Please visit my new blog entitled "A Rose In Winter" to view my final project. Here is the link:
If the link doesn't work, just type this address:
http://katpalmer12.blogspot.com/
Awesome class! Good luck to everyone!
Friday, April 29, 2011
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Beliefs About Writing and Learning-Revisited
Time to reflect and revisit ideas presented this semester and juxtapose them next to beliefs I had at the beginning of the semester. As a current teacher of writing -- in a high school composition class of senior Advanced Placement level students -- most of which are brighter and more motivated than those I would face in a standard freshmen composition class at the college level -- my standards for what it means to be a teacher of composition cannot really be altered much in terms of the high standards I expect of my students. I have always viewed writing with an open mind in terms of what can be done with it and have also resented the restrictions I have had in the past and present in terms of the methods I am allowed and not allowed to use in which to teach writing. So, this course has opened my eyes to what is now being considered in college level composition courses new ways in which to teach writing as new media influences the ways in which students compose. It has also inspired me to think of teaching composition in terms of viewing the act of writing as an act of composing. With that in mind, I will briefly revisit the original questions posed to us at the beginning of the semester.
1. Some people struggle with writing because they are not comfortable with the particular materiality of the writing process in which they are required to write. Some people would thrive better in a situation that allowed for them to compose in a media and format that is most comfortable for them and frees up the most potential for creative thinking.
2. I still believe some are more talented at writing than others and always will be. For someone like me to believe otherwise is to denigrate a talent that I myself possess. However, I do believe, with practice, writing, like any other skill, can be improved greatly. And hidden talents can be freed-up by alternative and varied methods of written composition.
3. I still go with my original answer. Writers need feedback and an audience for their work in order to improve. Maybe this can now be accomplished with our on-line writing communities and audiences, too.
4. I still enjoy picturing Hemingway at his old black Underwood in Paris. But, I realize that is an antiquated picture easily replaced by the lone blogger in a Starbuck's, shutting out the external world as he composes a new world on the screen.
5. I don't need to re-reflect on writing images in my head. At my age, there are too many. Writing and the teaching of writing has been a part of my life for a long time.
6. Technology is a fair weather friend and we must recognize its power and its shortcomings. Any skill that can be learned is technical in its way (like the writing process). Technology -- wonderful and exciting as it is -- should be used wisely as we should never become so dependent on it that we forget how to think and do things without it. And I don't say that with any kind of moral judgment or moral panic. I just think that even in Socrates time, when Plato and his buddies were scared that writing and reading would replace oral storytelling and teaching, the best remedy to that fear should have been to embrace the new but not forget the old. And lo and behold, hundreds of years later, we can still communicate, teach, tell stories, with only our mouth and our memories. Make new friends but keep the old.
7. My answer to 7 has not changed much except to add that technology has definitely changed the writing process. For me and everyone else. I know that I now never draft anything out in long hand on yellow legal pads anymore like I used to. First drafts disappear completely unless I think to electronically save each draft. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't save drafts. My brain works too fast for my handwriting skills -- my typing skills keep up better. I haven't quite mastered the art of thumb typing though, so my text messaging composition skills are lacking. Technology has definitely changed the writing process for the better for all writers. We just need to remember to safeguard our work against file corruption!
8. My answer hasn't changed much. Writing is social and private, but with the advent of the internet and text communication devices, it has become much more social than ever before and definitely an outlet for those who believe even their most private thoughts should be on display for anyone to see. Fun for the exhibitionist and voyeur in all of us!
9. If we can combat illiteracy using new media technologies I am all for it. I still believe much of the work and initiative needs to be taken by those who are considered illiterate. You can lead a horse to water and all that . . .
10. I am excited by the new possibilities for writing and rhetoric in the digital age. Like I said -- it's a good thing -- but we still need to remember some of the good methods of old and incorporate them with new. I am also excited about the possibility of teaching outside of the high school environment as hopefully at the college level, if the texts we have read are any indication of what is really happening out there, instructors of composition will be able to embrace new media technologies and teach composition in alternative and exciting ways that will be beneficial to students at all levels and backgrounds.
I have much to think about and learn. As a teacher, I have been, and always will be, the perpetual student.
1. Some people struggle with writing because they are not comfortable with the particular materiality of the writing process in which they are required to write. Some people would thrive better in a situation that allowed for them to compose in a media and format that is most comfortable for them and frees up the most potential for creative thinking.
2. I still believe some are more talented at writing than others and always will be. For someone like me to believe otherwise is to denigrate a talent that I myself possess. However, I do believe, with practice, writing, like any other skill, can be improved greatly. And hidden talents can be freed-up by alternative and varied methods of written composition.
3. I still go with my original answer. Writers need feedback and an audience for their work in order to improve. Maybe this can now be accomplished with our on-line writing communities and audiences, too.
4. I still enjoy picturing Hemingway at his old black Underwood in Paris. But, I realize that is an antiquated picture easily replaced by the lone blogger in a Starbuck's, shutting out the external world as he composes a new world on the screen.
5. I don't need to re-reflect on writing images in my head. At my age, there are too many. Writing and the teaching of writing has been a part of my life for a long time.
