Thank you, Mark for your thoughtful and informed response as well as for the ideas on teaching grammar. It is exciting for me to be back in the classroom and I feel privileged to be getting so much input from everyone on the list. I'm also looking forward to meeting my students and curious as to what sort of writing backgrounds they will be coming from. I know that in the past, most of the writers in the basic writing classes were typical freshman, 18 years, and recent high school grads, but others were young working adults in their 20’s or early 30’s, others still were professionals from various occupations returning to school, and then there were several ESL students who for whatever reason chose not to sign up for an ESL section, one reason being that those sections were filled. The text for my basic writing classes is: Focus on Writing: Paragraphs and Essays (Kirszner & Mandell). For COMP 101, I’ll be using Acting Out Culture: Reading and
Writing (James S. Miller) as well as the grammar handbook, A Writer’s Reference (Hacker & Sommers). Both classes can be supplemented with Blackboard if I choose to use the discussion thread feature, which I may do. Tonight we have a new teacher’s orientation, which will give me a tour of our newly renovated campus and all of the technological innovations that have entered the classrooms since I’ve been away!
Best-
Carol
--- On Tue, 8/9/11, 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: Tuesday, August 9, 2011, 6:38 AM
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 http://www.saudistudentteam.com/yahoo_site_admin/assets/docs/KU-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:
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