The Politics of implementing Online Directed Self-Placement
Crusan nailed it. Let students figure it out (after we explain what the courses offer) and the department saves a bundle of money and time, plus, according to Crusan, it's equally if not more effective. As soon as I'm teaching again, this will be on top of the list of things to discuss at departmental meetings.
Investing in Assessment
For any of us who have taken the GRE or other timed essay exam, we know how ridiculous the setup is - we teach process writing and revision and feedback and then we're given 30 minutes to discuss whether war is more ethical now than it was in the past. "A single essay does not allow the assessment of the total range of a writer's ability because it does not provide opportunities for students to express themselves in more than a single genre for a single purpose," (225) so how about this, no more timed essays. They're artificial and even when students do well on them, it doesn't tell us enough about what they've learned or how they write.
Ferris (2003)
Here's where you're allowed to hate me. L2 seems to lag behind in terms of theory with L1. L1 gets (a good portion) of its ideas from literature scholarship; we appropriate it when appropriate. When we do come up with something for L1, L2 grabs it a decade later and finds problems, mostly because you can't substitute one context for another and expect everyting will stay the same. L1 research says how we should respond to writing (and sorry Ferris (1999), it ain't with grammar), but that's for L1 contexts. L2 is its own thing, it's so much more complex than L1 settings that we should be borrowing from you.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Speech and Writing
Since I'm a big fan of Elbow, I'll use two of his arguments here to start:
1. "It's important to realize that standard edited written English is no one's mother tongue." Enlisting Speaking and Spoken Languages for Writing.
In this sense, we're all learning another language when we write. White English may be closer to SEWE, but it's still a new language. Academic genre writing (research, scholarship, book reviews, rejoinders, stubs, articles, chapters, editorials, narratives) is another sub-language of the written language that we learn. No one speaks in written English.
2. "Indelible writing, ephemeral speech ... Speech is indelible, Writing [is] ephemeral" The Shifting Relationships between Speech and Writing.
When you write something down, it's permanently there, it's "in writing," like contracts and financial receipts, but it's also revisable, reviewable, and can be changed. Speech is permanent, once you say something, you can't take it back, but you can modify and fine-tune your point, so it can be changed.
We should be looking at the reading-writing-speaking connection, at the ear-eye-mouth connection, otherwise we're neglecting a major tool of communication. Seloni's participants read authors, wrote papers, and spoke with each other about it. The connections we make in formal and informal verbal communication are just as necessary to our understanding as reading or writing.
As for the discussions of Seloni's participants, they're right. Writing professionally means conforming to certain conventions when you start out until you're a "big name" at which point you can do whatever you want. But that's not any different from any other field. We all start as interns, as freshmen that get pushed around by the seniors. If you want to make an album, you do what the record executive says, then, later, when you've made them enough money, you do what you want.
The question is, do we become the "big name" because we followed the conventions of academic writing, or because we did something different?
1. "It's important to realize that standard edited written English is no one's mother tongue." Enlisting Speaking and Spoken Languages for Writing.
In this sense, we're all learning another language when we write. White English may be closer to SEWE, but it's still a new language. Academic genre writing (research, scholarship, book reviews, rejoinders, stubs, articles, chapters, editorials, narratives) is another sub-language of the written language that we learn. No one speaks in written English.
2. "Indelible writing, ephemeral speech ... Speech is indelible, Writing [is] ephemeral" The Shifting Relationships between Speech and Writing.
When you write something down, it's permanently there, it's "in writing," like contracts and financial receipts, but it's also revisable, reviewable, and can be changed. Speech is permanent, once you say something, you can't take it back, but you can modify and fine-tune your point, so it can be changed.
We should be looking at the reading-writing-speaking connection, at the ear-eye-mouth connection, otherwise we're neglecting a major tool of communication. Seloni's participants read authors, wrote papers, and spoke with each other about it. The connections we make in formal and informal verbal communication are just as necessary to our understanding as reading or writing.
As for the discussions of Seloni's participants, they're right. Writing professionally means conforming to certain conventions when you start out until you're a "big name" at which point you can do whatever you want. But that's not any different from any other field. We all start as interns, as freshmen that get pushed around by the seniors. If you want to make an album, you do what the record executive says, then, later, when you've made them enough money, you do what you want.
The question is, do we become the "big name" because we followed the conventions of academic writing, or because we did something different?