6. Technology is a fair weather friend and we must recognize its power and its shortcomings. Any skill that can be learned is technical in its way (like the writing process). Technology -- wonderful and exciting as it is -- should be used wisely as we should never become so dependent on it that we forget how to think and do things without it. And I don't say that with any kind of moral judgment or moral panic. I just think that even in Socrates time, when Plato and his buddies were scared that writing and reading would replace oral storytelling and teaching, the best remedy to that fear should have been to embrace the new but not forget the old. And lo and behold, hundreds of years later, we can still communicate, teach, tell stories, with only our mouth and our memories. Make new friends but keep the old.
7. My answer to 7 has not changed much except to add that technology has definitely changed the writing process. For me and everyone else. I know that I now never draft anything out in long hand on yellow legal pads anymore like I used to. First drafts disappear completely unless I think to electronically save each draft. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't save drafts. My brain works too fast for my handwriting skills -- my typing skills keep up better. I haven't quite mastered the art of thumb typing though, so my text messaging composition skills are lacking. Technology has definitely changed the writing process for the better for all writers. We just need to remember to safeguard our work against file corruption!
8. My answer hasn't changed much. Writing is social and private, but with the advent of the internet and text communication devices, it has become much more social than ever before and definitely an outlet for those who believe even their most private thoughts should be on display for anyone to see. Fun for the exhibitionist and voyeur in all of us!
9. If we can combat illiteracy using new media technologies I am all for it. I still believe much of the work and initiative needs to be taken by those who are considered illiterate. You can lead a horse to water and all that . . .
10. I am excited by the new possibilities for writing and rhetoric in the digital age. Like I said -- it's a good thing -- but we still need to remember some of the good methods of old and incorporate them with new. I am also excited about the possibility of teaching outside of the high school environment as hopefully at the college level, if the texts we have read are any indication of what is really happening out there, instructors of composition will be able to embrace new media technologies and teach composition in alternative and exciting ways that will be beneficial to students at all levels and backgrounds.
I have much to think about and learn. As a teacher, I have been, and always will be, the perpetual student.
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Author as Collector
After presenting the chapter "Box Logic" to our class, it got me thinking of the idea of author as collector. If composing is indeed a collection of ideas, who is to say how these ideas can or "should" be organized. (That reminds me, I have a very self-reflective friend, forever questing to improve himself, who is attempting to eliminate the word "should" from his personal vocabulary. The power of language, indeed!) But, back to organizing ideas. Poets have had a handle on this much longer. Why can't ideas be organized in ways that do not always make sense to a linear perspective? The writer does not even have to have total control of how the ideas are organized. The reader can also have an active role. All of this intrigues me as a writer and as a teacher of writing.
As an aspiring novelist, I know eventually I would like to experiment with alternate ways in which to organize a story. In class, I brought up Mary Robison's novel "Why Did I Ever" as an example. In it Robison reflects her main character "Money's" ADD by embracing the result of her own battle with writer's block. To combat it, Robison set about writing a series of ideas and character sketches on notecards which instead of turning into a "traditional" novel, she collected them, put them in an order that made "sense" to the story, and thus the novel was born. At first glance, one might think that this was taking the easy way out of creating a conventional novel plot structure, but as one critic notes, "Don't be fooled by the short sequences and the fast pace of Mary Robison's wry and tragic novel into thinking that this is a 'light' or an 'easy' book. Quite the contrary; each section, however brief, is finely crafted and perfectly in tune. The pathos that runs through the story -- and we get it in increasing doses as the novel unfolds -- is as heartbreaking as the humor is laugh out loud funny." To read excerpts or find this novel, see this link.
http://www.amazon.com/Why-Did-Ever-Mary-Robison/dp/1582432554/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1303572335&sr=1-1
Geoffrey Sirc's ideas intrigue me and inspire me to think of ways in which I can reach the creative and compositional sensibilities of my students by allowing them to be archivists and curators as well as architects of their ideas. As Sirc states: "So composition as craving: teaching students to feel desire and lack . . .I want students, for example, to be as obsessed about rap, as interested in creating their boxed homages to it as Cornell was about Fanny Cerrito. It's important, I think, to have students work with lived texts of desire . . . in order to develop a passional aesthetic like Cornell's and Benjamin's" (117).
In other words, I wish for my students as writers what I wish for myself. To not let form or structure hinder the voice and passion of their writing -- no matter what kind of writing it is. And to allow themselves to "collect" and "find" ideas that inspire them. As a teacher, and most intriguingly, as a writer, I hope to incorporate the objet trouve -- or "found object" into my writing assignments and my writing -- which as an idea is not new. Sirc quotes Apollonaire in 1912: "Prospectus, catalogues, posters, advertisements of all sorts which contain the poetry of our age: The collage technique, that art of reassembling fragments of preexisting images in such a way as to form a new image, is the most important innovation in the art of this century . . ." (118). As the aforementioned media was also new to that century, one cannot help but imagine what kinds of creations we as writers today can create using not only those types of media created 100 years ago that are still important today, but incorporating them with the new media of today. The possibilities are endless.
