Precis: “Utopic Visions, The Technopoor, and Public Access: Writing Technologies in a Community Literacy Program” by Jeffrey T. Grabill

In the excitement and sense of possibility that has accompanied the implementation of computer technologies and networking into the classroom and business place, assumptions about who can access those technologies have provided yet another cultural opportunity to designate the “haves” from the “have nots” in society. Indeed, computer skill and knowhow is increasingly becoming a currency in the public realm, invaluable for securing jobs and proper educations. Unfortunately, however, this is not a level playing field. Access is not a universal phenomenon. Depending on race, ethnicity, and social class, the ability to locate accessible technology and, just as importantly, correctly and effectively learn and apply that technology is difficult to impossible.

Community learning centers and adult basic education classes would seem to be ideal cites to remedy some of these disparities. That possibility certainly exists, but not to its full potential. Even programs benefiting from government, state, or local assistance find themselves struggling with red tape and poor resources that are prohibitive to maximizing the learning potential for those seeking access to both technology and a social strata from which they’ve been excluded. Administrators and instructors have the best of intentions, but are not given the necessary resources for success. Properly functioning software are limited. Computers are older and slow, and when they break down, instructors must simply accept that they’re “low man on the totem pole” and wait for their turn, whenever that might be. Furthermore, program instructors often have little to no experience with/understanding of the skills they are supposed to be helping the students acquire. They aren’t given the proper training. As a result of all of these factors, more time is spent grappling with poor technology and clumsily grasping for rudimentary skills rather than attaining real computer literacy and an understanding of how other knowledge and skills can be integrated with that literacy to make them more successful participants in social market.

As composition and computer instructors at the university level, we have the voice and means and are obligated to help level accessibility disparities in the larger community, particularly in public literacy programs and libraries.

Precis: “Community-Service Pedagogy” by Laura Julier

Precis: “Community-Service Pedagogy” by Laura Julier

Born of John Dewey’s philosophy of academic study through civil action, community-service pedagogy advocates for curriculum that expands the physical and metaphorical limits of the classroom – from four walls to the greater community – for the betterment of society and student. Service learning affords students the opportunity to not only acquire and hone practical skills, but also experience “other” discourses, understand the mutability of meaning based on context, and, as Zlotkowski postulates, use this new awareness to alter the prevailing discourse. Other benefits of implementing service-learning curriculum include:

Decentering of the classroom, as writing assignments for agencies outside of the academy allows students to disengage from the “write what the teacher wants” mentality.

The rhetorical and practical features of civic service and social interaction are fertile ground from which to experience the nuances of writing and discourse.

Alan S. Waterman’s “Service-Learning: Applications from the Research” sheds light on the pedagogy, one which people have been doing for awhile, though it was not explicitly referred to as service-learning. Waterman designates two forebearers of service-learning pedagogy:

The “American Tradition,” as embodied and practiced by political/social leaders (like Thomas Jefferson) and government sponsored civic groups (like the Peace Corps).

Dewey’s philosophy that community is not tangential to but an essential component of a well-rounded liberal education, one that sends students into the world both intellectually and socially enlightened and motivated.

According to Paolo Freire, effective community-service learning requires praxis – the continual dialogue of action and reflection. In the absence of praxis, students merely serve in a vacuum, making it an isolated experience unconnected to other aspects of their lives. The Wingspread Report’s “Principles of Good Practice for Combining Service and Learning” is concerned with these issues, stressing the importance of students consciously considering the meaning of their service and how it will tie into other aspects of their lives. Additionally, students need to work at establishing a balanced and reciprocal relationship between themselves and those they are helping. This will hopefully prevent in students a tone of patronization or a feeling that the volunteer work is meant only to serve the student’s academic needs.

Curriculum based on service-learning requires special preparation and awareness from the teacher. Grading techniques are different, not quite as cut-and-dry, as writing assignments determined by the needs of and submitted to a specific agency. The agency decides the appropriateness and quality of the students’ work. The instructor, however, must still assign a grade to the project and will thus have to decide by which criteria they will evaluate the work. Again, the instructor must be deliberate about prompting students – through discussion or writing – to reflect on their volunteering experience, to consider what they’ve learned, how it is related to their academic work, and how their efforts have had an effect on the greater community.