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
The Ear-Eye Connection
Reid says error isn't "the overriding consideration for the teacher or the student," but there's little else that distinguishes the writing of ear and eye learners. She also says it's "essential to approach each student as an individual, and to identify students' needs," but doesn't all research, by its nature, essentialize, generalize, and stereotype?
The writing errors of ear learners aren't really errors. Mishearing why for while, or making subject-verb agreement errors in writing "This student needs to get their act together," are based on communicative usage, on the evolving nature of the language. A codified system of rules for language use demarcates those with education and those without, but language use is more important in determining meaning and correctness. If everyone makes the same mistake, it's no longer a mistake. When Dante wrote the Divine Comedy, he wrote it in a vulgar (read: vernacular) form of Latin that was spoken as a dialect by the working class - we now call that dialect Italian. The same is true for English as far as I know, it's largely German vocabulary spoken with a French accent.
At some point, the changes of usage in English, from the British, American, or otherwise, will constitute a new language based on how we use it and not on the rule systems we attribute. We're not at that point, yet, though, so we still mark errors.
The writing errors of ear learners aren't really errors. Mishearing why for while, or making subject-verb agreement errors in writing "This student needs to get their act together," are based on communicative usage, on the evolving nature of the language. A codified system of rules for language use demarcates those with education and those without, but language use is more important in determining meaning and correctness. If everyone makes the same mistake, it's no longer a mistake. When Dante wrote the Divine Comedy, he wrote it in a vulgar (read: vernacular) form of Latin that was spoken as a dialect by the working class - we now call that dialect Italian. The same is true for English as far as I know, it's largely German vocabulary spoken with a French accent.
At some point, the changes of usage in English, from the British, American, or otherwise, will constitute a new language based on how we use it and not on the rule systems we attribute. We're not at that point, yet, though, so we still mark errors.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Reading, Readings, and the Teaching of Reading
A sticker if you know where that title comes from. A dollar if you guess why I chose it.
Bloome – Reading as a Social Process
1. Bloome says that reading contexts help regulate group interactions. Is there anything unique to reading that makes it influence group interactions/identity differently from interpersonal communication, speech, or writing? What special properties does reading have to influence our relationships?
2. Is reading always a social process? When students read independently and in isolation with no intention of reporting their findings to other students, where is the social dimension?
3. “What kinds of social, linguistic, and cognitive demands are recurrently made of students during reading events?” (Bloome)
Hirvela – Chapter 1
“An Overview of Reading-Writing Connections”
1. What is it about reading that makes it such a powerful resource for writing? What is fundamentally going on during reading that links the development of its skills with writing? We can draw a parallel that listening is a resource for speaking, but doesn’t the technology of texts create a vastly more complex interaction?
2. Given your teaching context, what is the best kind of reading for you to assign to your students? You can think of this in terms of genre or modes or anything else. Why do you assign those specific texts (or why does your administration)? What do they hope students will gain? The recurring debate over whether we should assign literature or non-fiction, essays, cultural products pops up occasionally. Make your case.
3. “[Reading] needs to be incorporated into the writing classroom, but what has not been made clear is what proportion of a writing course the reading component should occupy. What recommendation would you make for the proportioning of reading and writing?...On what basis should such a decision be made?” (40).
“We must be careful not to answer the questions too quickly. Our initial impressions and answers may reflect our own biases and ethnocentric ways of thinking about reading and the world” (Bloome).
Bloome – Reading as a Social Process
1. Bloome says that reading contexts help regulate group interactions. Is there anything unique to reading that makes it influence group interactions/identity differently from interpersonal communication, speech, or writing? What special properties does reading have to influence our relationships?
2. Is reading always a social process? When students read independently and in isolation with no intention of reporting their findings to other students, where is the social dimension?
3. “What kinds of social, linguistic, and cognitive demands are recurrently made of students during reading events?” (Bloome)
Hirvela – Chapter 1
“An Overview of Reading-Writing Connections”
1. What is it about reading that makes it such a powerful resource for writing? What is fundamentally going on during reading that links the development of its skills with writing? We can draw a parallel that listening is a resource for speaking, but doesn’t the technology of texts create a vastly more complex interaction?
2. Given your teaching context, what is the best kind of reading for you to assign to your students? You can think of this in terms of genre or modes or anything else. Why do you assign those specific texts (or why does your administration)? What do they hope students will gain? The recurring debate over whether we should assign literature or non-fiction, essays, cultural products pops up occasionally. Make your case.
