Ashley, in her post, talks about the Villanueva article, focusing in especially on community forums as a form of social intervention. Ashely says:
"The school Villanueva discusses takes that concept one (important) step
further. Rather than simply suggesting that your child speculate on the
effect their actions had on someone else, the child is forced to
confront that individual and hear them express their feelings."
I'd just like to reiterate how important these kinds of interactions seem to the development of the kinds of students we want (read: need) in our FYC classes in order to make a lot of the pedagogical approaches we've discussed actually work. We need students who are not uncomfortable with communication, and who are able to speak freely in order to identify and optimize their own voices. It also disheartens me (as I'm sure it does many of you) when you ask students to communicate with each other in an effort to actively engage them in learning and they act like they've never had to speak with another human being before. I honestly think that this springs from an innate fear of confrontation instilled at an early age.
Sunday, November 30, 2014
Hot Media Electro
After the jump, you'll find a recording I made in which a Spell N Speak talks about identifying hot media, and the effects they have on a culture. It seemed to me doubly fitting to have this lesson screeching out of the failing speakers of a machine, essentially excluding all human voice and participation.
Wednesday, November 19, 2014
Mr. Abusjhadjjafzxcsda... Does this guy even speak English?
I didn't mention it yesterday in class, but three different people this semester alone, after learning my last name, have asked me something to effect of, "You're not one of those ISIS guys are you?" One of those people was someone right here in the English department.
Now the absolute ridiculousness of a statement like that aside, what I find most shocking is that fact that someone would just nonchalantly say such a thing. Each time its happened (and I've been hearing similar such bullshit since I was in 10th grade), it came completely out of no where, following a conversation about the weather, or where we're from, or something else innocuous.
It's made me think a lot about my appearance and reception in the classroom. Of course, I don't think many (or hopefully any) of my students see me and wonder whether or not I'm a card carrying member of a terrorist cell. I like to think that's for the uniquely ignorant. However, I am well aware of how my ethnicity might have an effect on student perception of my authority over the English language. As writing teachers, I think that those of us of non-American decent are operating at something of a deficit. Or rather, I have a constant anxiety about that. I wonder if my students, on the first day, see my brown skin and here a foreign last name and think, "What can this guy teach me about English? It's probably not even his first language."
And it's embarrassing to say, but because of this I go in on the first day of class and I speak super clearly, and make a concerted effort to prove to my students that I know my shit. Which is probably a good thing to do, anyway, but I'm not doing it for the right reasons.
Now the absolute ridiculousness of a statement like that aside, what I find most shocking is that fact that someone would just nonchalantly say such a thing. Each time its happened (and I've been hearing similar such bullshit since I was in 10th grade), it came completely out of no where, following a conversation about the weather, or where we're from, or something else innocuous.
It's made me think a lot about my appearance and reception in the classroom. Of course, I don't think many (or hopefully any) of my students see me and wonder whether or not I'm a card carrying member of a terrorist cell. I like to think that's for the uniquely ignorant. However, I am well aware of how my ethnicity might have an effect on student perception of my authority over the English language. As writing teachers, I think that those of us of non-American decent are operating at something of a deficit. Or rather, I have a constant anxiety about that. I wonder if my students, on the first day, see my brown skin and here a foreign last name and think, "What can this guy teach me about English? It's probably not even his first language."
And it's embarrassing to say, but because of this I go in on the first day of class and I speak super clearly, and make a concerted effort to prove to my students that I know my shit. Which is probably a good thing to do, anyway, but I'm not doing it for the right reasons.
Saturday, October 25, 2014
"Bad" Grammar -- Responding to Meg responding to Brianne
I agree with the both of you, and try to think in terms "regular" and "irregular" grammar instead. The lesson here is that grammar is a fluid concept that simply describes the order and structure of language. Like you've said, based on the given rhetorical situation, communication will fall somewhere on the spectrum between regular and irregular structures. This might affect things as basic as spelling and as complex as sentence structure.
I also find myself very sensitive lately to the idea that grammar and "whiteness" are some how inextricably linked. You might check out this essay in which the argument is broached -- though, annoyingly, it also tries to paint "nerd" culture as a uniquely white construct. As a nerd of color, I'm just not into that.
Can Geekiness be Decoupled from Whiteness?
I also find myself very sensitive lately to the idea that grammar and "whiteness" are some how inextricably linked. You might check out this essay in which the argument is broached -- though, annoyingly, it also tries to paint "nerd" culture as a uniquely white construct. As a nerd of color, I'm just not into that.
Can Geekiness be Decoupled from Whiteness?
How I Learned About the Power of Language
Even as a child I was always interested in reading and writing. Even though now my purview is literature, when I was young I was vastly more interested in science and science texts: field guides, star charts, books about how things were built, and so on. So while I read a lot, most of what I read was of a purely descriptive nature.
