Week 3 - September 6th Post

Today’s Readings (September 6^th):

Faigley, Lester. "Literacy after the Revolution." College Composition and Communication 48.1 (1997): 30-43.

Selfe, Cynthia L. "Technology and Literacy: A Story about the Perils of Not Paying Attention." College Composition and Communication 50.3 (1999): 411-436.

CCCC Position Statement on Teaching, Learning, and Assessing Writing in Digital Environments. Conference on College Composition and Communication. (2004).

These early technologically-related C’s addresses were both fascinating and a little depressing. Both made strong calls to action but both also strongly lamented our field’s lack of engagement in technological literacy and, therefore, the social issues that accompany this type of literacy. Faigley seems to blame the educational and economic system for these literacy inequities and, while Selfe also puts some blame on our capitalistic American society, she ultimately rebukes the composition and rhetoric field for its lack of action on this matter.

Faigley’s hopes that our discipline would be able to do great things and that we would be able to make systemic differences in exploring anti-authoritarian ways of teaching and in the working conditions of our peers was met with seemingly insurmountable institutional barriers. He goes on to explain the revolution of the rich in a time when the US was highly polarized financially, culturally, and racially and where the government favors the wealthy was “identified with bureaucracy, inefficiency, and waste” (p.34). For Faigley, colleges are now run more like business and we’re constantly fighting an uphill battle to maintain class sizes and workloads.

In his address, Faigley explains how the revolution of the rich ultimately begat the digital revolution since only those who were wealthy were able to lay claim to the benefits of the digital age. He is disillusioned by the technological abilities of students who choose to do little for the greater good with these impressive skills and he is further disillusioned by the digital inequality in terms of income, gender, race, culture, and location.

Despite this somewhat hopeless critique of power hierarchies, Faigley does suggest that comp/rhet scholars must work together to stop the decline in publically supported education. He encourages us to be smarter and more aware of what is going on and to organize to protect our discipline and our students.

Similarly, Cyndie Selfe encourages comp/rhet scholars to simply pay attention to technology since, in order to remain active and relevant scholars, we must realize the essential role that technology plays in our lives (whether we like it or not). She specifically recommends that we “pay attention to, how technology is inextricably linked to literacy and literacy education in this country” (p.414). In this way, Selfe is much more specific than Faigley as she responds to the lackluster and even apathetic view that many comp/rhet scholars take towards technology.

Like Faigley, though, Selfe is very concerned with issues of access. She brings up the literacy myth that dispels the notion that the literate (the reading public) will be successful. If we believe that those who are literate (including technologically literate) will be successful, then we must realize that “computers continue to be distributed differentially along the related axes of races and socioeconomic status and this distribution continues to ongoing patterns of racism and to the continuation of poverty” (Selfe, p.420). This is much like the earlier Selfe and Cooper and Selfe and Hawisher articles that argued that technology without advanced literacy or without careful purpose merely advance hegemonic classroom roles.

Selfe admonishes the discipline for allowing technological literacy become a part of general literacy throughout education as we (as a discipline) have very little real impact on these definitions. For her, we allow legislation like the 1996 Clinton-Gore legislation to go forward without providing “adequate guidance about how to get teachers and students thinking critically about such use” (p.419). In this way, students may be materially or maybe even functionally literate in technology but they may not develop the necessary ability to critique such technology.

The fact that capitalism has always shaped our definitions of literacy is problematic for Selfe since those who are technologically literate continue to improves and become successful in life, much like Faigley’s revolution of the rich, while the technically illiterate individuals “provide the unskilled, low-paid labor necessary to sustain the system” (p.427).

Selfe is, again, a bit more specific than Faigley in her final call to action. She recommends (or maybe even demands) that we stitch our understandings of technology together locally, then branch out to make connections with other writing professionals in order to engage in essential activist towards access.

Luckily for me (I was getting seriously bummed out by these readings), the CCCC Position Statement on Teaching, Learning, and Assessing Writing in Digital Environments provided some hope that our field is moving in the right direction. Most specifically, the Assumptions section was especially helpful.

