Social Theories

Audience:

I found Ong's article a good introduction to the idea of real vs. imagined audience. As Ede and Lunsford said in their article, Ong was the first to take up this matter in depth. He begins with a short look at the history of the relationship between speaker/hearer (rhetoric) through literature/culture and the lack of serious inquiry into what roles are imposed on the reader by the writer. Since it is impossible for a writer to write directly to one reader and every reader (except in very exceptional circumstances) in the way a speaker addresses his physically present audience, the writer is forced to create a role for his reader. All knowledge hitherto has concerned itself with the "the oral performer, the writer, and techniques, rather than with the recipient of the message." Ong suggests the time is now ripe for a "history of readers and their enforced roles." He goes on to show us how every writer is forced to write for whatever audience he may hold in his imagination. The audience must also fictionalize itself by playing whatever role the writer has cast him in. The audience is a fiction.  I especially enjoyed his analysis of Hemingway (what a breath of fresh air his allusions to literature are!). Hemingway's style involved a sense of camaraderie with the reader which he made effective through grammar. Here, Hemingway's many streams of genius intersect to make the reader feel like a close companion of Hemingway's narrators.

Ede and Lunsford expand on Ong's claims. They define two polar opposites ("Audience Addressed" and "Audience Invoked") and claim to find a middle ground which is, always naturally, the only productive area worth working in. After using a Mitchell and Taylor article as a backdrop to their explanation of Audience Addressed, they move on the Audience Invoked, which is obviously favored by them. "The central task of the writer, then, is not to analyze an audience and adapt discourse to meet its needs. Rather, the writer uses the semantic and syntactic resources of language to provide cues for the reader--cues which help to define the role or roles the writer wishes the reader to adopt in responding to the text." Although they ultimately agree with Ong, they of course manage to find some minor faults with his original (and general) claims. Ong's claims are, in fact, too general. His distinctions between a speaker's and a writer's audience don't work in many situations. "When one turns to precise, concrete situations, the relationship between speech and writing can become far more complex than even Ong represents." Further, Ong's fictionalizing of audience works better in fiction than rhetorical work. It may be because there is a more direct correlation between a fictional speaker and a fictional audience than a real speaker using his real name to address real problems.

Ultimately, as seems to always be the case when one writer critiques another, the answer lies somewhere in the middle. It must be in the middle because the middle is harder to name; if it can be named, it can be torn apart and critiqued. All these 2nd place writers seem to hide in this gray area and claim truth behind ambiguity. "The most complete understanding of audience thus involves a synthesis of the perspectives we have termed audience addressed, with its focus on the reader, and audience invoked, with its focus on the writer. We must, therefore, have no focus, or focus on something like the reater/wrider.

I enjoyed Ong's article because it made me more aware of, not who my audience may be, but what role I want to create for them. I wonder, however, if it is truly essential to think in these terms. Might it not become a hindrance if, instead of letting the words pour from my soul upon the page, I am too worried about creating an audience? In my own creative and personal writing, I am always envisioning future readers (since there can only ever be future readers) such as myself or potential biographers. I always leave little notes for myself (Hello, future me! It's you from the past!) or Easter eggs for interested fans and devoted researchers of my work. Actually, I don't really, but wouldn't it be fun!


Collaboration

I especially liked the readings on Collaborative Learning and would be interested to learn more once I start teaching. Would this be even more effective in socialist/communist countries where the collective is already valued? I liked the way Bruffee's structured his article. It starts with a basic history and definition of Collaborative Learning. CL does not actually change what is learned, but how it is learned: more efficiently. He starts with a sort of psychological and philosophical justification of CL stating that "The view that conversation and thought are causally related assumes not that thought is an essential attribute of the human mind but that it is instead an artifact created by social interaction." Further, "O think we as individuals, we must learn to think well collectively." He segues into applying this idea in the classroom. By guiding students' conversation towards what they read and write, they will eventually be able to read and write in the same manner. Their complexity in written thought is therefore strengthened by their complexity in speech and interaction. Further, as has been discussed in previous articles, this will make students part of a discursive community, one in which they are writing and interacting with peers. This creates what Bruffee calls, "normal discourse." This skills learned here can be carried forward to all aspects their academic, business, government and professional lives. Bruffee then states, in his next section, what is probably my favorite quote of the week. "To say that knowledge is indeterminate is to say that there is no fixed and certain point of reference...against which we can measure truth. If there is no such absolute referent, then knowledge must be a thing people make and remake. Knowledge must be a social artifact." I'm sold. While normal discourse is necessary to keep the conversation going and indoctrinating neophytes into the the ongoing conversation, abnormal discourse is essential to progress and the production of knowledge.