As I approached 3rd and 4th grade, I started to become increasingly interested in comic books.Of the two major moments in my childhood where I actually began to feel the power of language, comics had a direct role in the first. I read a reprint of Uncanny X-Men #3 -- you know, the one where the heroes are under siege in the academy by Juggernaut -- and for the first time in my life, I felt truly transported and compelled not by just the story and the artwork, but the language. I remember thinking, "This would be just as good without the pictures." At that point I started writing my own comics. And when I say writing, I mean literally just writing. I couldn't draw well at all, so I just modeled character movement with stick figures while I wrote huge blocks of text. As it turns out, an adult Harvey Peakar (American Splendor) wrote his comics the same way.
The second time this happened I was in 6th grade. I'd started reading Stephen King, which was the first time I was really consumed by fiction. I can still remember exactly where I was when I finished Pet Semetery -- in my grandparents' bedroom on a gloomy Monday afternoon -- because I had a physical reaction to the book. If you've not read it, then know that the story is incredibly dark, and the action just descends deeper and deeper into darkness as the book reaches its close. The thing is, though, I had a suspicion that it wasn't just the story that made me react so viscerally (I mean, I literally felt sick). It was the language. I was sure of it. It had something to do with the actual words and their arrangements that produced this effect. It just so happened that it was coupled with a horrific story which acted as the perfect vehicle. So, I started to go back through the book and copy down all of the words and sentences that created that effect. I remember describing it to someone as feeling like I was a rock covered in moss.
So began my horror fiction phase, and I wrote stories constantly modeled after King and the language of PS. Often times, even today, that language shows up on my poems and I wonder, "Where the hell did this creepy shit come from?" And then I remember taking all those notes with my little red notebook in 6th grade.
As I approached 3rd and 4th grade, I started to become increasingly interested in comic books.Of the two major moments in my childhood where I actually began to feel the power of language, comics had a direct role in the first. I read a reprint of Uncanny X-Men #3 -- you know, the one where the heroes are under siege in the academy by Juggernaut -- and for the first time in my life, I felt truly transported and compelled not by just the story and the artwork, but the language. I remember thinking, "This would be just as good without the pictures." At that point I started writing my own comics. And when I say writing, I mean literally just writing. I couldn't draw well at all, so I just modeled character movement with stick figures while I wrote huge blocks of text. As it turns out, an adult Harvey Peakar (American Splendor) wrote his comics the same way.
The second time this happened I was in 6th grade. I'd started reading Stephen King, which was the first time I was really consumed by fiction. I can still remember exactly where I was when I finished Pet Semetery -- in my grandparents' bedroom on a gloomy Monday afternoon -- because I had a physical reaction to the book. If you've not read it, then know that the story is incredibly dark, and the action just descends deeper and deeper into darkness as the book reaches its close. The thing is, though, I had a suspicion that it wasn't just the story that made me react so viscerally (I mean, I literally felt sick). It was the language. I was sure of it. It had something to do with the actual words and their arrangements that produced this effect. It just so happened that it was coupled with a horrific story which acted as the perfect vehicle. So, I started to go back through the book and copy down all of the words and sentences that created that effect. I remember describing it to someone as feeling like I was a rock covered in moss.
So began my horror fiction phase, and I wrote stories constantly modeled after King and the language of PS. Often times, even today, that language shows up on my poems and I wonder, "Where the hell did this creepy shit come from?" And then I remember taking all those notes with my little red notebook in 6th grade.
Sunday, October 19, 2014
Teaching Forms on the Road to Rhetorical Consciousness
The more I think about teaching rhetoric to students who have no idea how to even comprehend the conceptual nature of the term, the more I begin to realize that teaching rhetoric is a push to make students see that shape of things. That is, how are its components positioned, and how does this make for optimal usage? This, I think, is the basis of form.
As a student of poetry, I am always concerned with form. "Form," too often, can be conflated with dead white guy boxes like sonnets (which I happen to love, thank you very much) and ballades and sestinas and trioles and so on until the end of time. Rather, when I think of form, I think of the decisions that make such received forms (and all poetic forms) possible. It has to do with why one writer decided to do this instead of that. Why five lines instead of six? Why four beats instead of five? Why three words instead of four?
And then to make the leap from art to things to writing! A car has form (why four wheels instead of five?). Advertisements have form (why six repetitions of the words "hot wings" instead of seven?). And of course, our writing has form.
Writing too often seems like a thing that is outside the agency of our students. They don't realize that they get to make the forms, and not the other way around. They get to decide what constitutes "essay" or "letter." And they must do so, of course, with an informed opinion. But, with this kind of realization comes rhetorical consciousness. I think, therefore I am. I write, therefore I choose. I choose, therefore I invent.