The first goal is to introduce students critically to technology and information technology. For me, this is a recommendation that class discussions and assignments encourage students to consider issues like access and hegemony (something that I am already attempting to include in my classroom). The second goal asks us to provide students with multiple opportunities to solve myriad problems in their lives (including education, personal lives, etc.) using technology. Such a recommendation is easily accomplished based on the type of assignment that the teacher chooses. In my case, I assign multiple assignments throughout the semester that allow students to choose the technology that they find most rhetorically suitable. The third goal is to give students hands on time with technologies. This is something that I strive to accomplish but, based on the busy schedules of the campus labs and the fact that my class meets during peak lab hours, such instruction proves to be quite difficult. To counteract this issue, I’m considering occasionally holding office hours in the AML to help students with technical issues. The fourth goal is to “engage students in the critical evaluation of information” based on information literacy. In addition to significant library time, students are encouraged to use a variety of sources and, in their cover letters, defend their choice of sources and media. Finally, the last goal is to “prepare students to be reflective practitioners” of technology? For me, this is the vaguest of all the goals. I suppose that, by encourage students in all of the other goals, they will hopefully become “reflective practitioners.”

Overall, I am relieved to see that there is a CCCC’s Position Statement on Teaching, Learning, and Assessing Writing in Digital Environments. I would imagine that this is a result of the addresses of Faigley and Selfe, at least to some degree, and that this statement will be fluid and dynamic in its continued response to technological literacy. 

Week 3 - September 4th Post

Today’s (Sept. 4^th) Readings:

Lanham, Richard. "The Electric Word: Literary Study and the Digital Revolution." New Literary History. Vol. 20, No. 2, Technology, Models, and Literary Study (Winter, 1989), pp. 265-290.

Slatin, John. "Reading Hypertext: Order and Coherence in a New Medium." College English. Vol. 52, No. 8 (Dec., 1990), pp. 870-883.

Cooper, Marilyn M. and Cynthia L. Selfe. "Computer Conferences and Learning: Authority, Resistance, and Internally Persuasive Discourse." College English, Vol. 52, No. 8 (Dec., 1990), pp. 847-869.

Hawisher, Gail E. and Cynthia L. Selfe. "The Rhetoric of Technology and the Electronic Writing Class." College Composition and Communication, Vol. 42, No. 1 (Feb., 1991), pp. 55-65.

I very much enjoyed the connections between Lanham and Slatin in this week’s readings. Although both of these texts are relatively old in terms of technology, many of the issues that these authors bring up are still legitimate concerns for today’s digital scholars. Both Lanham and Slatin discuss the “responsive reader” (Lanham 268) and the concerns for the reader rather than the author in digital texts. The authors go on to explain how hypertext allows readers to explore the text in a variety of ways to best experience the text on their terms. Slatin goes into great depth in his discussion about hypertext publication, while Lanham explores the more playful side of multimedia publishing and asks, “wouldn’t you begin to play games with it [malleable hypertext or digital media)?” (p.269). For me, the answer is yes. I find myself taking notes on the very PDF files that we’re reading now with a series of personalized stamps, colors, and images to make the readings more enjoyable, applicable, and memorable for my reading pleasure.

Cooper and Selfe and Hawisher and Selfe also have a number of interesting connections. Both readings call into question the use of technology for technology’s sake in addition to offering general pedagogical caution to the status quo of teaching. Both sets of authors dislike the more traditional, lecture-type modes of teaching in addition to the skill-and-drill methods. For them, using technology in such ways simply reinforces the traditional hegemonic issues within the classroom that students and teachers have always faced. In fact, Hawisher and Selfe make a really nice connection between their words of caution and Foucault’s panopticon as they analyze the dangers of technical assignments like discussion forums and online conferences since they often “inhibit open exchanges, reduce active learning, and limit the opportunities for honest intellectual engagement” (p. 62) with the teacher watching and grading their actions.

As a whole, these readings made me consider my own views and actions as a scholar and as a teacher. Lanham asks the question: “What business are we really in?” (p.285) and, for me, this is a central question to all of us who teach FYC. Are we in the business of creating texts, are these texts books and only books? Are we in the business of preparing students for writing in the university? Elsewhere? What does writing look like anyway? He further calls into question our practices in publication which, I thought, was sort of eerily accurate. He mentions that conversations may become the norm in scholarly publications and that they may be in media other than books and traditional print media. Kairos (the journal) anyone? As a relatively new scholar to these conversations, I find myself asking these questions almost daily as I try to find my place.

