.
I agree that students need to master the basic forms of sentence
and paragraph before they can hope to claim competency in
composition. Capote is supposed to have said of Kerouac that not
all typing is writing, but with many of our students, just
getting them to type 500 words is sometimes a small victory and I
could always say, "It makes no sense at all, you write just like
Jack!" and take it from there.
I do not agree that grammar and syntax are lower order skills
that must be mastered before moving on to higher order rhetoric
and composition. These are just different dimensions of
communication. You did not say "higher" and "lower" order but
this is what I understood from your message, and I have heard
this a lot from colleagues.
For grammar and syntax I use Ed Vavra's KISS method. I can't say
whether it works or not, and students find it very tedious, but I
have been impressed by the ability of Arab students to correctly
parse a wide variety of English literary texts. I have also seen
their writing improve as they do this but I cannot demonstrate
that this improvement is a consequence of the parsing exercises.
It has helped me a lot in teaching students to write "in
sentences" since it enables me to define what a sentence is in
terms that are comprehensible and useful to students. This
is especially critical for my students since Arabic has an even
less secure notion of the sentence than English does.
I think that we can teach composition and thinking skills
together. Indeed, I think we really should be doing this.
According to a study conducted by ETS in 2000 to determine the
skills necessary for success in higher education, faculty,
regardless of department, are primarily concerned with skills
such as listening, comprehending, discerning main ideas in
reading, organizing, and making inferences. [1] These are all
skills that reasonably fall to English departments. I know you
are not arguing against teaching these, but merely saying that
"basic writing" skills should be pre-requesite to them.
I think that some of this has to do with the view that writing is
a describable process: If only students follow our process, they
will produce minimally acceptable work. I believed this for a
long time, and taught it, even though I am not a process writer.
It started to make more sense to me after I read Joan Didion's
"Why I Write." For Didion, writing is thinking and it cannot be
planned or orchestrated, it just happens. I think this is
probably true for a lot of people: it is for me. For us, writing
emerges and is then shaped. If you will not allow me to think
before learning to write, then I will never learn to write.
Of course, this can lead to more typing than writing - the longer
you spend on it, the shorter it becomes. It is like cutting a
diamond: the smaller it becomes, the more beautiful it is, up to
a point. After that, it just gets smaller.
As for banal essay topics, EB White did a masterful job with
"What I did on my summer vacation." I have used his "Once More
to the Lake" with EFL students as well. I would not use it, or
anything else, as a "template" though. Reading is the other half
of writing.
Mark
[1] Summary, Presentation at TESOL 2008, New York, New York, Mark
Algren, Mary MacGuinness (University of Kansas); Susan Matson,
ELS Language Centers. See
[1]http://www.saudistudentteam.com/yahoo_site_admin/assets/docs/K
U-ELS-Summaryof_Project.87192434.pdf
On Mon, 08 Aug 2011 16:27 -0700, "Carol Morrison"
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Mark: I agree that thinking critically is important and people
should be able to express their views. There are plenty of forums
for students to do that in Critical Reading and Writing classes,
Critical Theory, Literary Analysis, and so forth. I just think
that for the Basic Writer this is a lot to take on and they need
the basics first, the forms and format of writing that Geoff
talked about with Stanley Fish, who by the way, I am most anxious
to read. Students have to be able to master the sentence and
paragraph and even a short essay, I believe, before they can
venture into the complexities of argument and debate. Often times
in my writing classes, I have found students who can express
themselves very well orally, but this doesn’t translate into
their writing. Of course it is interesting to debate hot topics,
but the goal for me in my basic writing classes is to enable
students to write clear and concise prose that are grammatically
sound for the most part. Ahem…”Good Housekeeping Seal of
Approval”? Those topics aren’t that bad. I remember back when we
had to give a Diagnostic essay the first day for COMP 101 and
lots of students were eager to write about their summer
vacations. Many interesting things can come up with topics which
at face value may seem trivial.Carol
--- On Mon, 8/8/11, M C Johnstone <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
From: M C Johnstone <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Holding their interest
To: [log in to unmask]
Date: Monday, August 8, 2011, 6:56 PM
This is a fascinating discussion. It began with a question about
engaging students, then observations that when students are
engaged in a topic or argument, all hell breaks loose and the
"pedagogical objectives" are lost, and now returns to advice to
stick to innocuous topics, which are unlikely to engaging anyone
and so, presumably, not threaten the pre-determined outcomes,
which no student would likely be capable of identifying within
several days of the exam, either side, anyway.
I teach EFL composition in Saudi Arabia. EFL abounds with
mind-numbing topics. What I see in this is a choice, usually made
by the teacher, to focus on outcomes or to focus on students and
their education. I would much rather deal with controversial
topics - and in my experience, so would students - than with
those bearing the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.
Evolution is one of those topics that are deemed to be too hot to
poke. Muslim get about as het up over this as do some of the more
fundamentalist varieties of Christians. Paranoia over this is so
intense here that our biology department avoids all mention of
it. Since they don't talk about it in biology, we can talk about
it in English.
I agree with Herb that there are socially determined positions;
positions from which it is difficult for students to disengage
themselves. However, I also think that it is important that
people learn to examine their own views critically and
then become able to advocate those views from a position of
knowledge rather than from a position of fear. This, rather than
sterile mastery of forms, is what education must be about.