Word Cloud: “Grammar, Grammars, and the Teaching of Grammar” by Patrick Hartwell

Precis: “Grammar, Grammars, and the Teaching of Grammar” by Patrick Hartwell

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The teaching of grammar in the composition classroom has been and remains a controversial, divisive issue and is one that may never be resolved for the two adamantly conflicting schools of thought. Though grammar instruction has been a matter of theory and discussion for well over a century, necessary and correct definitions of the concept(s) have yet to be synthesized. Before this can be done, some questions need to be taken into account:

Why is this issue so important?

What definitions are needed to best communicate the concept(s) of grammar?

What has research concluded about the grammar instruction?

How do we conceive language and what bearing does that have on the merits of grammar instruction?

With these questions in mind, the following grammar classifications arise:

Grammar 1: Internalized Grammar

Grammar 2: Scientific Grammar

Grammar 3: Usage

Grammar 4: School Grammar

Grammar 5: Stylistic Grammar

Grammar 1 is, in many ways, an instinctive and abstract construction of writing conventions. Oftentimes, people are unaware they have the knowledge. In other words, we can put it into practice, but can’t call up or verbalize the governing logic/rule when asked.

Grammar 2 is the scientific equivalent of Grammar 1 (more concerned about psychological rather than theoretical implications of language) and often complicates the knowledge that is made so natural when accessed as a Grammar 1 concept. These “rules,” when taught to students, actually tend to make grammar more abstract than it is when accessed unconsciously. It’s also a very unstable type of grammar, as different systems often have conflicting logic – yet another aspect that creates confusion for the grammar student.

Grammar 4 consists of the grammatical “incantations” commonly conveyed to students in schools. Again, this classification of knowledge often serves only to stoke students’ uncertainty and misunderstanding of language usage and is frequently the cause of grammatical errors. These rules are also “clear only if you know.”

Grammar 5 refers to the ways in which linguistics is used to teach prose style. This category has prompted two different schools of thought, both of which assume language manipulation as contextual rather than isolationist:

Romantic: A philosophical, not linguistic theory, considers grammar of negligible importance in the composition classroom, which should focus on meaning over form.

Classic: Teachers can provide “helpful suggestions” about style for basic writers.

Overall, formal grammar instruction has very little bearing on the effectiveness of writing. In fact, there is no correlation between acquisition of grammar skills and the ability to successfully use English. Fixation of regulation of grammar ultimately gives all power and agency to the teacher rather than the student, a classroom construction that needs to be eliminated. Theories of content and style need to be the focus of teacher research and practice and questions of grammar instruction need to be put to rest.

Precis: “The Making of Meaning” by Ann E. Berthoff

Precis: “The Making of Meaning” by Ann E. Berthoff

Student writing skills can be best developed by aiding them in understanding how their minds work in language to create meaning and compose well-developed text. The most vital notion teachers can impart to their students is the rhetorical understanding of composing as a process. There is, indeed, a fundamental difference between composition and composing, but many teachers fail to make that distinction or illuminate what sets the two apart. As a result, they also fail to guide their students toward a generative and successful creative process. Fortunately, pedagogical studies in this matter have begun to turn to developmental psychologist Vygotsky, who theorized about language and thought as a mutually occurring continuum. This is crucial in communicating the composing process to students, who often consider it outside of their realm of abilities to create written work. On the contrary, Any “active mind” makes meaning through thought, perception, writing – i.e. any method of communication. As “active minds” they create and form meaning – on the basis of past experiences, images, beliefs, perceptions – all the time. Thus, they continuously replicate the composition process, whether or not they’re conscious of it. It is the duty of the writing instructor to help them make this connection, to help them understand the value of chaos as a creative, formative matter from which they can mold meaning. It is the responsibility of the teacher to return language to students and allow them the freedom and safety to discover what it can do, how they can use it. They must be permitted to play with language within the chaos, shape and reshape it, start and restart it. Only in this way can they acquaint themselves and grow comfortable with the subjective natures and ambiguities of language, the importance of context and perspective in meaning.