As an aspiring novelist, I know eventually I would like to experiment with alternate ways in which to organize a story. In class, I brought up Mary Robison's novel "Why Did I Ever" as an example. In it Robison reflects her main character "Money's" ADD by embracing the result of her own battle with writer's block. To combat it, Robison set about writing a series of ideas and character sketches on notecards which instead of turning into a "traditional" novel, she collected them, put them in an order that made "sense" to the story, and thus the novel was born. At first glance, one might think that this was taking the easy way out of creating a conventional novel plot structure, but as one critic notes, "Don't be fooled by the short sequences and the fast pace of Mary Robison's wry and tragic novel into thinking that this is a 'light' or an 'easy' book. Quite the contrary; each section, however brief, is finely crafted and perfectly in tune. The pathos that runs through the story -- and we get it in increasing doses as the novel unfolds -- is as heartbreaking as the humor is laugh out loud funny." To read excerpts or find this novel, see this link.
http://www.amazon.com/Why-Did-Ever-Mary-Robison/dp/1582432554/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1303572335&sr=1-1
Geoffrey Sirc's ideas intrigue me and inspire me to think of ways in which I can reach the creative and compositional sensibilities of my students by allowing them to be archivists and curators as well as architects of their ideas. As Sirc states: "So composition as craving: teaching students to feel desire and lack . . .I want students, for example, to be as obsessed about rap, as interested in creating their boxed homages to it as Cornell was about Fanny Cerrito. It's important, I think, to have students work with lived texts of desire . . . in order to develop a passional aesthetic like Cornell's and Benjamin's" (117).
In other words, I wish for my students as writers what I wish for myself. To not let form or structure hinder the voice and passion of their writing -- no matter what kind of writing it is. And to allow themselves to "collect" and "find" ideas that inspire them. As a teacher, and most intriguingly, as a writer, I hope to incorporate the objet trouve -- or "found object" into my writing assignments and my writing -- which as an idea is not new. Sirc quotes Apollonaire in 1912: "Prospectus, catalogues, posters, advertisements of all sorts which contain the poetry of our age: The collage technique, that art of reassembling fragments of preexisting images in such a way as to form a new image, is the most important innovation in the art of this century . . ." (118). As the aforementioned media was also new to that century, one cannot help but imagine what kinds of creations we as writers today can create using not only those types of media created 100 years ago that are still important today, but incorporating them with the new media of today. The possibilities are endless.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Students Who Teach Us
Note: Sorry again that I'm behind on the blogs. Hoping to catch up in a chunk this week while on spring break from my teaching job. Been thinking a lot about all of this material -- just haven't had a chance to get it all down. So, here goes.
I found the chapter on "Students Who Teach Us" to be alternately inspiring and infuriating. As a teacher, most of what I was "taught" by reading this chapter is the confirmation of an idea I have been harboring for a long time. Not every student -- not even every intelligent, talented student -- needs to be bound for a traditional academic college or university. What ever happenend to acknowledging that some people have talent for things other than what a traditional college education can bring them? If "David's" story teaches us nothing else, it is that a student like him has the talent and ambition to "make it" and become successful using the talent he is most interested in honing -- in his case -- web design. What would have been so wrong with steering a student like him to a school like, for instance, DeVry Technical University? I don't know much about a school like that, but I am hoping a traditional freshman comp. English class would not be part of the curriculum to succeed there. Why can't students go on to hone professional skills without someone attempting to make academics or academic writers out of them if they are just not interested in honing those types of skills? Shouldn't a person choose the kind of education that suits them best once they get out of the public school rat race? I've heard even from a few students at the "college prep" school where I teach that some of them wonder why they are being pushed to go to college when they really don't want to go. Why is it that we, as composition teachers, have to become all things to all students? Shouldn't there be classes geared toward different kinds of literacy and communication depending on the kind of field or interest that students have and want to participate in?
Cynthia L. Selfe points out that "to make it possible for students to practice, value, and understand a full range of literacies -- emerging, competing, and fading -- English composition teachers have got to be willing to expand their own understanding of composing beyond conventional bounds of the alphabetic. And we have to do so quickly or risk having composition studies become increasingly irrelevant" (54). While I can appreciate her point and her urgency, I also wonder how much we as composition teachers have to accept that written language is becoming increasingly irrelevant. Is it? Or are we just expanding our boundaries of "composition" to include other forms of communication. While I agree that non-alphabetic communication is compelling and more relevant to some students, I do feel that until that time that the written word and conventional forms of composition disappear all together (which is hopefully never), it is still the job of the composition teacher to teach students to think well on the page using the written word. We can and should expand our knowledge and acknowledge that some students have more talent in other forms of communication, but that is where "differentiated" instruction comes into play. If we teach to all forms of communicators -- the visual, the verbal, the tactile, and anything in between -- hopefully we can cover all bases and all learn from each other.