3. “[Reading] needs to be incorporated into the writing classroom, but what has not been made clear is what proportion of a writing course the reading component should occupy. What recommendation would you make for the proportioning of reading and writing?...On what basis should such a decision be made?” (40).
“We must be careful not to answer the questions too quickly. Our initial impressions and answers may reflect our own biases and ethnocentric ways of thinking about reading and the world” (Bloome).
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
I don't want to kill my parents
Freud says something like that - that if you want to become a self-actualized adult, you have to psychologically kill your parents, cut off ties with them, do what you want, forge your own way.
Scholarship does the same thing, though I wonder how effective it is. The process movement comes along and changes the game, kills the current-traditional rhetoricists. Then the socio-epistemic movement kills the cognitivists. Now we have context-ecology-social-genre theorists killing everyone. It's unnecessary.
Genre theory and the need for social contextualization in student writing is an adequate idea on its own merit. Raising awareness of the world external to the student may create rhetorically sophisticated writing, may make the student more conscious of their language use, may increase cultural knowledge, may foster a sense of community. These are important goals. I don't see why writers feel the need to dismantle previous theory to make room for the new. There's plenty of room for everyone.
The criticisms against process are based on what Maxine Hairston calls a "facile, non-logical leap," (Diversity, Ideology, and Teaching Writing 25). How does asking students to write about themselves recreate dominant power structures, particularly when that writing isn't graded? When you write about yourself, your culture, how does that disadvantage you from the dominant culture? Hyland says the process model is "based on individual motivation, personal freedom, self-expression and learner responsibility, all of which might be stifled by too much teacher intervention" (19). So we get rid of it? Ignore it? Replace it? Nonsense.
I see no conflict between process models and genre-social-context-ecology models. Both systems do what we want for students, they are not mutually exclusive, and indeed, they work better in conjunction with each other.
Scholarship does the same thing, though I wonder how effective it is. The process movement comes along and changes the game, kills the current-traditional rhetoricists. Then the socio-epistemic movement kills the cognitivists. Now we have context-ecology-social-genre theorists killing everyone. It's unnecessary.
Genre theory and the need for social contextualization in student writing is an adequate idea on its own merit. Raising awareness of the world external to the student may create rhetorically sophisticated writing, may make the student more conscious of their language use, may increase cultural knowledge, may foster a sense of community. These are important goals. I don't see why writers feel the need to dismantle previous theory to make room for the new. There's plenty of room for everyone.
The criticisms against process are based on what Maxine Hairston calls a "facile, non-logical leap," (Diversity, Ideology, and Teaching Writing 25). How does asking students to write about themselves recreate dominant power structures, particularly when that writing isn't graded? When you write about yourself, your culture, how does that disadvantage you from the dominant culture? Hyland says the process model is "based on individual motivation, personal freedom, self-expression and learner responsibility, all of which might be stifled by too much teacher intervention" (19). So we get rid of it? Ignore it? Replace it? Nonsense.
I see no conflict between process models and genre-social-context-ecology models. Both systems do what we want for students, they are not mutually exclusive, and indeed, they work better in conjunction with each other.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
10.21.09 Reflection
Chapter 1
Fu and Matoush make a decent case for students growing into the language on their terms, like we do when we're not in the classroom, like we do naturally. The English we learn in class (writing) is never the English we speak in conversation. Standard English is a second language for everyone, though being a native speaker helps.
How should teachers assess the kind of writing presented in Chapter 1? If you don't know Chinese (China again?) large chunks of the text are incomprehensible. I want students to switch between the transition phases as they need to, but I get a paycheck and they need me to put letters into the registrar. Someone else needs to figure this out.
Chapter 2
Villalva describes the high-school project, but nothing crystalized for me. Sentences like this didn't help: "In sum, macrosystemic influences, internal mesosystemic influences, external mesosystemic influences, and cohort-based microsystems all shaped writing instruction at Cerro Vista High School in a variety of ways" (47). What does that mean? Stuff influences writing. Argh.