Additionally, the Hawisher and Selfe and the Cooper and Selfe texts bring teacher power to the forefront of the discussion. Obviously, teachers always have power in the classroom since “our culture has imbued us with considerable power within the confines of the classroom; we are the architects of the spaces in which our students learn” (p. 64). But, even through my efforts to provide a student-centered classroom, I find myself acutely aware of the instances where I impose my power on students (sometimes inadvertently). I tend to beat myself up about the issues of hegemony since, the more I read and study about it, the more I realize that I do it and that I don’t really know how to stop “oppressing” my students. I suppose what is really valuable from these sorts of discussions, though, is that we are THINKING about these issues and becoming more aware of them. For me, I often have to be content with just working towards creating a more open, diverse, and inviting classroom for new ideas.

Finally, I was struck by Cooper and Selfe’s discussion of the forced assimilation into academic discourse that FYC students endure. They rail against this assimilation (and bring up Bartholomae in the process) and, to a point, I agree. To bring this full circle, though, “What business are we really in?” (Lanham, p.285). I find myself torn between the definition of FYC as a service course and FYC as a place to help students to communicate in more non-traditional means. If I don’t treat the course as a service course, though, will my students be prepared for the requirements of the university and for the rhetorical expectations of their future professors? One of my major frustrations with comp is that none of us can, with any certainty, really define what business we are all in.

Week 2 - Foucault and Ohmann

This Week’s Readings:

Foucault, Michel. "Panopticism." Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Trans. Alan Sheridan, 1977. New York: Vintage Books, 1995. 195-228.

Foucault, Michel. "The Eye of Power." Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings. Ed. Colin Gordon. New York: Pantheon Books, 1980. 146-165.

Ohmann, Richard. "Literacy, Technology, and Monopoly Capital." College English. 47.7 (1985): 675-89.

To be honest, I feel sort of silly that I didn’t know that Jeremy Bentham was the creator of the Panopticon. All this time, I have been attributing the concept to Foucault. That sheepishness aside, I actually enjoyed reading Foucault. His arguments tie in really well with the sort of issues that I’m dealing with in my classroom right now.

Foucault talks at length in about the Panopticon as a technology of power and as a means in which these “techniques of power are invented to meet the demands of production” (Eye, p.161). It is this discussion of power, production, and utility that most interest me. In Panopticonism, Foucault discusses the enforcement of power on the “abnormal” individual in order to better “deal” with them in an attempt to employ them in some sort of useful occupation. In this way, those who are different are “sorted” from the rest whether they have leprosy/plague, as in Foucault’s examples, or whether they are different in terms of class or race; this separation prevents collective action through separation. This discussion reminds me a bit of Adam Banks’ Race, Rhetoric, and Technology as he discusses the fact that African Americans have been “sorted” in terms of technological advances. Banks discusses the various levels of technological literacy (material, functional, experiential, and critical) and explains that most African Americans and other “abnormal” groups (to use Foucault’s term) are consistently held at material or functional levels, thus preventing them from taking advantage of and becoming a part of the technologies of power. This is very much in line with Ohmann’s argument that “the computer revolution, like other revolutions from the top down, will indeed expand the minds and the freedom of the elite, meanwhile facilitating the degradation of labor and the stratification of the workforce that have been hallmarks of monopoly capitalism from its onset” (p.683).

These discussions suddenly make me very aware of the assumptions and decisions that I make in the classroom. I found myself irritated that my students were unable to find a specific file (I did give them directions), open that file, listen to the contents of that file, and then complete a discussion forum post relating to that file within the first week of class. If any of my students are indeed at functional or material levels of technological understanding, then I am making unfair assumptions and I am further alienating them and forcing them into the “abnormal” group, thus further removing them from the power of technology. Such assumptions are, although often unintentional, quite dangerous in our classrooms and now, more than ever, I find myself more aware of them and I am attempting to do more explanatory and exploratory work in class before I require such assignments.