Which again begs the question: What is so wrong with taking what you "need" from education and leaving the rest? As Selfe states through David's case, that he does not "subscribe -- at least in the same way his teachers do -- to the print literacy values and practices that many faculty at his university still hold up as standards; he has found them, frankly, of limited relevance in his life, in his attempts to get an education and to enter a sphere of economic success and personal fulfillment . . .And, I suspect that if forced to choose between the traditional authority associated with a college degree -- based on the standards of and allegiance to -- print literacy -- and an opportunity to make a living as a Web designer . . . there would be little to sway him toward the degree" (54). Why does he need to make a choice? If he can gain "economic success and personal fulfillment" without the college degree, why does he need it? Is it society's guilty conscience that says he does? Why can't he attend a technical university instead that doesn't care if he can write a literary analysis or other traditionally academic paper? Or, is it that traditional universities, for fear of becoming obsolete or being accused of being "elitist" now feel that a college degree should be reinvented to acommodate a less academic kind of student? Is our point of embracing new literacies truly to keep up with the times or to acommodate students who are too distracted by the times to keep up with traditional methods of academic curriculum? Either way, the writing is on the wall. Students are different now than they ever were before and new forms of literacy do need to be embraced in the classroom. But, in embracing the new, we will hopefully continue to teach what is good about the old, or risk alienating students who still thrive by communicating with "traditional" forms of the written word. The key might be in finding the right balance to accomodate all.
I found the chapter on "Students Who Teach Us" to be alternately inspiring and infuriating. As a teacher, most of what I was "taught" by reading this chapter is the confirmation of an idea I have been harboring for a long time. Not every student -- not even every intelligent, talented student -- needs to be bound for a traditional academic college or university. What ever happenend to acknowledging that some people have talent for things other than what a traditional college education can bring them? If "David's" story teaches us nothing else, it is that a student like him has the talent and ambition to "make it" and become successful using the talent he is most interested in honing -- in his case -- web design. What would have been so wrong with steering a student like him to a school like, for instance, DeVry Technical University? I don't know much about a school like that, but I am hoping a traditional freshman comp. English class would not be part of the curriculum to succeed there. Why can't students go on to hone professional skills without someone attempting to make academics or academic writers out of them if they are just not interested in honing those types of skills? Shouldn't a person choose the kind of education that suits them best once they get out of the public school rat race? I've heard even from a few students at the "college prep" school where I teach that some of them wonder why they are being pushed to go to college when they really don't want to go. Why is it that we, as composition teachers, have to become all things to all students? Shouldn't there be classes geared toward different kinds of literacy and communication depending on the kind of field or interest that students have and want to participate in?
Cynthia L. Selfe points out that "to make it possible for students to practice, value, and understand a full range of literacies -- emerging, competing, and fading -- English composition teachers have got to be willing to expand their own understanding of composing beyond conventional bounds of the alphabetic. And we have to do so quickly or risk having composition studies become increasingly irrelevant" (54). While I can appreciate her point and her urgency, I also wonder how much we as composition teachers have to accept that written language is becoming increasingly irrelevant. Is it? Or are we just expanding our boundaries of "composition" to include other forms of communication. While I agree that non-alphabetic communication is compelling and more relevant to some students, I do feel that until that time that the written word and conventional forms of composition disappear all together (which is hopefully never), it is still the job of the composition teacher to teach students to think well on the page using the written word. We can and should expand our knowledge and acknowledge that some students have more talent in other forms of communication, but that is where "differentiated" instruction comes into play. If we teach to all forms of communicators -- the visual, the verbal, the tactile, and anything in between -- hopefully we can cover all bases and all learn from each other.
Which again begs the question: What is so wrong with taking what you "need" from education and leaving the rest? As Selfe states through David's case, that he does not "subscribe -- at least in the same way his teachers do -- to the print literacy values and practices that many faculty at his university still hold up as standards; he has found them, frankly, of limited relevance in his life, in his attempts to get an education and to enter a sphere of economic success and personal fulfillment . . .And, I suspect that if forced to choose between the traditional authority associated with a college degree -- based on the standards of and allegiance to -- print literacy -- and an opportunity to make a living as a Web designer . . . there would be little to sway him toward the degree" (54). Why does he need to make a choice? If he can gain "economic success and personal fulfillment" without the college degree, why does he need it? Is it society's guilty conscience that says he does? Why can't he attend a technical university instead that doesn't care if he can write a literary analysis or other traditionally academic paper? Or, is it that traditional universities, for fear of becoming obsolete or being accused of being "elitist" now feel that a college degree should be reinvented to acommodate a less academic kind of student? Is our point of embracing new literacies truly to keep up with the times or to acommodate students who are too distracted by the times to keep up with traditional methods of academic curriculum? Either way, the writing is on the wall. Students are different now than they ever were before and new forms of literacy do need to be embraced in the classroom. But, in embracing the new, we will hopefully continue to teach what is good about the old, or risk alienating students who still thrive by communicating with "traditional" forms of the written word. The key might be in finding the right balance to accomodate all.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Living in the Materiality Word
This post is for last week's readings on Opening New Media and Materiality. Sorry. Busy and sick last week, so just catching up now.
