“The language of argument is not poetic, fanciful, or rhetorical; it is literal. We talk about arguments that way because we conceive of them that way - and we act according to the way we conceive of things” (Lakoff and Johnson, 5).
1. Question: How can the search for and creation of alternative metaphors for argument be applied to the WRIT 101 classroom?
Metaphor: “The term metaphor comes from the Greek words meta, meaning “beyond” or “above”... and pherein, meaning “to carry.” A metaphor carries... another meaning beyond its literal one” (Keith and Lundberg, 68).
2. First, why is searching for alternative metaphors for argumentation important?
- As Lakoff and Johnson, above, and Tannen, conclude, the language we use shapes the way we think, and the way we think shapes the way we act.
- The argument culture tends towards polarizations and dualities, which do not present the full range of possibilities or view points.
- Criticism and attack, built into the metaphor of argument as war, become seen as the best means of critical thought.
3. Alternatives to argument as war.
- Argument as building, a metaphor already present in our cultural language, identified by Lakoff and Johnson. We construct arguments. We need a strong foundation. Sometimes arguments collapse, etc. This is a less harmful way of looking at argument, though it doesn't impart any notion of collaboration or movement away from dualities.
- Argument as ecology, as suggested by James Klumpp. “An argumentative ecology is an interaction of arguers and arguments sited in and producing a community of coordinated, reasoned action. Etymologically, "ecology" is the study of a "home." Argumentative ecologies are homes for argument. As a mode of study, argumentative ecology promotes study of argument as interconnected and evolving patterns of reason giving and coordination that structure human understanding and action. The study entails both the substance and the structure of arguing in particular human communities” (Klumpp184)
- Argument as balance, as is suggested in Chinese philosophy, as identified by Tannen in a chapter on other cultures' understandings of argument. Chinese philosophy sees “a diverse universe in precarious balance that is maintained by talk. This translates into methods of investigation that focus more on integrating ideas and exploring relations among them than on opposing ideas and fighting over them” (258).
- Argument as smoking a hookah, as suggested by Beth Baker. Drawing on my cultural references for an image, an idea is passed around the circle, inhaled, or mused over by each participant, who is allotted time to contribute or exhale, which perfumes the air, making the general atmosphere more pleasant. This draws on collaboration and listening.
4. Practical applications of alternative metaphors and moving away from the culture of argument:
1. Deborah Tannen suggests something as simple as presenting concepts not in dualities, presented not in opposition to each other, but in threes, so that each concept is given its own weight individually, rather than in comparison to the other.
2. Play the “Believing Game,” with drafts of student work, as recommended by Peter Elbow via Tannen. “Elbow recommends learning to approach new ideas, and ideas different from your own, in a different spirit - what he calls a “believing game.”... Elbow is not recommending that we stop doubting altogether. He is telling us to stop doubting exclusively. We need a systematic and respected way to detect and expose strengths, just as we have a systematic and respected way of detecting faults” (Tannen, 273).
3. As a part of the Op-Ed unit, students read excerpts of Tannen's The Argument Culture. As homework, identify and bring in to share with class examples of culture which reflect the argument as war metaphor.
4. Students read work which utilizes alternative forms of argumentation, then construct their own metaphors for argument, and practice building arguments using their own metaphors. Nicholas Kristof wrote an Op-Ed for the NYTimes called “Test Your Savvy on Religion,” which utilizes a quiz in order to demonstrate common mis-perceptions about religion, which operates by using readers' own knowledge or ignorance to convince them that their stereotypes about others based on religious beliefs are unfounded.
5. Other uses of metaphor in the classroom: Metaphors, as long as they are well crafted and explored in the classroom, can offer new ways of understanding assignments and concepts, in addition to argument. For example, many of my students had trouble understanding how to weave the personal and the academic elements together for the PAA, how much weight to give to each in the paper. I came across a metaphor used by Patricia Dunn, in her book Talking Sketching Moving: Multiple Literacies in the Teaching of Writing. Students were to think of themselves in the driver's seat, and they should put the academics in the backseat, or better yet, the trunk. The student drives the car, they decide the direction. If they get lost, then and only then do they stop the car, go and check in with the academics in the trunk.