Trimbur, writing after Bruffee, of course finds fault with the original. Namely, the issue of consensus, which is problematic on two fronts: it may cause totalitarianism of ideas, and it ignores "wider social forces that structure the production of knowledge." Trimbur employs two tactics which seem cliche to me by now: paradox and middle-ground-building (is there a term for this?). First, he argues, "Consensus...can be a powerful instrument for students to generate differences, to identify the systems of authority that organize these differences, and to transform the relations of power that determine who may speak and what counts as a meaningful statement." (Does he define 'consensus' besides the obvious meaning?) This, as I understand it, seems to be saying something like "consensus is good because to creates differences, but the forces that foster these differences must be changed so that no more differences will exist." Please correct me. His next tactic is to define polar opposites and find the ideal away from both of them. "Their effort to save the individual from the group is based on an unhelpful and unnecessary polarization of the individual and society...it is through the social interaction of shared activity that individuals realize their own power to take control of their situation by collaborating with others." He goes on to state that Bruffee's version of consensus invests a real world authority that binds the discourse communities. This seems practical to me, but Trimbur prefers a "critical version" of consensus which doesn't simplify anything, but complicate things with further distinctions. We now have "consensus as an acculturative practice" and consensus as an "oppositional one." Triumber even admits he is doing this: "it will help to cast consensus not as a 'real world' practice but as a utopian one." He wants to "transform the productive apparatus, to change social character of production." This is not the place to do it. It's time he pick up his gun and join the next bandwagon revolution whose sole purpose is change, for better or worse.


Intertextuality

Finally, we have intertextuality. I found this section a little useful in thinking about my research project. The imageboard culture is a sort of intertextual hotbed. Original Content is rarely produced (Porter uses the Declaration of Independence as an example). Rather, members of the community use recognized signs, images, acronyms, etc to convey ideas. Sometimes, people will express their opinions, but even these are unoriginal. There can only be so many opinions on any given topic that it's rare to see anything new, even if it is Original (ie, not part of the vocabulary). Although Porter is referring to his three examples, the same can be said of imageboard culture: "[it] contains phrases or iamges familiar to its audience and presupposes certain audience attitudes. Thus the intertext exerts its influence partly in the form of audience expectation. We might then say that the audience of each of these texts is as responsible for its production as the writer." Therefore, the image of a t-rex with one of his claws in his chin has no real meaning other than what the community collectively agrees that image is to be used for. Porter quotes Bartholomae in reference to intertextuality and pedagogy: "The struggle of the student writer is not the struggle to bring out that which is within; it is the struggle to carry out those ritual activities that grant our entrance into a closed society." Therefore, success in 4chan (if there is such a thing, I'm not sure why anyone would care to achieve it) does not necessarily rest on what has to say or his ability to post Original Content, but rather his command of the existing sets of images, phrases, etc I've alluded to earlier.

I have more to say about intertext and 4chan, but I'm running out of time before class and I'd like to look at another idea expressed by Porter. I like his idea that "Research assignments might be more community oriented rather than topic oriented; students might be asked to become involved in communities of researchers." Since no freshman student ever wants to write about anything in class. I wonder what would happen if, on the first day of class, the teacher asked each student to choose a community to become a part of (or is already a part of). After this, I would tell them, "Fine, for the rest of the semester, your assignments will be to write for these communities in whatever form you find necessary." The key criteria for evaluating their writing after that, as Porter suggests, "should be 'acceptability' within [their] discourse community."