So, yesterday, I am sitting next to a woman on the train who is reading her Amazon Kindle. She either has poor eyesight or forgot her reading glasses, because the text was so big she was lucky if there were 10 lines of text on the screen. It drove me crazy watching her press the little side button every half a minute or so to turn the virtual page and it made me realize that it would not be fun or relaxing for me to read a book for pleasure (as opposed to reading for academic or other knowledge -- which is fine with me) using an Amazon Kindle. Granted I may not have to blow up the text that big (if I had my glasses) but the particulars of reading that kind of new media text is a materiality that is not friendly to my sensibilities as a reader. It is not a reading world in which I feel safe and comfortable -- at least not yet.
The texture, feel, smell, and physical presence of books is not something one can take easily away from a lifelong reader, scholar, and teacher of the written word. Although I get that I have to see text in a new way or become a teacher that is as obsolete as an IBM Selectric Typewriter or as clunky and ineffectual as a Hewlitt Packard Desktop Computer. However, I feel the need to pause for reflection here. Ten plus years ago when I was going through a divorce, a child custody battle, and changing careers, the only thing that would alleviate my acute attacks of anxiety was to go to a bookstore or library. Surrounding myself with books had a calming effect on me that was better and more positive than anything else I tried at the time -- including alcohol or prescriptions. During that time, I looked a lot like this well-known cartoon.
So, to quote the cliched statement that "books saved my life" is pretty significant for me.
To be practical, yes, it would be cool to have a device that makes text appear like magic and could be blown up to readable fonts when I forget my reading glasses. I am not saying new media text is bad -- and for many it is better -- but for some of us -- the "old way" is always going to be relevant or comfortable for us in ways that run much deeper than the opinion that we just need to get on the new media bandwagon.
But to recognize my own comfort levels with text only serves to make me realize that I must recognize, acknowledge, and celebrate the many levels of textual materiality in which my students are comfortable. Composing text in new media formats is something I already have my students utilize and I look forward to experimenting with more ways in which to turn student "writers" into student "composers" by unlocking creativity and ability through new media writing and the materiality of varied finished texts -- be they digital or crayon created!
Wysocki wants us to realize that "the materiality of writing might be understood to include social relations -- say, between students and teachers in the writing classroom; relations of rece, gender, class, ethnicity ,sexual orientation, generation, and region, among others within the classroom and/or the larger social realm . . ." This to me means that we cannot divorce ourselves from who we are as a person from who we are as writers and readers and teachers. So, it follows that we cannot expect our students to write or read or react to text or the materiality of text the same way we do or even the way the student next to them does. We all need to be comfortable "living" in the "materiality" of our words.
That being said, I spent an hour on Amazon. com last weekend doing searches for old, out of print books that I might want to buy someday and "preserve" in my collection. It had a familiar calming affect in the midst of the busy-ness of my weekend. Enjoying the experience of Amazon's virtual library of books may not be quite the same as surrounding myself with them in a building -- but it is a step in the right direction for me in opening my mind to new possibilites.
So, yesterday, I am sitting next to a woman on the train who is reading her Amazon Kindle. She either has poor eyesight or forgot her reading glasses, because the text was so big she was lucky if there were 10 lines of text on the screen. It drove me crazy watching her press the little side button every half a minute or so to turn the virtual page and it made me realize that it would not be fun or relaxing for me to read a book for pleasure (as opposed to reading for academic or other knowledge -- which is fine with me) using an Amazon Kindle. Granted I may not have to blow up the text that big (if I had my glasses) but the particulars of reading that kind of new media text is a materiality that is not friendly to my sensibilities as a reader. It is not a reading world in which I feel safe and comfortable -- at least not yet.
The texture, feel, smell, and physical presence of books is not something one can take easily away from a lifelong reader, scholar, and teacher of the written word. Although I get that I have to see text in a new way or become a teacher that is as obsolete as an IBM Selectric Typewriter or as clunky and ineffectual as a Hewlitt Packard Desktop Computer. However, I feel the need to pause for reflection here. Ten plus years ago when I was going through a divorce, a child custody battle, and changing careers, the only thing that would alleviate my acute attacks of anxiety was to go to a bookstore or library. Surrounding myself with books had a calming effect on me that was better and more positive than anything else I tried at the time -- including alcohol or prescriptions. During that time, I looked a lot like this well-known cartoon.
So, to quote the cliched statement that "books saved my life" is pretty significant for me.
To be practical, yes, it would be cool to have a device that makes text appear like magic and could be blown up to readable fonts when I forget my reading glasses. I am not saying new media text is bad -- and for many it is better -- but for some of us -- the "old way" is always going to be relevant or comfortable for us in ways that run much deeper than the opinion that we just need to get on the new media bandwagon.
But to recognize my own comfort levels with text only serves to make me realize that I must recognize, acknowledge, and celebrate the many levels of textual materiality in which my students are comfortable. Composing text in new media formats is something I already have my students utilize and I look forward to experimenting with more ways in which to turn student "writers" into student "composers" by unlocking creativity and ability through new media writing and the materiality of varied finished texts -- be they digital or crayon created!
