And as I sat there, he pulled out his essay. The mark showcased the level at which he was writing… or at least the level that I thought he was writing. He was upset, and I would be too if I had receive a grade much like his. Yet, he asked, “if I revise this, can I get a better grade?” And here the problem laid: would he improve as a writer by revising an essay? Would he learn anything new? Or would I give him the opportunity to always ask for a second chance? I. Don’t. Know.
I admit, it sounds counterproductive that I do not know much about this topic, but here I stand contemplating the value of my effort as a writing teacher: coach, mentor, guide. However many years I have teaching first year writing, I am still figuring |
out the complexities of my choices—assessment, pedagogical stance, theory and research—and if those choices aid in the development of writers who do not want to be writers. This is the paradox that I am constantly intertwined with, a battle of seeing students as potential writers even though they do not see themselves as writers whatsoever. They bring forth their essays, but how many will ever write them after they leave college? How many see this as just another class? And how many care?
My whole life has delved around writing. While most of my work is creative, there's a strong presence of genre awareness and rhetorical understanding that I have transferred over to my students. I enjoy placing the words on the page like a ship swimming a broken sea. Words should travel together or separate in order to inform the reader and create an understanding with the author. While I am not the first to use creative writing to teach in a writing class, my background furthers an understanding of rhetorical approaches and genre awareness through the use of creative assignments—and to be honest, I believe any assignment is creative.
While rhetoric has gained momentum, rhetoric has become a word tossed around with no real implications in the student’s eye. When asked, some of my students defaulted to politicians, and others who had taken philosophy murmured Aristotle and Plato’s name—yet never knowing which one actually said anything about rhetoric or if both had said anything at all. However, we must see rhetoric as a stance between three factors: “the available arguments of the subject itself, the interest and peculiarities of the audience, and the voice, the implied character, of the speaker” (Booth 166). These word written by Wayne C Booth dictate much of my pedagogical stance when teaching writing: the argument, the audience, and the voice. While all three are continuously intertwined, they should be seen as different trees bearing fruits, and the author can pick any amount of fruit, at any time, off of any tree. These are not absolutes. These are not guarantees. These are not mere concepts. They are platforms of understanding that develop other platforms of understanding.
My whole life has delved around writing. While most of my work is creative, there's a strong presence of genre awareness and rhetorical understanding that I have transferred over to my students. I enjoy placing the words on the page like a ship swimming a broken sea. Words should travel together or separate in order to inform the reader and create an understanding with the author. While I am not the first to use creative writing to teach in a writing class, my background furthers an understanding of rhetorical approaches and genre awareness through the use of creative assignments—and to be honest, I believe any assignment is creative.
While rhetoric has gained momentum, rhetoric has become a word tossed around with no real implications in the student’s eye. When asked, some of my students defaulted to politicians, and others who had taken philosophy murmured Aristotle and Plato’s name—yet never knowing which one actually said anything about rhetoric or if both had said anything at all. However, we must see rhetoric as a stance between three factors: “the available arguments of the subject itself, the interest and peculiarities of the audience, and the voice, the implied character, of the speaker” (Booth 166). These word written by Wayne C Booth dictate much of my pedagogical stance when teaching writing: the argument, the audience, and the voice. While all three are continuously intertwined, they should be seen as different trees bearing fruits, and the author can pick any amount of fruit, at any time, off of any tree. These are not absolutes. These are not guarantees. These are not mere concepts. They are platforms of understanding that develop other platforms of understanding.