Something to respond to (optional)

After reading last weeks articles about teacher response to student papers, I was given a chance to do just that. One of my co-workers, a "beginning writer," came to me for help on a writing assignments. I read it, an "analysis" of the movie, Blood Diamonds, and was, of course, horrified. I tried my best to offer helpful advice while keeping last weeks readings in mind, and waited eagerly for an improved draft. To my dismay, his paper actually got worse! He took out all the extraneous and off-topic details and replaced it with pure drivel. I began to think about the student/teacher binary. You are either one or the other, but it seems dangerous to think that once you are teaching a class, you are automatically given full reign without any checks and balances. Shouldn't the study of actual teaching be for all teachers and not just students of Education? If we tell our students to peer-review each others papers, why shouldn't teachers peer-review each others teaching styles? How about having a fellow teacher unobtrusively sit in on one of our classes (I write this as if I'm a teacher myself) and afterward give us  feedback on how we did? Seems reasonable to me. I offer here an opportunity for you to do that, sort of. I will copy and paste my response to that students first draft. The content of his drafts are not important, I don't think, but I'll post it if anyone cares.

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Hey, I just read your paper. It's not bad, but there are a few things you can do to make it better. First, what are you trying to convey to the reader? The focus of the paper should be on addressing the issues raised in your first paragraph. You're right in your analysis of the meaning of the title, but you should show specific examples from the movie that support this. Instead of just giving a plot summary of the movie, use a few powerful scenes to illustrate the reality of what really goes on in the diamond industry of Africa.

The second paragraph can be condensed (it's way too long). Focus on a few really meaningful scenes that best portray what you think is the message of the movie. Focus on detail rather than trying to fit it all in.

I think you come closest to achieving your goals in the third paragraph. I want you to expand this. What tone, exactly, is the director trying to hit and how does he achieve it so well? The images of young, machinegun-wielding children is a step in the right direction, give the reader more examples like this and show us the effect they had on you while watching the film.

How does DiCaprio's greed drive him to do the things he does? Is the director trying to make comparisons between his greed and the greed of global consumerism/materialism? Are he and people like him the only ones to blame, or are we all to blame for participating in the consumption of diamonds that leads to so much suffering and devaluation of human life?

The last paragraph, as it currently is, seems unnecessary in a critical analysis of the film. If you think it is important, then tie it in with the your main point. Why did audiences like the movie so much? Why does this issue have so much relevance now?

Your last paragraph in any paper should focus on wrapping up all of your points in a small and memorable unit of text. There should be no new information in your last paragraph. Use it to restate the objectives you sought to address in your opening paragraph.

There are some grammatical and stylistic issues with this paper, but those aren't important until you get closer to a final draft. One thing to keep in mind, however, is that when you're referring to events in the narrative of any story, you always use the first person. For example, instead of saying, "Solomon was separated from his family and was taken hostage to work for the warlord" it should be, "Solomon is separated from his family and is taken hostage to work for the warlord." I'll help you with grammar and technical things like that as you work on more drafts.

Hope this helps, sorry if there's too much information here. Let me know if you need more help.

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So there it is. It's a little wordy, I know. I tend to ramble when I write, but I felt there was a lot to say. You can critique this if you want, but my idea in posting this is to suggest that, as beginning teachers, which all grad students are, it might be important to consider looking at our own competence and effectiveness of our teaching. Or, have we already forgotten what it means to be students and comfortably assumed the role of gatekeeper?

