Critical Mass

Berthoff's critique of cognitive psychology based development models for writing capability and teaching is thoroughgoing and beautiful. Two points that seem to exemplify the critical attitude stood out to me.
The first is that we must think and question for ourselves. On page 331 in Crosstalk, she points out that “all method, including scientific method, entails interpretation...there are no raw data.” We live in a world where such cliches as “the numbers speak for themselves” and “you can't argue with facts” are considered as common sense. Their implicit authority is overlooked. The truth is, you should argue with facts and only people speak for themselves (and often they simply repeat others words, at that). By blindly accepting the false assumption that scientific evidence is unbiased and objective, we become trapped in a mechanistic worldview that values quantification and classification above all. The inherent problem in this view is that counting and labelling cannot lead to progress, change, or the solving of problems.
The other point is that there is no substitute training of the reflective mind. If we, as writer/teacher/thinkers cannot are unaware of our own conscious actions while doing X, then we mustn't assume that a lack of performance is the same as a lack of ability in doing X, whether that is writing a position paper or making a spicy lamb stew. Berthoff indicates this by her phrase, borrowed from Richards, of “'assisted invitations' to look carefully at what they are doing – observing a weed or drawing up a shopping list – in order to discover how to do it.” [italics hers] Simply put, we are good at things we need to be good at and new things are difficult because we haven't unconsciously practiced them.

And on to Myers. Be warned, after I drop the quote from page 445, you're all going to get a glimpse into the inside of my head. It does not follow a logical, or even chrono-logical order. It is a web of interconnected connotaive hooks. So, from the section titled Leonard and Reality:

“People have no simple unmediated perception of reality; the facts we are likely to take as reality are most likely parts of another ideological structure.”
Consensual Reality. I played that game, it was called Mage: the Ascension. The universe was made of what everybody in it thought it was. Damn Technocracy locked it all down. Leonard? Like Leonard nimoy? Mr. Spock, that's fits with the whole 'logic as king' thing. Still an ideology. Some people's real world is Star Trek. Mine is school and whiskey and friends and (lack of) women. Work pays bills, nothing more. Lying to myself again. The real world is all my life, and theirs. Perception, too, eh? Isn't what I see determined by where I look, what I look for? I only write for what I want audiences to see.

Hilldog

In one of her recent "down but not quite out yet" speeches, Senator Clinton used a line that poked me. She claims that she wants to revamp the education system into one where "Teachers can teach, not just test."

Just six little words.

I like 'em.

Here's hoping.

Petrie Dishes and Social Constructs

Ok. Any of you who know me, even marginally, know that I actually like Cultural Studies. It's an especially interesting discourse into which you can toss different theoretical systems and, well, play. So I approached the George and Trimbur article with a pretty open mind. I was just curious as to see how Cultural Studies could have it's application to composition teaching. After wading through 7 pages of familiar and unfamiliar names, dates and titles I got to the section on “Connections to Composition.”
I continued to wade.
And wade.
And wade.
Through such well argued positions as Berlin's “particularly rich discussion of. . . reading of cultural texts,” and Faigley's evaluation of “postmodernism not just as a theoretical problem but as a sensibility that increasingly pervades contemporary social life.” (GT 80-81) This is rigorous, challenging, possibly even brilliant stuff. There are worthwhile insights that should be considered and kept in mind, especially when you do cultural inquiry.
I was only left with one question. How is this composition?

Relatedly, I bounced up and down on the theoretical diving board and, somewhat more cynically, jackknifed into “Cognition, Convention, and Certainty” by Patricia Bizzel.
It was a belly flop on the order of Free Willy. Bizzel's critique of the Hayes and Flower article I was previously so enchanted with was reminiscent of Simon from American Idol, just more meticulous. However, I felt like a Beatles fan at an Oasis concert when she started to propose her own recommendations regarding “the fact that all discourse communities constitute and interpret experience.” (VV 401) Much like Robin felt about the stage process model in Hayes and Flower, I feel here. Bizzel is explicating audience rather well, but she's not really adding much by interchanging the term with discourse communities. She hasn't really added anything beyond a well described process pedagogy when she concludes that “the main casualty of our theoretical debate can be the debilitating individualism which adds so much to classroom strain.” (VV 409) A well-focused approach involving voice, purpose, and audience will serve this end just as well.

Trimbur. Consensus. Dissensus. With all his focus on “exploring the differential access to knowledge and the relations of power and status that structure this writing situation” (VV 471) as well as references to Habermass, Benjamin and Rorty that there wasn't so much as a nod to bio-power or Foucault. As it stands I must reiterate the above – it's great to inform the students of the social influence and ideological interpellations and limitations they live in the middle of, but emphasis based on their own voice and experience still seems to be the most realistic method for the actual learning as opposed to indoctrination in the classroom.

Tobin or Not Tobin, that is the Question

“...by not emphasizing the teaching of grammar, usage, audience analysis, and proofreading, college composition teachers were accused of failing students who needed to learn the conventions of academic discourse.” (Tobin in Tate, et al 11) This point seems like much of the highly contentious, emotionally charged discussion that's gone on in our class lately. But by the end of his essay, Tobin points out that, while he centers on Process Pedagogy, he has “minilessons” on ethos, citation format, and even the 5 paragraph essay. How can he be an adherent of Process and do this? He can because he can. Just because he likes one method doesn't mean that it must be the ONLY thing he teaches. By recognizing the usefulness for his students of other tidbits, details, and morsels he can make use of them and keep his classes well-rounded. Going to extreme positions doesn't usually work, whether it's in politics, arguments or classrooms.

Magic, Dragons, and Comp Theory

No, wait for it, stay with me. In Dungeons and Dragons there is a class of wizard known as an "invoker." So when I saw that "Writers conjure their vision [for the audience's role]...by using all the resources of language available to them to establish a broad, and ideally coherent, range of cues for the reader," (Ede and Lunsford in VV 90) I immediately imagined some jehovian-bearded scribe locked away in his basalt monolith, scratching spells into a moldy tome, envision the entities he would bind to his will with the mystic symbols thus inscribed.

The analogy isn't too far off really. That "range of cues" is like the summoning circle that you fit your audience into. Since you can't know exactly what will speak to exactly that audience, you imagine them as best you can and give them hints to make the reader match the writing. And anyone who hasn't felt the magic in a well written piece is a robot, lobotomized or dead.

Thinking Writing or Brain to Paper and back (Alot)

Flower and Hayes make a distinction in their piece on Cognitive Process that had never occurred to me, namely that what many of us call the writing process is really the stage process of the product completion. Aside from the somatic component of hitting a key or inscribing with a pen, the process is mentally interior (Moffet's Inner Speech, anyone?). By somewhat minutely describing the moment to moment activity of a writer in the midst of process they are using protocol analysis to do something that could really offend the intuitive, romantic writer.

They're using science, they're demystifying the process. They're aiming to destroy the art and replace it with a quantifiable account of the recursive, near-simultaneous acts a person goes through during the act of composing. If this positivist, experimental methodology is successful it could destroy the elitism of "talented writers." If they are able to isolate which manner of goal setting, monitoring and revision are most effective, it's feasible that anyone could become an effective writer.

Damn scientists.