I'm interested to see what you wrestle with, and ultimately conclude in this project. The "reading" that you witnessed in my class was arguably so controlled and singular that any sense of independence, of being productively "lost" in a reading with only one's self there to find a way out, was absent. Perhaps this finding one's way through--and specifically out of--a text, whether another's or one's own, is really what we're doing when we're teaching "writing," as you suggest in your last paragraph. I wonder, would you consider going to the opposite extreme and having an English 101 course in which the only "texts" that students produce would be "readings" of other people's texts?
I too am mystified by the murky totemic device of the "Assigned Reading," as ultimately it seems to be some of the few elements of a JJ 101 course that falls explicitly into our arena of "taste," rather than perhaps what we believe pedagogically necessary or pressing for the benefit of writing abstractly. Also, curiously enough, I keyed into a similar topic when observing your class -- that is, your deft navigation of 'boredom' via intergalactic time-chutes in your annotated bibliography presentation, continual audience interaction, et al. But, in regards to the questions you raise about the "Teacher Selected Text" specifically, I think you open up a whole new field of abstract benefit of sheer thinking/stimulation/engagement that doesn't have an underlying skeleton of 'rhetorical moves' or 'prescriptive benefit.' Perhaps this even stretches back to a more liberal arts (in the old school way) tradition of reading stimulating agents as just generally beneficial to your thinking project, and there seems always room for something to simply 'stir the pot' and potentially dredge up opinions within a students perhaps more apathetically reacting to a more overtly beneficial text. Very curious to see where this loose snag in the 101 course takes you.
WOW - this is a GREAT, GREAT question - one that has been eating at me as well - and, somehow, I didn't even THINK to look at this issue as a research-project-worthy topic - I was just feeling frustrated with my own struggles with it!
Just to respond to your writings from a personal perspective, for a moment - before engaging with your content - the writing philosophy to which I've been exposed as far back as I can remember (literally elementary school, h.s., college) - has ALWAYS been that: you become a better writer via 2 things: 1) writing constantly, and 2) reading/being exposed to good writing. i.e. the philosophy that I always believed was that the 2 - some balance of the 2 - was FUNDAMENTAL to developing good writing skills.
That's why it's been fascinating to me to see that, here at John Jay, the philosophy (at least re 101) seems different - more twds minimizing or extracting all reading. And, from my teaching this semester, I'm leaning twds that now - simply bc of a lack of time.
From YOUR writing here, it seems to me that you engage with the more theoretical pedagogical q in your response to McCrimmon - and, it seemed to me that a potential research q here could be "what IS the relationship between reading and composition" - for a 101 class, in general...this connects with your more specific q (which I'll address below) in that it's kind of an umbrella category, but - it has the potential to go in directions other than the 101 class, and into more theoretical/pedagogical territory of "what are the learning processes that happen when a student reads, or learns how to read; what are the processes that occur when a student is learning how to write; how do the two inform or complicate each other?" [This may be a larger scope or different q than the one you're actually asking...but I felt it was in there, especially in your response to the literature.]
It also seemed to me that you had a different question - one that connects with this larger, theoretical, literature-driven issue, but is more localized in the classroom: the question you asked upon observing Erin's technique, and upon reflecting on your students' reactions to the reading you assigned. You state the question pretty straightforwardly: "What is the role of reading [i.e. the teacher-assigned reading] in the college writing workshop, and how can we convey the value of reading to our students so that their writing might benefit from it?" (p. 3) It seems to me that your observation of Erin's technique might open a path for one possible response/idea/answer to this question - which is, perhaps a specific tailoring of the said reading - a tailoring towards pragmatic needs (i.e., so that the reading itself is actually HELPFUL to students - whether as a model, or as part of an assignment, etc) and then a COMMUNICATION OF that very tailoring (so that students don't feel their time is wasted, and, rather, they understand what, from the teacher's perspective, the value is to this reading - how it will pragmatically help THEM) - perhaps this is the beginning to one way of thinking about assigned readings viz a viz the 101 course.