Cognitive Theory

I'll start with Dias' "Distributed Cognition at Work." Dias describes distributed cognition as "the degree to which, within specific activities, knowing and/or learning and/or thinking are often distributed among co-participants, as well as mediated through the cultural artifacts available—artifacts which include semiotic, technological, and organizational structures; the process is dynamic and interactive, within a delicate, subtle, constant interplay among participants and means as they operate in tandem (although often with friction) toward the object of the activity." (I wonder if one could use this definition for any action. I would not be surprised to see the act of opening a door defined in this manner within an academic paper). This is a useful definition to bear in mind as the author spends the next 15 pages explaining that different means of communication and intellectual/social interactions are used in academic and professional settings. The hierarchical structure of a national bank in which every member, from the lowly mail room clerk to the president himself, fulfills his role for the greater good of the collective organism, the Bank, is different from the university setting in which one is either a student forced to engage, rather humorously, in the discourse of Great Men, or e a teacher/researcher who holds the key to some invisible treasure chest of knowledge. The Bank, therefore, is something like a pyramid in which every brick knows its place and worth and is essential for the soundness of the structure, while the university system is more like a spinning wheel—either you are on the wheel or trying to get on it, or you're doing something else altogether. I may be giving Dias too much credit though, for his point ultimately boils down to his final paragraph and this one sentence: "the relationship between students and teachers is radically different from that among fellow employees" (150). He proves this by contrasting the difference between how a bank is run (reports and analysis disseminated through the organism) and a university (exercises fed into the wheel). Finally, he suggests that because the two spheres of distributed cognition are so different, one ought to prepare students for the professional one.

Bizzell, in "Cognition, Convention, and Certainty," wants to reevaluate what is called the "writing problem" in the university. She echoes someone from one of our earlier readings that the academic setting is merely one of many discourse communities a student is engaged in. Deficiency in one, is not a cognitive deficiency, but rather an impeded node of access, conditioned by social situations, to that specific discourse community. She goes on the distinguish between two theoretical camps which try to solve this problem: those that are inner-directed and those that are outer-directed. One believes in a one-size-fits-all linear progression of education; the other admits that "universal, fundamental structures can't be taught" and one should instead "teach students that there are such things as discourse conventions" (another idea echoed in previous readings and one that I agree with but find a difficulty with implementing this on a broad scale). Bizzell also finds problems with both camps and, conveniently, proposes a synthesis of the two. "We should think of the current debate between the two schools as the kind of fruitful exchange that enlarges knowledge...I would like to show here how one inner-directed theoretical model of writing can be enlarged by an outer-directed critique." I seem to have missed the "enlarged" portion of this paper, for as I read one, I found Bizzell merely criticizing various other theories. (I was struck by how hostile she was towards Flowers and sensed a stroke of jealousy in her writing, but that could just be me). She goes into great deal explaining Flowers process only to dismiss it as problematic. I didn't read Flowers' article, but as I flipped through the pages, I wish I would have for it seems genuinely interesting. Finally, after going through various theories, Bizzell ultimately concludes that "If the work of these disciplines continues to converge, a new synthesis will emerge that revivifies rhetoric as the central discipline of human intellectual endeavor...one's work and the understanding that guides it cannot be achieved autonomously...In other words, let us emphasize not only discourse but also community."

Product Theory

I'll start with my favorite article this week, Hartwell's "Grammar." I found this piece lively, informative and clever. Also, it may be one of the few articles I will remember a week from now. His description of the 5 types of grammar was very helpful and changed my understanding of what grammar actually is. I've never really had a firm grasp on types II and IV as my grammar education stopped in middle school. I took Principles of Modern Grammar in college which did not teach me anything other than how to diagram sentences and I don't even remember that anymore. I've always wondered how the heck am I supposed to write good sentences if I don't have a grasp on all these advanced technical terms I hear every once in a while like modals, conditions and the hundreds of different verb types. Then Hartwell hit me, mastery of type II and IV grammar does not correlate with type I grammar. I can write, maybe, complicated and deeply embedded sentences without knowing the names of the techniques I'm using, and that's OK.

Although Hartwell does well to shatter the myth of grammar, he offers only vague, idealistic alternatives. This is something I've noticed in almost every article I've read in class so far. They all do a good job of proving some specific idea wrong, but are very vague in what ought to be done. Hartwell says, "Those of us who dismiss the teaching of formal grammar have a model of composition instruction that makes the grammar issue 'uninteresting.'" And what is this model? One that "predicts a rich and complex interaction of learner and environment in mastering literacy." That's nice, but I have a better one. It is one where all student writers will leave prepared to write the next Great American Novel, or write treatises which will lead to world happiness, or discover a cure for cancer through discourse, etc. I know all the secrets, just don't ask me to elaborate.