Socioliterate Approaches
I feel like I have to defend the personal expressive writing that Johns criticizes. The personal essay is meant as a step to develop voice before the student gets into the rhetorical-awareness models of ecocomposition and context-focused writing. Understanding the effects of external media, locations and geographies is cognitively more complex than asking a student to write a simplified and interesting personal essay. Johns acknowledges this, "they may not have the metalanguage necessary to discuss texts" (289). Expressive writing is one part of a scaffolded composition cycle. I don't see a conflict between the two modes and I disagree that the individualism placed on personal essays is only available to middle-class native students.
One last contention - "On the other hand, if we become fixated on making our students discover their personal identities, or feel good, then other goals, much more important to their future lives, will be neglected" (294). Peter Elbow has a response to this: "[I]t is possible to make peace between opposites by alternating between them so that you are never trying to do contrary things at any one moment" (Embracing Contraries in the Teaching Process 71).
Fu and Matoush make a decent case for students growing into the language on their terms, like we do when we're not in the classroom, like we do naturally. The English we learn in class (writing) is never the English we speak in conversation. Standard English is a second language for everyone, though being a native speaker helps.
How should teachers assess the kind of writing presented in Chapter 1? If you don't know Chinese (China again?) large chunks of the text are incomprehensible. I want students to switch between the transition phases as they need to, but I get a paycheck and they need me to put letters into the registrar. Someone else needs to figure this out.
Chapter 2
Villalva describes the high-school project, but nothing crystalized for me. Sentences like this didn't help: "In sum, macrosystemic influences, internal mesosystemic influences, external mesosystemic influences, and cohort-based microsystems all shaped writing instruction at Cerro Vista High School in a variety of ways" (47). What does that mean? Stuff influences writing. Argh.
Socioliterate Approaches
I feel like I have to defend the personal expressive writing that Johns criticizes. The personal essay is meant as a step to develop voice before the student gets into the rhetorical-awareness models of ecocomposition and context-focused writing. Understanding the effects of external media, locations and geographies is cognitively more complex than asking a student to write a simplified and interesting personal essay. Johns acknowledges this, "they may not have the metalanguage necessary to discuss texts" (289). Expressive writing is one part of a scaffolded composition cycle. I don't see a conflict between the two modes and I disagree that the individualism placed on personal essays is only available to middle-class native students.
One last contention - "On the other hand, if we become fixated on making our students discover their personal identities, or feel good, then other goals, much more important to their future lives, will be neglected" (294). Peter Elbow has a response to this: "[I]t is possible to make peace between opposites by alternating between them so that you are never trying to do contrary things at any one moment" (Embracing Contraries in the Teaching Process 71).
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Leki, Kubota and Abels
I feel like I want to be on We Feel Fine.
Chapter 3
Ilona Leki. "The Legacy of First-Year Composition."
1. Why should L2 be housed in a separate department, given autonomy from Literature/Composition, and provided better support when L2 students account for such a small percentage of the total student population?
2. Discussing placement exams, Leki says most "are specifically writing exams. As such, they automatically disadvantage anyone who is still in the process of acquiring written academic English" (65). Don't all exams disadvantage anyone who is still in the process of acquiring what the exam is testing? What alternatives can you think of that would place students in appropriate courses as they enter the academy?
3. "Beyond whatever help L2 students can get in writing centers, because first-year composition ends in a year, so does academic support for L2 writing at many universities" (67). What ways can a university continue to support L2 writing instruction after the first-year? What will you do to affect those changes at your own institutions?
Chapter 4
Ryuko Kubota and Kimberly Abels. "Improving Institutional ESL/EAP Support for International Students: Seeking the Promised Land."
1. Though it may be a step in the right direction, how effective do you think adding one or two additional language classes for international students at UNC-CH will be? If the program to increase support is to succeed, shouldn't the university take a process approach to language acquisition instead of providing service courses?
2. The authors list several prevailing attitudes regarding international students/languages (84-85). What can ESL instructors do to change these attitudes considering they deal primarily with students who do not hold those attitudes?
3. The authors provide generalizations about the advantages and disadvantages of their three models. What other problems and benefits can you imagine from each of the three models? Can you think of a fourth model?
Quick point - "UNC-CH has no academic program in TESOL or applied linguistics and that the departments that could logically house this program - namely, education, English, and linguistics - all expressed disinterest in getting involved in developing a program" (86).
When asked if they wanted to include Applied Linguistics, the Linguistics department declined. You've got to be kidding me.
Chapter 3
Ilona Leki. "The Legacy of First-Year Composition."