Anyway - could be you got here already; could be I'm totally totally off here....regardless - I, at least, found this really FASCINATING and fun to read - and, as I wrote to Erin and Casey - REALLY excited to see where you go with this!!! Good luck!! :)
Hi Nolan,
ReplyDeleteI'm interested to see what you wrestle with, and ultimately conclude in this project. The "reading" that you witnessed in my class was arguably so controlled and singular that any sense of independence, of being productively "lost" in a reading with only one's self there to find a way out, was absent. Perhaps this finding one's way through--and specifically out of--a text, whether another's or one's own, is really what we're doing when we're teaching "writing," as you suggest in your last paragraph. I wonder, would you consider going to the opposite extreme and having an English 101 course in which the only "texts" that students produce would be "readings" of other people's texts?
-Erin
Hey Nolan,
ReplyDeleteI too am mystified by the murky totemic device of the "Assigned Reading," as ultimately it seems to be some of the few elements of a JJ 101 course that falls explicitly into our arena of "taste," rather than perhaps what we believe pedagogically necessary or pressing for the benefit of writing abstractly. Also, curiously enough, I keyed into a similar topic when observing your class -- that is, your deft navigation of 'boredom' via intergalactic time-chutes in your annotated bibliography presentation, continual audience interaction, et al. But, in regards to the questions you raise about the "Teacher Selected Text" specifically, I think you open up a whole new field of abstract benefit of sheer thinking/stimulation/engagement that doesn't have an underlying skeleton of 'rhetorical moves' or 'prescriptive benefit.' Perhaps this even stretches back to a more liberal arts (in the old school way) tradition of reading stimulating agents as just generally beneficial to your thinking project, and there seems always room for something to simply 'stir the pot' and potentially dredge up opinions within a students perhaps more apathetically reacting to a more overtly beneficial text. Very curious to see where this loose snag in the 101 course takes you.
-Casey
Hi Nolan,
ReplyDeleteWOW - this is a GREAT, GREAT question - one that has been eating at me as well - and, somehow, I didn't even THINK to look at this issue as a research-project-worthy topic - I was just feeling frustrated with my own struggles with it!
Just to respond to your writings from a personal perspective, for a moment - before engaging with your content - the writing philosophy to which I've been exposed as far back as I can remember (literally elementary school, h.s., college) - has ALWAYS been that: you become a better writer via 2 things: 1) writing constantly, and 2) reading/being exposed to good writing. i.e. the philosophy that I always believed was that the 2 - some balance of the 2 - was FUNDAMENTAL to developing good writing skills.
That's why it's been fascinating to me to see that, here at John Jay, the philosophy (at least re 101) seems different - more twds minimizing or extracting all reading. And, from my teaching this semester, I'm leaning twds that now - simply bc of a lack of time.
From YOUR writing here, it seems to me that you engage with the more theoretical pedagogical q in your response to McCrimmon - and, it seemed to me that a potential research q here could be "what IS the relationship between reading and composition" - for a 101 class, in general...this connects with your more specific q (which I'll address below) in that it's kind of an umbrella category, but - it has the potential to go in directions other than the 101 class, and into more theoretical/pedagogical territory of "what are the learning processes that happen when a student reads, or learns how to read; what are the processes that occur when a student is learning how to write; how do the two inform or complicate each other?" [This may be a larger scope or different q than the one you're actually asking...but I felt it was in there, especially in your response to the literature.]
It also seemed to me that you had a different question - one that connects with this larger, theoretical, literature-driven issue, but is more localized in the classroom: the question you asked upon observing Erin's technique, and upon reflecting on your students' reactions to the reading you assigned. You state the question pretty straightforwardly: "What is the role of reading [i.e. the teacher-assigned reading] in the college writing workshop, and how can we convey the value of reading to our students so that their writing might benefit from it?" (p. 3) It seems to me that your observation of Erin's technique might open a path for one possible response/idea/answer to this question - which is, perhaps a specific tailoring of the said reading - a tailoring towards pragmatic needs (i.e., so that the reading itself is actually HELPFUL to students - whether as a model, or as part of an assignment, etc) and then a COMMUNICATION OF that very tailoring (so that students don't feel their time is wasted, and, rather, they understand what, from the teacher's perspective, the value is to this reading - how it will pragmatically help THEM) - perhaps this is the beginning to one way of thinking about assigned readings viz a viz the 101 course.
Anyway - could be you got here already; could be I'm totally totally off here....regardless - I, at least, found this really FASCINATING and fun to read - and, as I wrote to Erin and Casey - REALLY excited to see where you go with this!!! Good luck!! :)
Meira