Resources
Patricia Dunn, Talking Sketching Moving: Multiple Literacies in the Teaching of Writing
Nicholas Kristof, “Test Your Savvy on Religion,” NYTimes
George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By
Deborah Tannen, The Argument Culture: Stopping America's War of Words
Monday, December 13, 2010
Incorporating Ecocomposition into our WRIT 101 Classrooms: Grace's I-search Handout
- Core aspects that may be incorporated into WRIT 101 curriculum:
· connect students to the community, to the public sphere, and to active citizenry
- direct the writing of the Personal Academic Argument or “Greening UM” op-ed toward a specific audience and encourage students to submit it for publication
· provide opportunities for experiential learning
- may resemble service learning linked with regular discussions about the students-traveler’s role in the world in a wider context
- may be an outside writing project for a local non-profit organization
· foster deeper understanding of and create additional emphasis on ecology
- regularly discuss students’ relationship with place, natural, and manmade environments
- discuss ecological or environmental concepts in relation to each assignment
- facilitate thorough bioregional research during Life Place unit
Key texts:
Dobrin, Sidney I and Christian R. Weisser, ed. Ecocomposition: Theoretical and Pedagogical Approaches. New York: State University of New York Press, 2001. Print.
Dobrin, Sidney I and Christian R. Weisser. Natural Discourse: Toward Ecocomposition. New York: State University of New York Press, 2002. Print.
Notable professors/authors:
Cooper, Marilyn M.
Dobrin, Sidney I.
Drew, Julie
Hothem, Thomas
Ingram, Annie Merrill.
Johnson-Sheehan, Richard
Killingsworth, M. Jimmie
Owens, Derek.
Weisser, Christian R.
Celebrating and Validating Rural Literacies in the Writing Classroom
Celebrating and Validating:
Rural Literacies In the Writing Classroom
“A human community, if it is to last long, must exert a sort of a centripetal force, holding local soil and local memory in place.” – Wendell Berry, The Work of Local Culture
A. Questions for consideration:
1.) What are you own preconceived notions of rural people?
2.) Have you encountered and/or absorbed stereotypes of rural literacies?
3.) Do you try validate, support and including the vast range of our student’s identities and backgrounds in the classroom atmosphere and in their writing?
B. Main Ideas:
* Western State; Western University, Students and Communities: 75 percent of The University of Montana’s student population is in-state students, with 38 percent of those students coming from rural areas. In sum, it is fair to say UM has a high population of rural students and backgrounds.
* Agricultural History of Montana as a state – 49 % of Montana landscape is agricultural production and 33% of total agricultural production comes from livestock and cattle - Agriculture is Montana’s biggest export.
* Importance of a place-based education, to celebrate writing with and by the local culture and landscape
* In some instructional pedagogical approaches and attitudes, there is an anti-rural sentiment towards rural students and a process of what Heldke calls, the “stupidification” in popular culture of rural peoples pointing to the gradual marginalization of rural literacies.
What this means in the Writing Class:
1.) Encouragement of Student Literacies:
WHY? Coming directly from the public schooling system, many students are hailing from spending anywhere from 6-12 years in a political system that is rampant with power relations; NCLB, federal funding based on numerical merit of students. In the Freshman writing class, it’s our job to slowly dismantle their approach and behavior towards a writing class. Ex. Not writing for a grade, exploring genres, taking risks, etc..
HOW? Slow dismantling the numerical-based grading, in place of encouragement & validation.
2.) Commitment to Diversity and Differences in Writing / 3.) Helping Rural Students Feel more vested in Academia
WHY? In some respects, it’s the job a writing class to encourage students to engage, discover and validate their own set of knowledge through writing. If the writing class provides them the space to do so, than it may be fair to assume rural students will feel more vested throughout their time in academia.
HOW? An overall commitment to encouraging students to write about who they are, where they come from!
4.) Exploration of Self in the Writing Classroom through a Place-Based approach:
WHY? “Place conscious education, thus is schooling that focuses on the necessary relations – cultural, natural, agricultural, that shape a given place and its human communities. By entering education in a local civic issues, history, biology, economics, literature, and so forth, learners will be guided to imagine the world as interdependent, filled with a variety of locally interdependent places, and to develop a richer sense of citizenship and civic action” (Brooke, 6).
HOW? The writing class has a unique opportunity to present, create, develop and enact various activities that are centered on place and personal experience. The more freshman composition instructors can practice place-based activities and education; perhaps our students will feel a stronger sense of commitment to academia, as they see themselves and their landscapes as important aspects in the writing classroom.
Resources:
Brooke, Robert. Rural Voices: Place-conscious Education and the Teaching of Writing. New York: Teachers College, 2003. Print.
Donehower, Kim, Charlotte Hogg, and Eileen E. Schell. Rural Literacies. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 2007. Print.
Greene, Stuart. Literacy as a Civil Right: Reclaiming Social Justice in Literacy Teaching and Learning. New York: Peter Lang, 2008. Print.