Sommers does a good job in "Responding to Student Writing" of at least showing us how to grade better. The important thing I took from this article is the confusion and ambiguity of the average comment on student papers. Teachers simultaneously nitpick comma placement and spelling while asking the student to fundamentally restructure and rewrite their entire paper. Sommers offers a clear strategy for grading papers that will better serve the student: "Our goal in commenting on early drafts should be to engage students with the issues they are considering and help clarify their purposes and reasons in writing their specific text." She then explains clearly what was wrong with one of the examples and offers us an example of what could have specifically been said to that student. I imagine a course in which the student will be asked to write three drafts of a paper, each one focusing on a different thing. The first one on structure and general development of ideas. The next on flow of logic and one sentence smoothly transitioning from one to another. And the last, after a good paper has already been written, will focus on punctuation, spelling and diction. Thus reversing the old mode of thinking that grammar is the foundation of good writing and the most important first step.

I tried reading "Teachers' Rhetorical Comments on Student Papers," but the research aspect of it was dull and the subject even more so. It seems that the general conclusions of these papers are always echoed in the other readings anyway. If I save 25% of my time by NOT reading the paper, but only miss out on a 5% increase in knowledge, then it is worth, in my opinion, not to read the danged thing and just listen to the people that did ;)

Connors' article was a little more interesting to me, even though the subject was not. Anything told in narrative or a historical perspective can usually hold my attention. I found it to be a good review on the history of composition with a focus on grammar, but did not add much to my knowledge that I didn't already get from the historical readings from earlier in the course. I always like a good quote before an article or chapter or anything. But I wondered if any variation of the opening quote might not also be true. "He that loveth little things shall grow little by little." Or, "He that despiseth big things shall perish in large degrees." Or, "One shall grow or perish in relation to his stock in things."

Finally, I was confused by Elbow's article. It was too long for its seemingly narrow scope. All I got out of it is that we ought to include nonacademic discourse in our students' education to make them more well-rounded in their post-academic life (perhaps a hard pill to swallow for those whose lives are entirely academic).

Dissonance Blog

I'm not sure what is new for me to say here as I feel I've said it all in class. That is, what I intend my research paper to be about. 4chan will be the subject of my interests, though I'm not entirely sure what claims/conclusions I will make about it.

I suppose, I would first start with a brief history of the website, the context from which it was borne and the state of the internet that allowed it to flourish the way it did. Next I would explain a few key terms and the organization of the site with a special focus on /b/—the main board on the website. Next, the layout of threads, the rules governing which threads get displayed and for how long, and limitations on text/images that naturally lend a certain shape/form to the content posted. Finally, I will attempt a kind of profile on the average user of this site. Although all users are necessarily anonymous, certain assumptions can be made about them based on the content posted. I'm not sure if it matters "what a 4chan user looks like." If not, I will instead focus on the anonymity of the website, it's implications for authorship and accountability, and why Anonymous is such a powerful force online when identity and cult of personality is valued IRL (in real life). This will make up Part I, which will be all about defining the website, though my ideas on Anonymous may ultimately make up a larger portion of the paper if I come across any research/theory I can draw more elaborate ideas from.

Part II may focus on something like the relationships between text in images, text alongside images and, to a lesser degree, images in texts. There many "forms" of images that have a general tone and are then manipulated with text or used in different situations to convey a specific emotion, feeling or attitude. One common example is the MFW (my face when...) reaction image which is usually a photo of a shocked/surprised person and is meant to signify that the reader's reaction to the thread is similar in degree to that of the person in the image. There are also certain conventions used when telling a personal narrative in a thread. For example, green text is frequently used, there are no sentences, per se, individual lines are used for a complete thought, and the sometimes begin, ungrammatically, with the word "be." Such as, "be 23 years old/filling my car up the gas station when..." Anyway, the point of all that is to show how the nature of the website itself lends to create new styles of writing that can't exist in other mediums. One final thing about this is that the content is usually very expressive in nature with no emphasis whatsoever on grammar or punctuation. The most successful posts are those that are the most emotionally charged or appeal the visual senses.