Wysocki wants us to realize that "the materiality of writing might be understood to include social relations -- say, between students and teachers in the writing classroom; relations of rece, gender, class, ethnicity ,sexual orientation, generation, and region, among others within the classroom and/or the larger social realm . . ." This to me means that we cannot divorce ourselves from who we are as a person from who we are as writers and readers and teachers. So, it follows that we cannot expect our students to write or read or react to text or the materiality of text the same way we do or even the way the student next to them does. We all need to be comfortable "living" in the "materiality" of our words.
That being said, I spent an hour on Amazon. com last weekend doing searches for old, out of print books that I might want to buy someday and "preserve" in my collection. It had a familiar calming affect in the midst of the busy-ness of my weekend. Enjoying the experience of Amazon's virtual library of books may not be quite the same as surrounding myself with them in a building -- but it is a step in the right direction for me in opening my mind to new possibilites.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Leaving a 100-Year-Old After "Taste"
After reading all those English Journal articles from different time periods I can't help but marvel at how far we have not come. Most astonishing and bizarre to me are the things I mused about after reading Fred Newton Scott's "The Undefended Gate" published in 1914 -- almost 100 years ago. When he discusses that there is "no sign . . .that boys and girls of today like literature any better than those of a generation ago, or write any better" he could be sitting in the English department meeting I just attended today. The more things change, the more they stay the same I guess and there will always be some new barbarian at the gate we teachers of English must contend with in order to defend the "standards."
These "new and improved" Illinois State Board of Education Standards for English and Language Arts were the topic, by the way, of the English department meeting at my high school today. Without boring you too much, let me just say that the new standards are way more specific than they have been in the past and the word "Shakespeare" is actually written into one of the many new standards. Hmmm . . .
But getting back to high schools of yore (or is it yesteryear). In 1914, the year "The Undefended Gate" was published, Ernest Hemingway was a 15 year old sophomore at Oak Park High School (now known as Oak Park River Forest High School) just down the street from our fair city, the city, by the way, that this article was heard first as Newton Scott's Presidential address to the National Council of Teachers of English. This council meeting and what was later reported as a scandalous speech in The Chicago Tribune was held at the "Auditorium Hotel" in Chicago. You guessed it folks -- the very building which now houses our beloved Roosevelt University since 1947. See picture below.
It gets better. I found on line that "Ferdinand Peck, a Chicago businessman, incorporated the Chicago Auditorium Association in December 1886 to develop what he wanted to be the world's largest, grandest, most expensive theater that would rival such institutions as the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City. He was said to have wanted to make high culture accessible to the working classes of Chicago."
"High culture" accessible to the "working classes" of Chicago, folks.
Does anyone else see the delicious irony in all of this?
So I got to thinking. Newton Scott is blaming poor performance in English studies on the evil daily newspaper but young Ernie Hemingway sitting in his high school class room is probably at that moment dreaming of becoming a newspaper man. Yes, this boy who is attracted to the "uncultured," "brutal," and "filthy" printed word of the evil daily, who may have gone home, sat down with a snack, and enjoyed the "crude drawings of the insane" in the likes of "The Katzenjammer Kids" or "The Adventures of Tin Tin," got his start as a newspaper writer. Hemingway, this icon of American literature, put on par at times with (dare we say it) Shakespeare was not only influenced by the style of journalistic writing, but this style helped shape the future of American fiction.
Yet Newton Scott, unaware of all of this during his speech, of course, states that he is "bound to say that less has been accomplished in raising the general average of proficiency in writing and of literary taste than might reasonably have been expected, and it is high time that we faced the condition of affairs and inquired seriously into the causes of it." His villain is the newspaper, and The Chicago Tribune's response at the time
comes across to us as something that is hard to argue against. They paint Newton Scott as a privileged, cloistered academic who has lost his grip on reality and has no business being a teacher. Isn't this how we now feel about NEA Chairman Dana Gioia as he blames the "death of reading" on the evil internet? As Gioia slams on-line writing, what Hemingway in the making is blogging at this very moment?
Newton Scott wanted the English teachers of his day to "train the students to speak and write English well, to become familiar with the best literature, and above all to become fond of the best literature." That word "best" was certainly thrown around a lot in those days. As a matter of fact, the motto of Oak Park River Forest High School since 1908 has been "Those Things that are Best." If you go to their website today, you will still see that motto, emblazoned over the picture of a smiling African American male student, giving the "thumbs up."
No, I'm not kidding. See http://www.oprfhs.org
But, just as the face of the student population of Oak Park River Forest High School has changed since Hemingway's time, hopefully, what is considered "the best" in literature and writing has changed as well.
Though I'd bet money on the fact that "A Farewell to Arms" is still required reading there.
These "new and improved" Illinois State Board of Education Standards for English and Language Arts were the topic, by the way, of the English department meeting at my high school today. Without boring you too much, let me just say that the new standards are way more specific than they have been in the past and the word "Shakespeare" is actually written into one of the many new standards. Hmmm . . .
