I love my subconscious

I actually practiced what I preach today.

I always push my writing students to harness the power of their subconscious (unconscious mind?) for their writing.

Today I wrote out my worries, concerns, and ideas (here) and then went on with my life and other things.

Now I'm starting to see the glimmerings of hope and focus.

I think perhaps a very good place to start would be to work on a literature review on my various areas of interest (starting with discourse and technology and any points of overlap with other topics). That I think may not only help me refine my ability and understanding of this important research tool (the lit review I mean) but also deepen my understanding of the topics and give me a better understanding of the gaps in knowledge so I can do a better job when the time comes to actually create a research project.

I feel better for having a plan and a starting point. That is what was making me so crazy -- having so many ideas and thoughts rambling (or rather pinging around like racquetballs or a game of pong on steroids) in my head.

My research interests

Discourse and Technology
Composition Studies
Writing Pedagogy

OK, so how do I come up with a magical research agenda/project/dissertation focus that covers all 3 of these?

Writing Pedagogy

This encompasses a lot of questions and topics that overlap with my interest in composition studies so perhaps I'll just lump them all here and let them sort themselves out.

I'm attending the Morehead Writing Project Summer Institute in preparation for taking over as Site Director in July. The MWP is doing some great work but the leadership team would like to see it expand its reach and programming.

Of course in order to do this we will need to know what our stakeholders need and want.

MWP Stakeholders:

Teachers
Students
Administrators
Community
Government
Writing Project Leadership

Some research has been done and I'll need to get up to speed on that as well as many other things related to WP and MWP in specific.

But I'd also like to get a better handle on what our English teachers in general need to know to effectively do their jobs (and at different levels) which has some overlap with above but may also be distinct in some areas.

I'm also interested in what writers need to know to successfully negotiate from high school to college to work which comes back to what do we need to teach our students (in college?). What specific skill sets and experiences?

I'm also really interested in process pedagogy as I think developing a unique and individual writing process is one of the keys to writing success (this is based more on my own experience as a writer and writing teacher than any research which is why I'd really like to study this hypothesis). Again this would aid my teaching but could also be of interest to WP. Definite overlap there. Heck I could even study the current fellows.

And of course coming back to the idea of discourse community. I'm really intrigued by this idea and think this could be a very key concept in terms of writing instruction as it is the community that drives so many of the specifics of writing (everything from correctness issues to genre) and it is the community that provides the audience and rhetorical situation. It is the discourse community that makes writing relevant and meaningful and real. I think this can come back and feed both my interest in writing pedagogy and composition studies.

Back full circle now. I'm so conflicted and confused. What to do, what to do...

What to do?

I am so conflicted and confused. My mind is overflowing with ideas for research projects and I just can't choose. I know I need to focus and direct my reading. In fact that was my plan for the summer but all these ideas keep creeping in.

A top priority for the summer obviously needs to be:

Discourse and Technology: Computers and Writing

as that is the class I'm taking and I have to do a paper for that:

* The first draft, of about 8-10 pages, is due by class time July 24. Awarded 10% of the course grade. Contains a developing argument, prose format (no outline), and preliminary works cited.

* The final draft of 15-20 pages is due by class time July 31. Awarded 30% of the course grade. Contains a developed argument, supported points, works cited.

OK, that's easy enough to focus on as it is also an interest area of mine (which is why I'm taking the class) as I teach online and also my chair is interested in the concept of distributed grading.

So I'm fumbling around with some ideas. At first I was thinking about doing something with building/developing a sense of community as I'm interested in the idea of discourse community but now I'm thinking along the lines of studying the benefits of using technology to teach/support writing. I think this would support the distributed grading concept as well as demonstrate the benefits of using technology to support and teach writing classes (whether f2f or web, synchronous or asynchronous). I'm teaching online this summer so I have a captive audience and probably I could coerce Steve Penn (who is also teaching online this summer) into letting me at least survey his students. If I want to do something along those lines what should I focus on? How do I research this? What background reading do I need to do?