Heldke, Lisa M. (Lisa Maree). "Farming Made Her Stupid." Hypatia 21.3 (2006): 151-65. Print.
Hooks, Bell. Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. New York: Routledge, 1994. Print.
Reynolds, Nedra. Geographies of Writing: Inhabiting Places and Encountering Difference. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 2004. Print.
Berry, Wendell. The Work of Local Culture. North Point, 1988. Print.
Rural Literacies In the Writing Classroom
“A human community, if it is to last long, must exert a sort of a centripetal force, holding local soil and local memory in place.” – Wendell Berry, The Work of Local Culture
A. Questions for consideration:
1.) What are you own preconceived notions of rural people?
2.) Have you encountered and/or absorbed stereotypes of rural literacies?
3.) Do you try validate, support and including the vast range of our student’s identities and backgrounds in the classroom atmosphere and in their writing?
B. Main Ideas:
* Western State; Western University, Students and Communities: 75 percent of The University of Montana’s student population is in-state students, with 38 percent of those students coming from rural areas. In sum, it is fair to say UM has a high population of rural students and backgrounds.
* Agricultural History of Montana as a state – 49 % of Montana landscape is agricultural production and 33% of total agricultural production comes from livestock and cattle - Agriculture is Montana’s biggest export.
* Importance of a place-based education, to celebrate writing with and by the local culture and landscape
* In some instructional pedagogical approaches and attitudes, there is an anti-rural sentiment towards rural students and a process of what Heldke calls, the “stupidification” in popular culture of rural peoples pointing to the gradual marginalization of rural literacies.
What this means in the Writing Class:
1.) Encouragement of Student Literacies:
WHY? Coming directly from the public schooling system, many students are hailing from spending anywhere from 6-12 years in a political system that is rampant with power relations; NCLB, federal funding based on numerical merit of students. In the Freshman writing class, it’s our job to slowly dismantle their approach and behavior towards a writing class. Ex. Not writing for a grade, exploring genres, taking risks, etc..
HOW? Slow dismantling the numerical-based grading, in place of encouragement & validation.
2.) Commitment to Diversity and Differences in Writing / 3.) Helping Rural Students Feel more vested in Academia
WHY? In some respects, it’s the job a writing class to encourage students to engage, discover and validate their own set of knowledge through writing. If the writing class provides them the space to do so, than it may be fair to assume rural students will feel more vested throughout their time in academia.
HOW? An overall commitment to encouraging students to write about who they are, where they come from!
4.) Exploration of Self in the Writing Classroom through a Place-Based approach:
WHY? “Place conscious education, thus is schooling that focuses on the necessary relations – cultural, natural, agricultural, that shape a given place and its human communities. By entering education in a local civic issues, history, biology, economics, literature, and so forth, learners will be guided to imagine the world as interdependent, filled with a variety of locally interdependent places, and to develop a richer sense of citizenship and civic action” (Brooke, 6).
HOW? The writing class has a unique opportunity to present, create, develop and enact various activities that are centered on place and personal experience. The more freshman composition instructors can practice place-based activities and education; perhaps our students will feel a stronger sense of commitment to academia, as they see themselves and their landscapes as important aspects in the writing classroom.
Resources:
Brooke, Robert. Rural Voices: Place-conscious Education and the Teaching of Writing. New York: Teachers College, 2003. Print.
Donehower, Kim, Charlotte Hogg, and Eileen E. Schell. Rural Literacies. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 2007. Print.
Greene, Stuart. Literacy as a Civil Right: Reclaiming Social Justice in Literacy Teaching and Learning. New York: Peter Lang, 2008. Print.
Heldke, Lisa M. (Lisa Maree). "Farming Made Her Stupid." Hypatia 21.3 (2006): 151-65. Print.
Hooks, Bell. Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. New York: Routledge, 1994. Print.
Reynolds, Nedra. Geographies of Writing: Inhabiting Places and Encountering Difference. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 2004. Print.
Berry, Wendell. The Work of Local Culture. North Point, 1988. Print.
Brittany's I-Search handout
Productive Cross-Pollination:
Pedagogical Connections between Creative Writing and Composition
Wendy Bishop: “We need to get serious about creating new, fused pedagogies, ones that include rhetoric, composition, creative writing, and literature as partners in instruction” (“Suddenly Sexy” 273). Sounds good. But WHY? and HOW?