We should highlight students’ intent. I understand that there is a death to the author, and that readers should dismiss authorial intent when analyzing literature. But this is extremely counterintuitive of composition. Yes, Barthes makes an incredible case in La Mort de l’Auteur, but the author as creator brings forth many intentions and development into the written piece. Barthes talks about authorial intent, and how readers need to dismiss authorial intent. I privilege intent, but an intent that is sophisticated. If rhetoric is a means of persuasion, then what is the intent of such persuasion? For this notion brings forth the argumentation of rhetoric. The author has to willfully bring forth the arguments of the subject, as Boothe suggest, to be able to address any argument successfully. Ian Barnard, argues that “composition theory itself is fracture and has not unequivocally announce the death of the author” (Barnard 43). This is highly problematic; how can there be death to an author while we, as educators, continually ask our students to show their intent in the written page? As a composition teachers, I must understand that the author’s, our students’, intent should be highlighted in the writing. Such discourse brings forth some of the necessary components of any genre that they may tackle. Their intent for writing a research paper is, and will be, vastly different than the intent of writing a proposal, and is, and will be, vastly different than writing a TXT message. Awareness allows students to understand the arguments of the subject that they deal with. Moreover, audience awareness is another fruit that students must pick. I, as teacher, am not the only audience for any given |
assignment. I foster an understanding of multiple audience, and that an audience does shape the words on the page. Having grasp this concepts, students will write accordingly to the genre speaking to a certain audience. And while the student ultimately has the decision of what to write, I believe that the audience influences that decision by providing a state of consciousness for the writer. Yes, this is a slippery term, and audience is invoked, evoked, fictionalized, intended, or generalized. It can be any single one of these, but there is always an audience, an audience that affects other aspects of the text: purpose, form, style, genre. As Irene Clark suggest in her book Concepts in composition: Theory and Practice in the Teaching of Writing:
Teachers may tell students to ‘consider your audience,’ which is good advice, but difficult for students to follow, unless the teacher helps them understand the complexities of the concept and demonstrates how audience awareness is manifested within a text, in whatever medium that has been produced. (Clark 111-110)
If the student knows and understand the audience, then the needs of that audience can be identified, and the student can potentially meet those needs with his or her words.
Additionally, there must be a double consciousness developed within a writer—a set of voices if you will. A student does not have a single voice, nor is that voice the same in all writing. Unfortunately, as young writers, they bring forth this misconception from all their previous years in English classes. Every type of writing has a voice; while the character may not be conscious, it does not mean that the work lacks a voice. Voice does not need to be objective in all writing, but it must be specific to each scenario of writing. This discussion normally brings forth the objectivity that they believe presents itself in “academic writing,” and “they may fear that a personal voice could entice them into using the ‘I’ [that] many believe they have been forever forbidden” (Neman 217). “So can I. use the ‘I’ in my essay?” I hear too often in the classroom. This posts a problematic state because we want to hear their voice—whatever voice that may be—yet they have never explored that authoritative, and integral, part of their voice. They have been castrated off the most essential part of the self, the “I”. If the writer constructs the voice, as Lisbeth Bryant once said, I believe that students must learn to manipulate the concept of voice, and to extent the concept of the “I,” into a voice that fits the scenario and genre that they are working within.
Yet with all this discussion on the rhetorical stance, must students reach a proper balance and platform with these three elements? That I do not know as well. However, I have seen students aware of these elements to also have a better understanding of the writing process itself. I have also seen that once they understand these concepts, they gained a threshold that transfers to other genres of writing. Understanding these concepts are vital. Vital in the sense of transference, where they can apply their writing knowledge to business letters, proposals, emails, and even TXT—genres of writing that students will face in the “real world.” There is no one genre of “academic writing,” all writing within academia has different form and function; not all writing done within the institution equates to the same. Hence, an understanding of the rhetorical stance allows for students to dissect each genre that they face, and they can transfer this knowledge to other fields. Whether this transfers through a high road or low road, mindful or reflexive, is not the question—that knowledge transfers and that we show our students how it transfers intrigues me the most. As Yancey puts it, “at the heart of the contention is the issue of generalizability: is the activity in question—for example writing—on where generalizability from one iteration of practice to another possible?” (Yancey 6). Can my students be able to use the knowledge they gain and be able to apply it to somewhere else? That also I do not know.
But I do know one thing; students do not come into the classroom as blank slates, and we do not start teaching a raw piece of clay. No. They come in with prior knowledge (however, some of this knowledge is misguided and therefore another discussion)—knowledge that they build upon. I believe that such a course, “when planned and carried through with intelligence and flexibility, can be one of the most important of all educational experiences” (Booth 165).
However, sometimes the prior knowledge that they bring into the classroom is not effective to writing, and the student must develop a new way of thinking. This state of “critical incident,” while a setback for prior learning, “provides the opportunity for conceptual breakthrough” (Yancey 120). As Yancey explains, a critical incident is where a student’s effort does not yield a desire result, or the students improves minimally. It is here where we need to foster motivation and equip the student with the knowledge of genre and a rhetorical stance so the student can succeed in such situation. For the conceptual breakthrough to occur, the student needs to have the ability to maneuver through writing and have the ability to adapt to a new situation; hence why an understanding of genre and a rhetorical stance is important in my pedagogy.