With those skills, students can gain a more sophisticated understanding of the composition process as a dialogue between the authors’ competing voices and the audience’s perspective. The aim is to teach them to “think about thinking” and return again and again to ideas in order to “interpret interpretations,” thus driving home the inherently social nature of writing as a means through which to reach others and create community. Students perceived as developmentally lagging in language and learning skills require the same creative freedom as any other student. Indeed, every student has mental capabilities that can’t be quantified or encompassed by a concept like “intelligence.” Humans are naturally “language animals.” They regularly take part in linguistic activities any time their mind operates. Chaos is a priceless tool in providing students the strategies for tapping into their natural imagination. Choice is a key function in the composing process, but choice is impossible without alternatives – chaos is the basis for these alternatives. Once in the chaos, they can reemerge by giving shape to it. This is instinct – the mind continually makes meaning through ordering and comparisons. It’s the basis of the composing process. And that’s exactly what students need to recognize – they already compose. The most effective way to help students make order from the chaos is also the simplest. With one line down the center of a page, students can begin classifying ideas through opposition, a very accessible strategy because they already do it. This is a process of identifying and naming ideas and grouping them together – grouping together the groups creates the whole. As students recognize the creative dialectic in action and become conscious of their ideas developing, they’re better equipped to enter into the composition process and emerge with more perceptive and mature writing.

Presentation: Collaborative Pedagogy

Please divide yourselves into groups of three and design a collaborative learning activity/project for your first-year composition class. Consider the following variables:

•Format – website, mailing list, discussion board, written project, etc.
•Timeline – decided by you, the students, or both
•Autonomy – How much freedom will you give students in designing, directing, implementing the project?
•Groups – Will you choose the size and members of groups? Will you let the students do that?
•Grading – How will the project be graded? Will you involve students in that decision? If so, in what way?
•You – How and in what capacity (or capacities) will you be involved with the project?
Optional: components or stages of project

In an ideal situation and based on your intentions, how would this project work in execution? Additionally, would you prefer them to work dialogically or hierarchically?

How and why might the project not work?

How would you handle the following dilemma and how might it affect (positively, negatively, not at all) the outcome of the project:

Dilemma 1: One student is taking on the bulk of the work, one is doing nothing, and another is/others are participating to varying degrees. The student doing the most work is upset.

Dilemma 2: A student is strongly protesting the group assignment. She or he claims to work best by her/himself.

Dilemma 3: Students in the group are frequently at odds over division of work and type of work assigned to each member, and cannot reach consensus on anything.

Dilemma 4: The voluntary/loosely assigned system you’ve established (email, blog post, discussion board post, website construction) is being used minimally and the posts are/work is of little substance. The learning experience you’d hoped to provide with the project is going nowhere.

For further discussion:

• Can collaborative pedagogy be successfully implemented into the first-year comp classroom? In what way(s)?
• Which of today’s articles did you find most helpful/informative in regards to practical classroom implementation of collaborative pedagogy?
• Do or have you used collaborative writing in your classes? If not, would you?
• Do you prefer a particular model of collaborative learning? Why?
• Do you think there’s a difference between collaborative online projects and those done in real time? How so? Do you believe one is more successful than the other?
• How might John Trimbur’s idea of oppositional consensus be applied to the classroom? What would those conversations sound like?
• Do you believe the collaborative learning model is better than or preferable to “traditional” classroom methods?
• How does collaborative pedagogy compare to the other pedagogies we’ve studied this semester?

Word Cloud: “Collaborative Pedagogy” by Rebecca Moore Howard

Word Cloud: “When Blogging Goes Bad: A Cautionary Tale about Blogs, Email Lists, Discussion, and Interaction” by Steven Krause