But getting back to high schools of yore (or is it yesteryear). In 1914, the year "The Undefended Gate" was published, Ernest Hemingway was a 15 year old sophomore at Oak Park High School (now known as Oak Park River Forest High School) just down the street from our fair city, the city, by the way, that this article was heard first as Newton Scott's Presidential address to the National Council of Teachers of English. This council meeting and what was later reported as a scandalous speech in The Chicago Tribune was held at the "Auditorium Hotel" in Chicago. You guessed it folks -- the very building which now houses our beloved Roosevelt University since 1947. See picture below.
It gets better. I found on line that "Ferdinand Peck, a Chicago businessman, incorporated the Chicago Auditorium Association in December 1886 to develop what he wanted to be the world's largest, grandest, most expensive theater that would rival such institutions as the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City. He was said to have wanted to make high culture accessible to the working classes of Chicago."
"High culture" accessible to the "working classes" of Chicago, folks.
Does anyone else see the delicious irony in all of this?
So I got to thinking. Newton Scott is blaming poor performance in English studies on the evil daily newspaper but young Ernie Hemingway sitting in his high school class room is probably at that moment dreaming of becoming a newspaper man. Yes, this boy who is attracted to the "uncultured," "brutal," and "filthy" printed word of the evil daily, who may have gone home, sat down with a snack, and enjoyed the "crude drawings of the insane" in the likes of "The Katzenjammer Kids" or "The Adventures of Tin Tin," got his start as a newspaper writer. Hemingway, this icon of American literature, put on par at times with (dare we say it) Shakespeare was not only influenced by the style of journalistic writing, but this style helped shape the future of American fiction.
Yet Newton Scott, unaware of all of this during his speech, of course, states that he is "bound to say that less has been accomplished in raising the general average of proficiency in writing and of literary taste than might reasonably have been expected, and it is high time that we faced the condition of affairs and inquired seriously into the causes of it." His villain is the newspaper, and The Chicago Tribune's response at the time
comes across to us as something that is hard to argue against. They paint Newton Scott as a privileged, cloistered academic who has lost his grip on reality and has no business being a teacher. Isn't this how we now feel about NEA Chairman Dana Gioia as he blames the "death of reading" on the evil internet? As Gioia slams on-line writing, what Hemingway in the making is blogging at this very moment?
Newton Scott wanted the English teachers of his day to "train the students to speak and write English well, to become familiar with the best literature, and above all to become fond of the best literature." That word "best" was certainly thrown around a lot in those days. As a matter of fact, the motto of Oak Park River Forest High School since 1908 has been "Those Things that are Best." If you go to their website today, you will still see that motto, emblazoned over the picture of a smiling African American male student, giving the "thumbs up."
No, I'm not kidding. See http://www.oprfhs.org
But, just as the face of the student population of Oak Park River Forest High School has changed since Hemingway's time, hopefully, what is considered "the best" in literature and writing has changed as well.
Though I'd bet money on the fact that "A Farewell to Arms" is still required reading there.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Literature Can Soothe the Savage Barbarian? On Taste and Class
One day in my AP Language Class, my students read a series of articles on the death of Princess Diana in order to analyze different audiences and purposes for each kind of article. I chose this particular subject for the students to analyze as it related to the current topic of Prince William and Catherine Middleton's engagement and Diana's death was an event that had happened in my student's lifetime -- although they were quite young. My students, who are a very diverse crowd both economically and racial/culturally had mixed reactions to the subject. Some of my students -- mainly the Asian, Latino and African American -- did not know much about the British Royal Family and one girl, whose knowledge of Princes and Princesses came primarily from Disney films, asked if the reason Princess Diana was called a Princess was because she was still a teenager. Didn't she become Queen when she became a grown up woman? This experience was sort of a wake up call for me about class, culture, and taste.
If your ethnic background does not take your family roots back to merry old England or even Europe, why would you be interested in all things British? Even British literature? This is why it should also not be a surprise to me that the Latino and African American English teachers in my school try to avoid teaching Shakespeare and the British Literature course. What is interesting about that is if I disdained to teach Toni Morrison or Sandra Cisneros, I would be called a racist. Aren't those guys being racist for disdaining to teach "the dead white males"? I would like to say NO on both accounts, because for most of us, it is simply a matter of taste.
David Hume reminds us that the temperate rather than the passionate nature will make us "happier" human beings. It is most of the time not within our control to experience good or bad fortune, so one should cultivate a calmer disposition in order to enjoy the ordinary days in life rather than let our extreme passions on good and bad days overshadow the joy of everyday living. However, one of the things Hume suggests adds to the joy of everyday living is our capacity to become passionate about the artistic beauty we choose to expose ourselves to -- specifically in literature. He notes that ". . . delicacy of taste has the same effect as delicacy of passion: It enlarges the sphere of both our happiness and misery and makes us sensible to pains as well as pleasures, which escape the rest of mankind . . .the good or ill accidents of life are very little at our disposal; but we are pretty much masters of what books we shall read, what diversions we shall partake of, and what company we keep . . . every wise man will endeavor to place his happiness on such objects chiefly as depend upon himself; and that is not to be attained so much by any other means by this delicacy of sentiment. When a man is possessed of that talent, he is more happy by what pleases his taste, than by what gratifies his appetites, and receives more enjoyment from a poem or a piece of reasoning than the most expensive luxury can afford."