1. Why should L2 be housed in a separate department, given autonomy from Literature/Composition, and provided better support when L2 students account for such a small percentage of the total student population?
2. Discussing placement exams, Leki says most "are specifically writing exams. As such, they automatically disadvantage anyone who is still in the process of acquiring written academic English" (65). Don't all exams disadvantage anyone who is still in the process of acquiring what the exam is testing? What alternatives can you think of that would place students in appropriate courses as they enter the academy?
3. "Beyond whatever help L2 students can get in writing centers, because first-year composition ends in a year, so does academic support for L2 writing at many universities" (67). What ways can a university continue to support L2 writing instruction after the first-year? What will you do to affect those changes at your own institutions?
Chapter 4
Ryuko Kubota and Kimberly Abels. "Improving Institutional ESL/EAP Support for International Students: Seeking the Promised Land."
1. Though it may be a step in the right direction, how effective do you think adding one or two additional language classes for international students at UNC-CH will be? If the program to increase support is to succeed, shouldn't the university take a process approach to language acquisition instead of providing service courses?
2. The authors list several prevailing attitudes regarding international students/languages (84-85). What can ESL instructors do to change these attitudes considering they deal primarily with students who do not hold those attitudes?
3. The authors provide generalizations about the advantages and disadvantages of their three models. What other problems and benefits can you imagine from each of the three models? Can you think of a fourth model?
Quick point - "UNC-CH has no academic program in TESOL or applied linguistics and that the departments that could logically house this program - namely, education, English, and linguistics - all expressed disinterest in getting involved in developing a program" (86).
When asked if they wanted to include Applied Linguistics, the Linguistics department declined. You've got to be kidding me.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
10.7.09 - England won
England won. I had nothing to do with it as far as I know, but in the 1700s when major European powers were snatching up lands occupied by cultures who hadn't developed gunpowder, England snatched the most. Hence, we are in the TESOL program and not TJSOL or TRSOL or TASOL*. English is the language that grants economic mobility and status. Is it possible, Canagarajah asks, to acquire an imperialist language without being imperialized? I think so, but you need to be aware that learning a language is the same as learning that language's culture. It will appropriate you if you're not careful, but you can carve a unique space for yourself by appropriating English into your own language/culture. One way to do this is by accepting and promoting your own vernacular in English contexts. People will take issue, but that's something they'll have to deal with - don't make it your concern.
The Braine article was disappointing. What I gathered from it was that L2 graduate students gain academic literacy through academic relationships. And that's where it ends. Where is the second half of this article?
As for Kapper, her method is flawed because state boundaries, for the most part, are arbitrary. The east coast is mostly based on rivers and mountains, but even those geographical boundaries do not account for concentrations of specific populations. Additionally, she groups second-language scholars and learners as one category. Isn't that what Canagarajah just told us not to do? One last thing - the article reads like a phone book.
* For those of you taking bets, I was referring to Japanese, Russian, and Arabic.
The Braine article was disappointing. What I gathered from it was that L2 graduate students gain academic literacy through academic relationships. And that's where it ends. Where is the second half of this article?
As for Kapper, her method is flawed because state boundaries, for the most part, are arbitrary. The east coast is mostly based on rivers and mountains, but even those geographical boundaries do not account for concentrations of specific populations. Additionally, she groups second-language scholars and learners as one category. Isn't that what Canagarajah just told us not to do? One last thing - the article reads like a phone book.
* For those of you taking bets, I was referring to Japanese, Russian, and Arabic.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
9.29 - Plagiarism
China again?
Pennycook cites Kearney's three paradigms of imagination, linking the mimetic with China's view of authorship. We know the mimetic, or divine inspiration, is a busted romantic ideal. The western alternative, somewhere between the productive and parodic may be problematic, but at least we know writers aren't struck with thunderbolts when they create. We know the old view isn't the way writers write. Why, then, do we not bust China's view? We can all agree that denying women the right to vote is wrong, right?* We can universally get behind that as a basic human right, right? Where is the line drawn between culture ("We shouldn't judge them using our values, that's just the way they are") versus the continuing push toward modernization/globalization ("We are going to force these countries to abandon slavery and get with the program whether they want to or not")?
Plagiarism isn't slavery and it isn't oppression, but if the academy is going to function the way it needs to, everyone has to get with the program. Minor citation issues are one thing and are easily correctable, but the wholesale reproduction of a text (or patchwork reproduction) is something none of us should tolerate.