While I still consider my classroom as a project--an ongoing project--it is a project that allows students to transfer the knowledge gained and have the ability to write in various forms of writing. If we teach approaches to university writing, I feel confident knowing that students will have the ability to connect various methods and have the ability to write in multiple genres. This is at the core of my pedagogical stance: the ability to give students tool that they will use throughout their academic career, and into the “real world,” as they might say. As for Mr. Lee, he showed up to my office a week later, with an essay that had a rhetorical stance, and an understanding of the genre as well. What more could I ask for?
Teachers may tell students to ‘consider your audience,’ which is good advice, but difficult for students to follow, unless the teacher helps them understand the complexities of the concept and demonstrates how audience awareness is manifested within a text, in whatever medium that has been produced. (Clark 111-110)
If the student knows and understand the audience, then the needs of that audience can be identified, and the student can potentially meet those needs with his or her words.
Additionally, there must be a double consciousness developed within a writer—a set of voices if you will. A student does not have a single voice, nor is that voice the same in all writing. Unfortunately, as young writers, they bring forth this misconception from all their previous years in English classes. Every type of writing has a voice; while the character may not be conscious, it does not mean that the work lacks a voice. Voice does not need to be objective in all writing, but it must be specific to each scenario of writing. This discussion normally brings forth the objectivity that they believe presents itself in “academic writing,” and “they may fear that a personal voice could entice them into using the ‘I’ [that] many believe they have been forever forbidden” (Neman 217). “So can I. use the ‘I’ in my essay?” I hear too often in the classroom. This posts a problematic state because we want to hear their voice—whatever voice that may be—yet they have never explored that authoritative, and integral, part of their voice. They have been castrated off the most essential part of the self, the “I”. If the writer constructs the voice, as Lisbeth Bryant once said, I believe that students must learn to manipulate the concept of voice, and to extent the concept of the “I,” into a voice that fits the scenario and genre that they are working within.
Yet with all this discussion on the rhetorical stance, must students reach a proper balance and platform with these three elements? That I do not know as well. However, I have seen students aware of these elements to also have a better understanding of the writing process itself. I have also seen that once they understand these concepts, they gained a threshold that transfers to other genres of writing. Understanding these concepts are vital. Vital in the sense of transference, where they can apply their writing knowledge to business letters, proposals, emails, and even TXT—genres of writing that students will face in the “real world.” There is no one genre of “academic writing,” all writing within academia has different form and function; not all writing done within the institution equates to the same. Hence, an understanding of the rhetorical stance allows for students to dissect each genre that they face, and they can transfer this knowledge to other fields. Whether this transfers through a high road or low road, mindful or reflexive, is not the question—that knowledge transfers and that we show our students how it transfers intrigues me the most. As Yancey puts it, “at the heart of the contention is the issue of generalizability: is the activity in question—for example writing—on where generalizability from one iteration of practice to another possible?” (Yancey 6). Can my students be able to use the knowledge they gain and be able to apply it to somewhere else? That also I do not know.
But I do know one thing; students do not come into the classroom as blank slates, and we do not start teaching a raw piece of clay. No. They come in with prior knowledge (however, some of this knowledge is misguided and therefore another discussion)—knowledge that they build upon. I believe that such a course, “when planned and carried through with intelligence and flexibility, can be one of the most important of all educational experiences” (Booth 165).
However, sometimes the prior knowledge that they bring into the classroom is not effective to writing, and the student must develop a new way of thinking. This state of “critical incident,” while a setback for prior learning, “provides the opportunity for conceptual breakthrough” (Yancey 120). As Yancey explains, a critical incident is where a student’s effort does not yield a desire result, or the students improves minimally. It is here where we need to foster motivation and equip the student with the knowledge of genre and a rhetorical stance so the student can succeed in such situation. For the conceptual breakthrough to occur, the student needs to have the ability to maneuver through writing and have the ability to adapt to a new situation; hence why an understanding of genre and a rhetorical stance is important in my pedagogy.
While I still consider my classroom as a project--an ongoing project--it is a project that allows students to transfer the knowledge gained and have the ability to write in various forms of writing. If we teach approaches to university writing, I feel confident knowing that students will have the ability to connect various methods and have the ability to write in multiple genres. This is at the core of my pedagogical stance: the ability to give students tool that they will use throughout their academic career, and into the “real world,” as they might say. As for Mr. Lee, he showed up to my office a week later, with an essay that had a rhetorical stance, and an understanding of the genre as well. What more could I ask for?