Why #1: Cultivating critical thinking
- Reading and analyzing texts
- Applying techniques of craft to own work
- "High road transfer”—recognizing how creative writing process/techniques can apply to other rhetorical situations
Why #2: Encouraging collaboration
- Produce a pair-written text
- Students begin to see their “composition class community” as “a place where writing is welcomed, fluid, and able to be scrutinized in creative as well as critical ways” (Hochman 3)
Why #3: Subverting institutional hierarchy, thus empowering student
- Wendy Bishop: “The lessons here are obviously political ones; fundamentals precede art and art writing is for the elite (endlessly, the white, literate, at least middle-class kind), and composition writing is for those who need nothing more than basic literary” (Colors 187).
- Makes artistry less elite; validates students’ voices
- Opens class up for interrogation of power structures & boundaries
How [Outside Resources]:
- Will Hochman’s paired fiction writing
- M. Thomas Gammarino’s “portraits”
- Charles Fox’s “processive prompts”
- Email me to borrow Fox’s book!
How [My prompts]:
- Life Place Reading Journal
- Missoula Collage Poem
- Op-Ed commercial
- Email me for any of these prompts!
My tips:
- Make prompt organic
-Tie directly to rhetorical goals of unit
-Use as necessary drafting stage
- Be specific
- Make them reflect on the process
Works Cited [and suggested sources]:
- Bishop, Wendy and Hans Ostrom. Colors of a Different Horse: Rethinking Creative Writing Theory and Pedagogy. Urbana: National Council of Teachers of English, 1994.
- Bishop, Wendy. “Suddenly Sexy: Creative Writing Rear-Ends Composition.” College English 65.3. Jan. 2003: 257-75.
- Fox, Charles. Creative Control: Creative Writing Prompts for the Composition Class. Dubuque: Kendall Hunt Publishing, 2009.
- Gammarino, M. Thomas. “Class Barriers: Creative Writing in Freshman Composition.” Currents in Teaching and Learning 1.2 (Spring 2009): 19-27. Web. 27 Oct. 2010.
- Hochman, Will. “Using Paired Fiction Writing: Transactional Creativity and Community Building in the Composition Class.” Daedelus. 1997-98. 27 October 2002.
Jayme's Handout: Persuasive Writing
This handout is meant to serve as a quick and easy reminder of the key points of my presentation. If you wish to learn more about storytelling in nonfiction writing, please see the "Further Reading" reference.
Writing More Persuasively
Jayme Feary
How can writers write more persuasively about social issues?
Remember: People learn mainly through stories.
(Stories are often more believable than facts.)
Narrative Journalism Techniques:
- Storytelling
- Scenes
- Narrative Arc
- Conflict & Resolution
- Facts and Summary
Further Reading
Call, Wendy and Kramer, Mark. Telling True Stories. New York: Penguin Group, 2007. Print.
Called to Conferences (Lauren's I-Search Handout)
Primary Challenges of Instructor-Student Conferences
o Instructors are students’ evaluators and can never escape students’ reactions to that.
o Students and instructors face a collision of expectations about conferences’ realistic results.
o Students and instructors have different understandings of writing terminology used in conferences, and students rarely ask instructors to clarify or define unfamiliar terms.
o Conferences are a site of “presentational talk.” According to Erving Goffman’s theory of social behavior, all actors in a conference choose what to reveal and conceal about themselves based on what they perceive to be their expected roles.
o Students fear instructor questions that are perceived to have right/wrong answers.
Primary Opportunities of Instructor-Student Conferences
o Conferences allow us to get to know our students, to value them as students-as-travelers.
o When students talk first, we learn how savvy as writers they really are.
o Students in pairs often feel more comfortable than students in one-on-one instructor conferences.
Pair Conference Strengthening Strategies for Your WRIT 101 Class
…before conferences
o Lead an in-class discussion to help students develop realistic expectations for what a 20- or 30-minute pair conference can—and cannot—realistically accomplish.
o Offer a conference-related fastwrite prompt with follow-up small-group and large-group discussion: “In the ideal pair conference, the teacher would…; I, the writer, would…; my peer would…. The outcomes of the ideal pair conference on my draft would be…”
o Allow students to read and/or discuss each other’s complete essays before conferences by arriving to conferences 20 minutes early, emailing drafts to each other, or sharing via Google Docs. This pre-conference student collaboration could be mandatory or voluntary.