Foucault also explains that “the Panopticon was also a laboratory; it could be used as a machine to carry out experiments, alter behavior, to train or correct individuals…to try out PEDAGOGICAL [my emphasis] experiments” (Panopticonism, pp. 203-204). This statement was especially jarring to me since my dissertation research uses my students as my research subjects. After reading Panopticonism, I began to think of my own classroom as a bit of a Panopticon since most of the class work is online and open to everyone with me at the center viewing everyone’s work critically and separating students according to their research interests. I also thought of Foucault’s three criteria for maintaining power “to obtain the exercise of power at the lowest possible cost…to bring the effects of this social power to their maximum intensity and to extend to them as far as possible without either failure or interval…[and] to link this ‘economic’ growth of power with the output of the apparatuses” (Panopticonism, p.218). And THEN I thought about time as my currency. What am I doing to enforce my own power over my students in the sake of time? Additionally, the entire panoptic idea seems to spring from the idea of maintaining a greater good through order; Foucault explains that disciple exists partially to clear up confusion and restore order to the masses (Panopticonism, p.219). I’m not sure that I can really remedy the TIME as my currency issue but I am now more aware and more critical of my power in the classroom. Although I do try to share power and wield what power I do have benevolently, I still have THE power in the classroom and that’s not something to take lightly.  

Week 1 - Lauer and Wysocki

This week’s readings:
Lauer, Claire (2012). What's in a Name? The Anatomy of Defining New/Multi/Modal/Digital/Media Texts. Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy, 17(1). http://kairos.technorhetoric.net/17.1/inventio/lauer/index.html

Wysocki, Anne Frances. "Opening New Media to Writing: Openings and Justifications." from Writing New Media. 1-41.

The readings this week were an intersting combination. I read Lauer’s text first since (ironically) it was digital and because I could start reading it while I was waiting for the bus on my tablet. What struck me most about this text is the lack of a clear, unified definition for terms that we use daily in composition. I realize that I throw around the term “multimodality” as if everyone understands it and as if everyone shares my definition (using various modes of composition as a means of persuasion/communication). I realize also that, although I do define this term in my FYC class, that I don’t do a very good job of SHOWING my students what I mean. Wysocki discusses the impact of vague terminology on the student experience and even on the potential agency of the user/student. She also points out the dangers of decontextualizing writing, resulting in the “real world” vs. “school” divide. This decontextualization is, most certainly, a part of the alienation of students through ineffectual/ill-defined/unclear terminology. If students don’t understand what we’re saying because we’ve jargonized our classroom activities to the point of failed utility for the student, then we are failing as teachers. I’m certainly guilty of this in terms other than multimodal discussions. I’ve tried to stop using terms like rhetorical and genre analysis for assignments and I’ve replaced them with more student-friendly and specific terms like argument analysis and assignment type analysis. Students don’t need to get bogged down in OUR professional terminology as FYC students.

Students aside, in terms of my OWN, professional preference for terminology in this field of study,  I prefer “multimodality” precisely for the same reason that Cyndie Selfe mentions in the secion on terminology being “precise”. She states that multimodality is esentially using all available means of persuasion (in whatever mode/form) to effectively complete the task at hand. THIS is how I present multimodality to my students. I explain that there are various modes of communication and that some of them are more situationally appropriate than others and that their task is to determine the most rhetorically effective mode for each given task. Students seem to understand this and when I explain that this comes from Aristotle’s definition of rhetoric, well, that just adds to my own ethos. In this case, multimodality has a very precise definition for me and for my FYC class.

Finally, I very much appreciated Wysocki’s call for generous reading and encouraging more teachers to study new media since “writing teachers focus specifically on texts and how situated people (learn how to) use them to make things happen” (Wysocki, p.5). I’m expecially intrigued when she points out the lack of scholarship on “help[ing] composers of texts think usefully about effects of their particular decisions as they compose a new media text, to help composers see how agency and materiality are entwined as they compose” (Wysocki, p.6). For me, this entails more discussion (a la Selfe and Banks) in the FYC classroom to encourage students to see behind the interface and terms to better understand their situation as a student and as an individual.

Wysocki also does a very nice job of encouraging us to teach alertness within our students towards differnet types of composition/production and their appropriateness. This alertness is also key for us as teachers since we should encourage a “generosity toward the positions that others produce, no matter how awkward-looking or –sounding” (Wysocki, p.23) which is something that I want to better encourage in my classroom. Of course, this selection of readings doesn’t address issues of assessment which complicates this “generosity” in reading such texts. But, that is another entry all together.

New Blog

Hello there! So this blog is solely intended as a reading journal for my ENGL 591 Course at WSU. Here's hoping for a semester of awesomeness!