In Part III, I will use some certain set of theories/articles/research/etc to tie all this together and extract some meaning from it all. This will be the hardest part.

I am also interested in expanding what I consider my audience. Rather than simply writing for a teacher with no expectation of anyone else ever reading what I've written (except future biographers), I will also write with my classmates and Anonymous in mind. I hope my paper will be interesting and relevant for the academic and online community alike, trolls and all.

Process Theory

I will start with the two articles that I found most interesting and which had the most connections, though written decades apart. They are Lowe's "Moving to the Public: Weblogs in the Writing Classroom" and Elbow's "A Method for Teaching Writing." I found myself agreeing wholeheartedly with Elbow's article, though he seems to lose focus in the second half. As I read through the first half, Elbow echoed many ideas and concerns I've had about my own experiences in the classroom, but I became increasingly disheartened as the article's age weighed on me. It was written over 40 years ago, and little has changed since? It seems that the basic purpose of writing—to produce a desired effect on the reader—has been largely forgotten or ignored. Yet, we do not write for the sake of producing good grammar and expressing truth, but in the hopes that our truth and how we choose to express it may have some kind of positive change in our audience. It is this idea that Elbow cannot stress enough and reiterates dozens of times throughout the article that seems to remain unshared by contemporary teachers (or whoever is in charge of what is taught by teachers). Elbow makes it more obvious that style and truth must necessarily follow the reason for writing in the first place.

I've come to the conclusion that as long as the format for teaching remains unchanged, so will the method. This is where Lowe's article comes in. Weblogs, and the internet in general, may offer us the opportunity to reimagine the ways in which we teach writing, why we bother teaching it, and what writing is good for. He draws from two points made by Elbow: that student writing should be made available to other students for evaluation and feedback and that the student should have some specific intention/audience in my mind when he writes. I like Elbow's idea that students should "send off letters to the newspaper and see which ones get published." I've sometimes imagined a class where your grade was a reflection of how successful you were in submitting your paper to some place and getting it published. Anyway, with the internet, we now have infinite and easily accessible places to get published. With weblogs, we can publish ourselves. Lowe expands Elbow's idea of a communal classroom when he says that "by extending the discourse to a large community outside of the classroom, our student bloggers regularly confront 'real' rhetorical situations in a very social, supportive setting." Our success can now be determined by how, not just teachers or peers but, the entire world responds to us.

Even if the internet and it's various modes of production are just a fad, it is important for writers to write to what is relevant in that moment. Writers must be able to write for all occasions and to all readers, at least the ones they care to influence. Even if all this technology is just a passing phase and we will one day return to writing whatever it is we once wrote, it is still better than writing in a dead and irrelevant, yet "superior", community. It is time for writing that engages with the world since we are living in an increasingly connected world.

Lowe seems to agree with me, or I with him: "The scholarship often depicts the writer, working alone, drawing on deeply divined personal truths or engaging in inner dialogue as the means of creating knowledge. While composition theory and practice now recognizes the importance of collaboration and social interaction...we still that our field's expressivist heritage may lead many writing teachers to put the private unnecessarily in front of the public, partially because writing teachers are themselves more comfortable with the private."

I have nothing meaningful to say about the other readings. Murray's was too short. I remember thinking it seemed more like a good pep article better suited to the beginning of this course to sort of get us in the mood and spirit of composition theory. Perl's was too long with more information than I could ever find any use for, unless I someday find myself needing that exact information by which point I'll probably forget that it exists. If I had to choose something to take away from the article, I guess it would be the two conclusion's Perl comes up with about the writing process on page 34-5: "Composing does not occur in a straightforward, linear fashion" and "Composing always involves some measure of both construction and discovery." He goes on to explain what he means.