We're inextricably linked with the writing of our past. China's view of plagiarism derives from Confucian values (Bloch). The West's view of leniency toward plagiarism derives from Christian notions of forgiveness and absolution.
Depending on how the conversation goes tomorrow, I might just scribble out Pennycook's name and write my own - then hand that in as my course paper.
*That sentence is my ten (ki-shoo-ten-ketsu). Take that, Kaplan.
Pennycook cites Kearney's three paradigms of imagination, linking the mimetic with China's view of authorship. We know the mimetic, or divine inspiration, is a busted romantic ideal. The western alternative, somewhere between the productive and parodic may be problematic, but at least we know writers aren't struck with thunderbolts when they create. We know the old view isn't the way writers write. Why, then, do we not bust China's view? We can all agree that denying women the right to vote is wrong, right?* We can universally get behind that as a basic human right, right? Where is the line drawn between culture ("We shouldn't judge them using our values, that's just the way they are") versus the continuing push toward modernization/globalization ("We are going to force these countries to abandon slavery and get with the program whether they want to or not")?
Plagiarism isn't slavery and it isn't oppression, but if the academy is going to function the way it needs to, everyone has to get with the program. Minor citation issues are one thing and are easily correctable, but the wholesale reproduction of a text (or patchwork reproduction) is something none of us should tolerate.
We're inextricably linked with the writing of our past. China's view of plagiarism derives from Confucian values (Bloch). The West's view of leniency toward plagiarism derives from Christian notions of forgiveness and absolution.
Depending on how the conversation goes tomorrow, I might just scribble out Pennycook's name and write my own - then hand that in as my course paper.
*That sentence is my ten (ki-shoo-ten-ketsu). Take that, Kaplan.
Monday, September 21, 2009
9.23 - Voice
The American liberal educational system promotes the self. English as a language, as a rhetoric, as a culture - also promotes the self. The self is a necessary construct for power/dominance/authority resistance. When you learn English, you're learning a particular brand of individualism, and no one said it should be easy. If your socio-cultural norms make assertive writing difficult, you'll be at a disadvantage from other students. And if you were raised by a family of poets, you might have a hard time in math classes. You're a bright kid, you'll figure it out. If I write in a loud voice in China, I'd get corrected for it. And they'd be right for doing it.
If we can call the opposing view of voice in writing as collective, group-oriented, and interdependent, why do we accept that as a culture and resist attempts to change it? Why do we not call Freire's oppressive homeland his culture and leave it alone?
Voice in writing is a beautifully ambiguous metaphor - and that's why it works. Voice means whatever the student wants it to mean. It could mean style, it could mean distance, it could mean audience effect. Promoting voice does not mean you're ignoring the multiple voices that go into a text. It does not mean you are ignoring the social element. But it does mean a student will have to try on a different hat.
If we can call the opposing view of voice in writing as collective, group-oriented, and interdependent, why do we accept that as a culture and resist attempts to change it? Why do we not call Freire's oppressive homeland his culture and leave it alone?
Voice in writing is a beautifully ambiguous metaphor - and that's why it works. Voice means whatever the student wants it to mean. It could mean style, it could mean distance, it could mean audience effect. Promoting voice does not mean you're ignoring the multiple voices that go into a text. It does not mean you are ignoring the social element. But it does mean a student will have to try on a different hat.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
9.16.09 Reflection
Having heard but never known what CR was, this week's readings were interesting for their implications and frustrating for the ways scholars nit-pick. The main theme I saw from critics of CR was that nothing can be defined adequately to have a discussion. This is the dance of the post-modernists. We don't know what culture is, we don't know what language is, we can't define what "English" is (Casanave 38). My god, we have to start somewhere. Words have meaning, they have definitions, these definitions limit what we can discuss - and that's their point. If culture means everything, then it might as well mean nothing. The Atkinson/Matsuda conversation carried this further with the criticism that if CR is to become a genuine field, it must have a theoretical basis, or that it must start with observable data. We have to start somewhere. Don't worry if the term is limiting, don't worry if "intercultural" suggests "A" when you'd rather focus on "B". It's a word, we're smart enough to go beyond it. If the field isn't progressing, then we'll change it. Manufactured problems, imagined roadblocks, and self-indulgent musings on definitions get us nowhere - because even when successful, we end up tearing down the term because it's too limiting. It may be intellectually stimulating, but this kind of wheel-spinning gets nothing done.