Lots to think about...

Some thoughts inspired by Ede

Gap? What do our students "need" to know?

Composition - Pedagogy - Computers and Writing

My research agenda - what do we need to teach our writers, how do we best teach writing, how can we best use technology to teach and assist writing

For me, process helps students understand writing better so they fear and dread it less -- I can't make them all love writing but I can raise their comfort level and ease that dread and fear which can only work to raise their ability and willingness to continue working on their writing -- raising their awareness and understanding of how writing works and develops (the process) can also help them learn how to improve their writing -- more awareness translates into stronger writing.

Is there one way to teach? One way to write? NO!

Writing process is important to creation of product and limbering those writing muscles but social process is key to situating that writing and transferring knowledge from one writing task to another.

What percentage of internet to tradition...
successful completion (c or better)
breakdown (A,B,C)
enrollment

Interview with teachers -- connection to teacher and other students -- asynchronous or synchronous

Pre and post survey

confidence
ability
test score
college english grade
high school english grade
experience with genre
process/practice

Is taking an internet class a necessity or a convenience?

Study professionalism/training in comp teachers

Grant proposal to test a writing center pilot (online?)

Pilot test distributed grading

paper/project - benefits of electronic portfolios and distributed grading -- system solution

I believe (learning/teaching) process essential for developing writers (those learning or attempting "new" tasks) but experienced/expert writers have moved beyond the need for process as they have internalized an individual process that is effective for the writing tasks they face.

I wonder how many of those who dismiss process actually work with struggling/developing writers?

vignette about teaching freshman composition?

What is the real/perceived value of fyc -- admin, faculty, teachers, students

Situating Composition

I just finished "Situating Composition" by Lisa Ede and found it a really interesting book.

The book was part history and part discussion of theory and pedagogy flavored of course by Ede's unique perspective. I found much of what she said resonated with me.

She helped me work through some of my own issues in regard to process theory and helped me clarify my position.

She also gave me a lot of direction for future study, research, and reading.

I was struck by her discussion of "paradigm hope" which encourages scholars to believe the "right theory" can effect change at the level of practice. She is bothered by paradigm hope as she feels it devalues practice and distances scholars work from the scene of the classroom.

Similarly "Theory Hope" which she defines as the general hope that if we can work through an idea or issue at the level of theory it will inevitably have significance for practice.

I was also interested in her discussion of her own pedagogy and its evolution over time

Some quotes that resonated with me:

"I believe that writing needs to be understood in its "community context"

"Current focus on correctness was misplaced since what is most critical in writing are global issues of process, form, and content."

"What difference might it make if scholars in composition recognized the need for and value of multiple approaches to literacy?

"What is at stake ... our ability to enact a model of disciplinary progress that does not require the continual disvaluing of previous theories and practices."

"I have been concerned with pedagogical change and the relationship between those engaged in the practice of theory and those engaged in the practice of teaching."

"What does it mean to enact progress in a field committed to pedagogical and scholarly action."

David Bartholomae "Writing on the Margins"

Just finished reading David Bartholomae's "Writing on the Margins"

Jane Hindman's abstract: David Bartholomae's notion of "Writing on the Margins" is intriguing. He claims that good writers are those who "poise themselves on the margins in a tenuous and hesitant relationship to the language and methods of the university." This paradox is captivating because the margins serve as a place to which one is banished for not knowing the rules--and as a place from which one can earn authority for resisting the rules. Particularly enthralling are the splits--the essays that receive the highest and the lowest scores possible. These essays create gaps in the institutionally "obvious" notions of what constitutes good writing. As an example, in a submission of a feminist reading of "Gorgias" to "Rhetoric Review," two reviewers were at opposite ends of the positive/negative spectrum, one rejecting and the other offering suggestions for revision and resubmission. After submission of the revision, a second set of "conflicting" reviews were offered and a lively discussion about the essay ensued with one of the readers. Why are there not more discussions about what puts pressure on the margins of an individual's scholarly discourse, conversations about subversive practices. Ways to access the disciplinary formations and paradigm shifts that occur when new propositions or ideas put pressure on the boundaries of what reviewers and editors consider to be correct should be considered.