As a student of poetry, I am always concerned with form. "Form," too often, can be conflated with dead white guy boxes like sonnets (which I happen to love, thank you very much) and ballades and sestinas and trioles and so on until the end of time. Rather, when I think of form, I think of the decisions that make such received forms (and all poetic forms) possible. It has to do with why one writer decided to do this instead of that. Why five lines instead of six? Why four beats instead of five? Why three words instead of four?
And then to make the leap from art to things to writing! A car has form (why four wheels instead of five?). Advertisements have form (why six repetitions of the words "hot wings" instead of seven?). And of course, our writing has form.
Writing too often seems like a thing that is outside the agency of our students. They don't realize that they get to make the forms, and not the other way around. They get to decide what constitutes "essay" or "letter." And they must do so, of course, with an informed opinion. But, with this kind of realization comes rhetorical consciousness. I think, therefore I am. I write, therefore I choose. I choose, therefore I invent.
Tuesday, October 7, 2014
The Fictional Fictional Audience, or Why I Kind of Hate Creative Writing Workshop
I went on this rant for Essence and Taryn in class earlier, but I think I'll recreate it here for the benefit of all you fine folks.
I mentioned today that it seemed best to me to keep my students in the dark initially about the fact that they'd be workshopping thesis statements in small peer groups. My reasoning being that I feel like I'm constantly trying to push them to the other side of the circle; that is, they struggle immensely with the concept of the invoked audience, and often times default even without thinking to the more immediately accessible addressed audience. My fear was that they would find out about having to share their writing with other students, and then immediately start imagining those peers as their audience.
Then I started thinking about the concept behind creative writing workshop. It's a blasphemy, I know, what with me being a creative writing PhD and all, but the truth is, I kind of hate workshop. I've been in and out of creative writing workshops for the last 10 years of my life, and if I've learned one thing, it's that my best work comes when I'm not participating in one. It has to do, I think, with the idea of the invoked audience, the "fictional" audience. When enrolled in a workshop, no matter how much I tell myself that I am writing for the invoked audience, that is, the nameless faceless group of literature readers who will encounter nothing other than my poem, my name, and maybe some elusive biographical notes, the fact remains that I am writing for an addressed audience: those 8-10 people who gather in a room to talk about poems every week. As such, I find myself writing to very real people, and caring (perhaps erroneously) about what they think.
The truth is, this is a superficial and artificial stand-in for the real audience. In very few, if any, ways does the workshop environment mirror the actual reading public. These people are trained to critique -- to READ -- in a way that most people just aren't. What's worse is that these people know me. They know things about me and, to some degree or another, care about me. The bottom line is that the average readers -- Joe and Josephine Litmag -- don't know shit about me and don't give a shit about me. Therefore, their reactions to my work are going to be completely different from that of the workshop.
Don't get me wrong. I feel like workshop is super useful. And I love all my workshop buddsies. But I think we sometimes fool ourselves into thinking that the "audience" we attend to in the classroom is somehow analogous to the actual reading public, and it just isn't.
End rant. Chad out.
*mic drop*
I mentioned today that it seemed best to me to keep my students in the dark initially about the fact that they'd be workshopping thesis statements in small peer groups. My reasoning being that I feel like I'm constantly trying to push them to the other side of the circle; that is, they struggle immensely with the concept of the invoked audience, and often times default even without thinking to the more immediately accessible addressed audience. My fear was that they would find out about having to share their writing with other students, and then immediately start imagining those peers as their audience.
Then I started thinking about the concept behind creative writing workshop. It's a blasphemy, I know, what with me being a creative writing PhD and all, but the truth is, I kind of hate workshop. I've been in and out of creative writing workshops for the last 10 years of my life, and if I've learned one thing, it's that my best work comes when I'm not participating in one. It has to do, I think, with the idea of the invoked audience, the "fictional" audience. When enrolled in a workshop, no matter how much I tell myself that I am writing for the invoked audience, that is, the nameless faceless group of literature readers who will encounter nothing other than my poem, my name, and maybe some elusive biographical notes, the fact remains that I am writing for an addressed audience: those 8-10 people who gather in a room to talk about poems every week. As such, I find myself writing to very real people, and caring (perhaps erroneously) about what they think.
The truth is, this is a superficial and artificial stand-in for the real audience. In very few, if any, ways does the workshop environment mirror the actual reading public. These people are trained to critique -- to READ -- in a way that most people just aren't. What's worse is that these people know me. They know things about me and, to some degree or another, care about me. The bottom line is that the average readers -- Joe and Josephine Litmag -- don't know shit about me and don't give a shit about me. Therefore, their reactions to my work are going to be completely different from that of the workshop.
Don't get me wrong. I feel like workshop is super useful. And I love all my workshop buddsies. But I think we sometimes fool ourselves into thinking that the "audience" we attend to in the classroom is somehow analogous to the actual reading public, and it just isn't.
End rant. Chad out.
*mic drop*
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