As for the concept of CR or IR, it makes intuitive sense - we are composed from our language, our language shapes the way we think, what we can think, and how we communicate. A culture does not create a word until it needs one. A friend once told me of a small tribe in Africa that has no terms for directions, positions, or locations as we know of them. Instead, everything is referenced based on its location to either the River or the Forest. This culture does not have words for circumnavigate or kilometer because they don't need them. They have no use for the concept and have thus not established a definition.
I was speaking to Bee today and he raised an interesting point - if it is true, so what? What do we do with this knowledge? If we can identify general patterns of thought based on the writing of specific cultures (of course this won't apply to everyone, but if we can see patterns in the aggregate of texts), then what do we do? Sequester students? Call them out? How does this aid us in teaching? I don't know, but I'm sure it can help us somehow. The readings suggest that we're still trying to figure out the specifics.
As for the concept of CR or IR, it makes intuitive sense - we are composed from our language, our language shapes the way we think, what we can think, and how we communicate. A culture does not create a word until it needs one. A friend once told me of a small tribe in Africa that has no terms for directions, positions, or locations as we know of them. Instead, everything is referenced based on its location to either the River or the Forest. This culture does not have words for circumnavigate or kilometer because they don't need them. They have no use for the concept and have thus not established a definition.
I was speaking to Bee today and he raised an interesting point - if it is true, so what? What do we do with this knowledge? If we can identify general patterns of thought based on the writing of specific cultures (of course this won't apply to everyone, but if we can see patterns in the aggregate of texts), then what do we do? Sequester students? Call them out? How does this aid us in teaching? I don't know, but I'm sure it can help us somehow. The readings suggest that we're still trying to figure out the specifics.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Reflection 9.9.09
Atkinson's article made me think of how TESOL practitioners would benefit from composition theory while composition practitioners would benefit from second language theory. Second language writers make mistakes, as do native speakers. How 2L teachers view those mistakes may be misguided, because if they expect fluency and accuracy as they learn the language, they might be surprised to find that native speakers have similar troubles. My point is this: writing is difficult for everyone no matter the level of skill. Hemingway rewrites the final page of a novel eighty times before he gets it right - why should we expect students (of any level or context) to go through an easier process?
Matsuda's history of the post-process movement seems to fit with this idea that Composition and TESOL are not simply branches of the same tree, but that they are the same branch. TESOL-ers have a stronger background in the cognitive and cultural development of language learners compared to composition instructors who are generally insulated within an American context. But how much could we learn from each other, considering American native-speaking students are still learning English at the college level; as am I still.
Quick point about Casanave's call for sociopolitical research: I'd love for my dissertation to be a case study to avoid years of data collection, but I don't agree that it should be sociopolitically-oriented. Call me a self-deluded hypocrite if you want, but I'd rather aim for a neutral classroom than one that is politically-driven. I wouldn't know where to start or what to agenda to set, anyway.
Matsuda's history of the post-process movement seems to fit with this idea that Composition and TESOL are not simply branches of the same tree, but that they are the same branch. TESOL-ers have a stronger background in the cognitive and cultural development of language learners compared to composition instructors who are generally insulated within an American context. But how much could we learn from each other, considering American native-speaking students are still learning English at the college level; as am I still.
Quick point about Casanave's call for sociopolitical research: I'd love for my dissertation to be a case study to avoid years of data collection, but I don't agree that it should be sociopolitically-oriented. Call me a self-deluded hypocrite if you want, but I'd rather aim for a neutral classroom than one that is politically-driven. I wouldn't know where to start or what to agenda to set, anyway.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Second Language Autobiography
I don’t have a second language. I’ve often joked that once I master English, I’ll start working on another language. I took five semesters of Italian in high school and three semesters of Spanish in college, but, ten years later with no practice, it would be difficult for me to understand or be understood in those languages. The classes involved little writing, focusing instead on conversational fluency. What little writing I do remember made me understand the difficulty others may face when learning a new language. Idioms and contextualized expressions can’t be found in a dictionary, a fact I discovered while writing a brief scene for my Spanish class in which a customer orders string beans at a restaurant. When two other classmates performed the scene with me, the teacher laughed when I mentioned string beans. Apparently, what I had said translated literally as “rope balls.”
I was recently in
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