Jeffrey Williams says this: David Bartholomae is a leading figure in composition. But, initially trained as a Victorianist, he has stressed composition's link with literature rather than its separation, and resisted trends toward "writing without teachers" or without academic models.

Writing on the Margins: Essays on Composition and Teaching (Bedford, 2005) collects a wide sampling of Bartholomae's articles, such as his well-known "Inventing the University." See also his survey of "Composition" in Introduction to Scholarship in Modern Languages and Literatures, ed. David G. Nicholls (MLA, 2007), and his debate with Peter Elbow, "Writing with Teachers," CCC 46.1 (1995). Alongside his essays, Bartholomae has had substantial influence with his textbook, now entering its eigth edition, Ways of Reading, co-written with Anthony R. Petrosky (Bedford, 1987; 7th ed. 2005). He and Petrosky have also written the text Reading the Lives of Others: History and Ethnography (Bedford, 1994) and co-edited The Teaching of Writing: The Eighty-fifth Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education (Chicago, 1986) and Facts, Artifacts and Counterfacts: Reading and Writing in Theory and Practice (Boynton, 1987). In addition, he co-edits the Pittsburgh Series in Composition, Literacy, and Culture for the University of Pittsburgh Press.

I read this book after being told some of my ideas/thoughts were "pure Bartholomae" so I thought it would be a good idea to find out just how much that was true.

I believe as it Bartholomae does that composition should be student-centered and where learning and writing is an active experience.

He also talks quite a bit about discourse community (language of the tribe) which is what I think the above quote referred to.

However I don't agree with his methods of working so closely with literature. I'd rather focus more on the student text. I also find more agreement at times with Elbow and the process movement.

I have come around more to his way of thinking than I once was in regard to where composition should be situated in the academy. I think it should remain within the English department. I can sympathize with those who wish to move it away from literature as far too many literature folks teach writing without thinking about what writers need to learn and grow.

Some thoughts inspired by Bartholomae

I am a writing teacher but really I am a thinking teacher -- in order to be a good writer one must first be a good thinker -- too often my students have not been taught to think and question but only to memorize and listen. This can't be good for them or the future.

----------

What is college for?

I have three college degrees and am working on my fourth. I have taught at the college level for 9 years. Yet when my 7 year old asked me that question I couldn't answer right away.

For the undergraduate I teach, and for the general public, the easy answer -- the only answers is to provide entry or pave the way to a professional. A college degree is the price of admission to achieve the American Dream today. Without a degree my students envision a life of working service sector jobs or hard manual labor. They see struggle, poverty, and painful uncertainty if they fail to earn that degree.

Yes, college is the gate keeper for many professions but it is much more than that. College should also be about thinking, questioning, and challenging both yourself and the ideas that others force upon you. Some of those ideas may settle on your rain and other bear fruit.

-----

Share at least one tip you've gleaned from this exercise to help you better understand "academic writing" or writing within the academic discourse community

----

Discourse is dialogue -- you are entering a conversation...continuing it...advancing it if you will. When you enter the discourse you have to ask yourself: What do you have to say about this topic? What can you add to the conversation?

Some writing in collee will be the kind of writing you do for an abstract -- condensing and spitting back another's idea in your own words. That is writing as learning but often writing in college (and indeed beyond) will require much more from you. This is writing as knowledge making. You start with someone's ideas (words) and bring in your ideas/words then synthesize these to advance (move) the conversation to a new place.

------

A discourse community has its own unique rules and conventions. They existed before you entered and will likely remain unchanged by your presence. You can contribute to and challenge the discourse within the community but in order to do so effectively (to be taken seriously by other members) you need to do so within its rules and conventions.

Writing within a discourse community is like a game -- you must learn the rules in order to succeed.