That being said, even if one's background or culture does not naturally gravitate one toward what Hume calls the "higher and more refined taste" that does not mean teachers should not attempt to expose students to work they might not naturally gravitate toward. I like to use Literature Circles with my students which gives them somewhat of a choice. If I have to teach British Literature, students can at least choose their novel or author based on what they might most be naturally interested in. This has been somewhat successful, even with kids who had not been exposed much to British literature. Plus, my passion toward the subject goes a long way in showing students the beauty and power of the language of authors such as Shakespeare or Dickens or Austen.
Conversely, my natural affinity may not be to gravitate toward authors outside of my comfort zone, but have learned to love and appreciate work of multicultural authors. Refined and higher minded work does not always come from the dead white males -- and I never thought it did -- but I also think there is still much to be appreciated and taught from those tried and true classics.
Matthew Arnold believes taste varies between the classes of the Populace, the Philistines, and the Barbarians and he concedes that there is much to admire in the culture of all three of these classes. I think it is dangerous to pigeon hole the taste of humans into social classes, even if there is a lot of truth behind stereotypes and categories. As a teacher of high school English, I believe it is my job to expose my students and myself to a wide variety of taste in literature and to never look down on anyone's taste in literature or music or art. This kind of beauty does what Hume says it should do -- adds passion and happiness to our ordinary lives.
However, the question of what kinds of literature one should be exposed to in order to qualify as "well educated" is still highly debated -- but I think it is dangerous when the debate becomes too race and culture oriented. It should be a matter of taste. The educated palate should be able to, as Hume suggests, "judge the character of men, of compositions of genius, and productions of the nobler arts" regardless of the race or social class from which this work of art originated.
If your ethnic background does not take your family roots back to merry old England or even Europe, why would you be interested in all things British? Even British literature? This is why it should also not be a surprise to me that the Latino and African American English teachers in my school try to avoid teaching Shakespeare and the British Literature course. What is interesting about that is if I disdained to teach Toni Morrison or Sandra Cisneros, I would be called a racist. Aren't those guys being racist for disdaining to teach "the dead white males"? I would like to say NO on both accounts, because for most of us, it is simply a matter of taste.
David Hume reminds us that the temperate rather than the passionate nature will make us "happier" human beings. It is most of the time not within our control to experience good or bad fortune, so one should cultivate a calmer disposition in order to enjoy the ordinary days in life rather than let our extreme passions on good and bad days overshadow the joy of everyday living. However, one of the things Hume suggests adds to the joy of everyday living is our capacity to become passionate about the artistic beauty we choose to expose ourselves to -- specifically in literature. He notes that ". . . delicacy of taste has the same effect as delicacy of passion: It enlarges the sphere of both our happiness and misery and makes us sensible to pains as well as pleasures, which escape the rest of mankind . . .the good or ill accidents of life are very little at our disposal; but we are pretty much masters of what books we shall read, what diversions we shall partake of, and what company we keep . . . every wise man will endeavor to place his happiness on such objects chiefly as depend upon himself; and that is not to be attained so much by any other means by this delicacy of sentiment. When a man is possessed of that talent, he is more happy by what pleases his taste, than by what gratifies his appetites, and receives more enjoyment from a poem or a piece of reasoning than the most expensive luxury can afford."
That being said, even if one's background or culture does not naturally gravitate one toward what Hume calls the "higher and more refined taste" that does not mean teachers should not attempt to expose students to work they might not naturally gravitate toward. I like to use Literature Circles with my students which gives them somewhat of a choice. If I have to teach British Literature, students can at least choose their novel or author based on what they might most be naturally interested in. This has been somewhat successful, even with kids who had not been exposed much to British literature. Plus, my passion toward the subject goes a long way in showing students the beauty and power of the language of authors such as Shakespeare or Dickens or Austen.
Conversely, my natural affinity may not be to gravitate toward authors outside of my comfort zone, but have learned to love and appreciate work of multicultural authors. Refined and higher minded work does not always come from the dead white males -- and I never thought it did -- but I also think there is still much to be appreciated and taught from those tried and true classics.
Matthew Arnold believes taste varies between the classes of the Populace, the Philistines, and the Barbarians and he concedes that there is much to admire in the culture of all three of these classes. I think it is dangerous to pigeon hole the taste of humans into social classes, even if there is a lot of truth behind stereotypes and categories. As a teacher of high school English, I believe it is my job to expose my students and myself to a wide variety of taste in literature and to never look down on anyone's taste in literature or music or art. This kind of beauty does what Hume says it should do -- adds passion and happiness to our ordinary lives.
However, the question of what kinds of literature one should be exposed to in order to qualify as "well educated" is still highly debated -- but I think it is dangerous when the debate becomes too race and culture oriented. It should be a matter of taste. The educated palate should be able to, as Hume suggests, "judge the character of men, of compositions of genius, and productions of the nobler arts" regardless of the race or social class from which this work of art originated.
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