If thinking critically is a liberating act, and if this
liberation is the primary reason for promoting thought as a
skill, then we really ought to start with topics that matter to
people. These socially determined positions seem to me to be an
ideal place to start.
Mark
On Mon, 08 Aug 2011 15:25 -0700, "Carol Morrison"
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
"In a case like this, a position on evolution or creation or
abortion is not an intellectual stance; it’s a matter of cultural
and social identity, and that makes it very hard to think
critically about it. I’ve found in UG classes where we deal with
dialectology the notion “social class” sometimes gets rejected
out of hand as Marxist, and no amount of discussion will shake
that position. This is also one of those defining stances.
Is a writing class the place to get students to question such
elements of their identity and look at themselves more
critically? How does one go about this?"
I agree Herb, from my past experience teaching COMP 101, which
featured an argument paper, that it is difficult for students to
reason intellectually when they are emotionally charged from
controversial topics such as religion or gay marriage. I think
for them to engage in a more civil discourse, and one stemming
from reason and analysis rather than emotion, the point of
departure needs to be different. I particularly liked what Geoff
said about “commonplaces” and I thought of introducing more
innocuous topics for the freshman to write about such as their
experiences in the dining hall or bookstore; “first day”
experiences, and so forth. Since I have returned to the same
community college after two years of absence, the “argument”
paper has now changed to a mini-research paper. I’ll be teaching
(2) basic writing classes which consist of basic grammar
instruction and sentence and paragraph writing, and then one
section of COMP 101. There is so much I can do during class
time; the question for me now as I write my syllabi is what!
Carol Morrison
--- On Mon, 8/8/11, STAHLKE, HERBERT F <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
From: STAHLKE, HERBERT F <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Holding their interest
To: [log in to unmask]
Date: Monday, August 8, 2011, 4:37 PM
Thanks to all of you for one of the most interesting and
thoughtfully argued threads we’ve had in a while.
I have a question that may be tangential to this topic, or at
least a narrower focus. I should say first that while I have
taught both ESL writing and Freshman writing, I am not a
writing teacher, and threads like this always leave me with a
lot of respect for those who perform these tasks and perform
them well.
When I’ve taught writing, I’ve often been encouraged to avoid
topics like abortion and creationism vs. evolution because
it’s so difficult for student writers to separate themselves
from the issues and from the social consequences of taking a
position. As an example of this, I had dinner with my oldest
son last night, and we got to talking about a good friend of
his at work. She is well educated, well read, and has
thoughtful views on a lot of topics. Evolution came up
recently in one of their conversations, and her response was,
“Oh, I don’t believe in evolution. The evidence for it is not
very strong.” My son was surprised at her reaction. She
comes from a Southern Baptist background but is no longer
connected to that or any other denomination, so her reasons
for rejecting evolution, and she confirms this, are not
religious. I suggested to him that perhaps the reason for her
position was a matter of social identity. Her family and the
community she grew up in are devout and accept the biblical
creation story literally. Rejecting evolution is a matter of
family identity. She can become a backslid Baptist, and
that’s lamentable, but for her to accept evolution would be to
reject her family.
In a case like this, a position on evolution or creation or
abortion is not an intellectual stance; it’s a matter of
cultural and social identity, and that makes it very hard to
think critically about it. I’ve found in UG classes where we
deal with dialectology the notion “social class” sometimes
gets rejected out of hand as Marxist, and no amount of
discussion will shake that position. This is also one of
those defining stances.
Is a writing class the place to get students to question such
elements of their identity and look at themselves more
critically? How does one go about this?
Herb
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Geoffrey Layton
Sent: Monday, August 08, 2011 1:14 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Holding their interest
Seth -
Thanks for the reference. This thread fits with a project on
academic discourse that I'm trying to develop. Perhaps one
characteristic that Graff proposes that might be different from
the Rogerian model is his insistence that - after all the
listening and understanding - writers/academics must finally take
a position that differs from that of their
interlocutors/respondents. For example, in his book "Clueless in
Academe," he offers significant criticism of Deborah Tannen and
the views she expresses in her book, "The Argument Culture:
Moving from Debate to Dialogue." As he puts it, "Perhaps the most
telling refutation of Tannen's thesis is the confrontational
quality of the book itself. . . Tannen enacts the behavior she
objects to" (89). Similarly in "They Say," Graff advances a
method that will enhance the ability of students to argue, not
diminish it. His "listening and understanding" component, as I
understand it, is presented not as a way to be
non-confrontational but rather as a means to make sure that the
resulting argument is telling and effective, much the same way
that he demonstrates his understanding of Tannen's position in
order to methodically destroy it.
To return to the theme of the thread - "Holding their interest" -
perhaps this discussion will help hold student interest by
showing them that in order to develop a powerful argument for
their position, they must first thoroughly understand the point
of view of the person with whom they disagree - and, more
interestingly, in order to have something interesting to say,
they must find an area where they do disagree.
Geoff Layton
> Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2011 11:41:33 -0500
> From:
[2]Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
References
1. http://www.saudistudentteam.com/yahoo_site_admin/assets/docs/KU-ELS-Summaryof_Project.87192434.pdf
2. http://us.mc1121.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?toTojoinorleavethisLISTSERVlist,pleasevisitthelist'swebinterfaceat:http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.htmlandselect
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