… during conferences
o Donald Murray’s “response theory of teaching”: The student is the first responder to her own writing; the instructor responds to her response. Very simply, the student talks first. Murray writes, “Shut up—it isn’t easy.”
o Help students identify one or two significant changes to make as the result of the conference: this helps everyone feel that the conference has been productive and helpful.
o As questions are necessary, ask open-ended, essay-specific questions that do not have right/wrong answers, e.g., “Which part of the essay was hardest to write? Why do you think that was?”. Provide open-ended observations, e.g., “I’m not sure I’m understanding the purpose of this paragraph…”
o Avoid prescriptive feedback like, “You should…” Use questions and observations to serve as a catalyst for further inquiry. As my student Lael wrote, “the ideal pair conference would…give me too many ideas.”
o Instructors are students’ evaluators and can never escape students’ reactions to that.
o Students and instructors face a collision of expectations about conferences’ realistic results.
o Students and instructors have different understandings of writing terminology used in conferences, and students rarely ask instructors to clarify or define unfamiliar terms.
o Conferences are a site of “presentational talk.” According to Erving Goffman’s theory of social behavior, all actors in a conference choose what to reveal and conceal about themselves based on what they perceive to be their expected roles.
o Students fear instructor questions that are perceived to have right/wrong answers.
Primary Opportunities of Instructor-Student Conferences
o Conferences allow us to get to know our students, to value them as students-as-travelers.
o When students talk first, we learn how savvy as writers they really are.
o Students in pairs often feel more comfortable than students in one-on-one instructor conferences.
Pair Conference Strengthening Strategies for Your WRIT 101 Class
…before conferences
o Lead an in-class discussion to help students develop realistic expectations for what a 20- or 30-minute pair conference can—and cannot—realistically accomplish.
o Offer a conference-related fastwrite prompt with follow-up small-group and large-group discussion: “In the ideal pair conference, the teacher would…; I, the writer, would…; my peer would…. The outcomes of the ideal pair conference on my draft would be…”
o Allow students to read and/or discuss each other’s complete essays before conferences by arriving to conferences 20 minutes early, emailing drafts to each other, or sharing via Google Docs. This pre-conference student collaboration could be mandatory or voluntary.
… during conferences
o Donald Murray’s “response theory of teaching”: The student is the first responder to her own writing; the instructor responds to her response. Very simply, the student talks first. Murray writes, “Shut up—it isn’t easy.”
o Help students identify one or two significant changes to make as the result of the conference: this helps everyone feel that the conference has been productive and helpful.
o As questions are necessary, ask open-ended, essay-specific questions that do not have right/wrong answers, e.g., “Which part of the essay was hardest to write? Why do you think that was?”. Provide open-ended observations, e.g., “I’m not sure I’m understanding the purpose of this paragraph…”
o Avoid prescriptive feedback like, “You should…” Use questions and observations to serve as a catalyst for further inquiry. As my student Lael wrote, “the ideal pair conference would…give me too many ideas.”
Jimmy's Handout
Jimmy Kendall
12/13/2010
WRIT 540
· My presentation today in class will cover a singular aspect about the rhetorical merits of Native American texts that can be used to help our student’s rhetorical approaches.
I.TOPIC
· How the rhetorical merits of Native American texts can help our student’s rhetorical approaches.
II. Purpose
· Native American texts can provide students with powerful rhetorical styles that our students can emulate in an effort to improve their writing.
· As students at times have a tenacity to think that generalizations can act as “truths,” or that their perspectives are universally shared, they fall prey to appeals of bifurcation and logical fallacies that render their papers one dimensional and limited in scope.
· Where Native texts come into play is how they can help students foster what is called an “awareness narrative,” which asks students write in a way that has them “reveal their beliefs, inquire into problems, and articulate where they stand” (Swiencicki 347). In other words, students write towards a topic or theme that has a transformative social context, and therefore must think critically about their perspectives in the wake of others.
III. Use in the Classroom
· When students write in an awareness narrative, they write for a wider audience, and are typically writing about a topic that covers some aspect of race, society, culture, or politics. Therefore, they have consequences to what they write.
· This is a valuable practice students can finesse for writing into genres like the PAA, Op-ed, and life place. If fosters critical thinking, academic writing, and creative empowerment in the idea that their personal perspectives come into conversation with a larger social context.
IV. Putting it to use: Sherman Alexie’s “On the Amtrak from Boston to New York City”
· In you handouts, all of you have a copy of a poem by Sherman Alexie that does a good job of exploring what an awareness narrative looks like.
· Read it over it and imagine how you would have your students emulate this kind of writing in an effort to discuss experiences with some of the issues Alexie touches on (race, culture, history, etc…), and how that writing speaks about “the way the world operates and about how we can and should operate within it” (Brent).
V. What this achieves
· In using Native American texts like this in the classroom, we can hopefully have our students:
- Think, read, and write more critically
- Be aware of the larger social contexts when they write
- Be mindful of other perspectives to avoid appeals to bifurcation and logical fallacies
- Be open to difference and disparate view points
- Write in a manner that is both academic and creative
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