style, evaluation and grammar,Oh my!

Blog for Eng 701

Grammar, style and Evaluation

Connors reviews composition studies aver the first fifty years of the nineteenth century. As he says, this was a time when the “New Country” (emphasis mine) was “striving to define itself as a culture… which included education and language” (61).

He identifies the fact that throughout most of its history, College English composition has meant only the “single-minded enforcement of standards of mechanical and grammatical correctness in writing” (61). He tries to identify when this transformation took place that changed Rhetoric into composition and transformed instruction from “wide ranging techniques of persuasion and analysis to a narrow concern for convention on the most basic level” He called it a stultifying “error hunt”.

We again review the influence of the Eastern schools’ elitist intellectualism that was happing and the classism it was creating. The American renaissance was seeing the development of writers and poets and with the expanding frontier; the emphasis became the proper use of the English language (or at least the Americanized version); As the American intellectual community rallied against the book written by Henry Alford, “A plea for the Queen’s English”. They did not argue that the intellectual use of English deteriorated, but disagreed with why.

The burden of socialization, being seen as the responsibility of colleges, directed the change in emphasis to reflect the new cultural attitudes and social goals. This changed the traditional teaching of rhetoric as abstract mental discipline to more immediate instructional goals. Elementary instruction took over and the teaching of good writing meant error-free writing. The effect of the Harvard Standard pervaded and college English courses became “obsessed” with eliminating error. This was also, as we have read before, an easier aspect to grade as the workload was so demanding for the instructors of the period. The writing teachers at the end of the century (1880-1890) were forced to substitute scanning for errors in place of full readings. At this time the handbooks began to develop, which was reminiscent of the “rule books of Rhetoric of the pre- renaissance era. (History repeats itself?) In the Bedford Bibliography for Teachers of Writing they discuss the “Medieval reshaping of classical heritage…the classical texts being prescriptive, providing rules for achieving effective speeches. …”Many medieval texts consisted entirely of lists of rules and examples illustrating them” (5).

Connors does an excellent job of presenting the historical overview as well as the referenced influences of the times to explain the process that occurred that changed the way rhetoric was taught (and is still taught “by the book” in some colleges). It is understandable that the demands on the teachers both in the number of students they had and the expectations of the competencies of the students by other “experts in the field” would force them to have to “give-up” the more traditional teaching of rhetoric. This makes it understandable how changes occurred to move writing and composition out of English departments in some schools. I agree with Shaughnessy, that mechanical correctness is necessary as it “takes away” from the content of the written piece, but, as Connors points out, a balance is needed to teach both formal and mechanical aspects of writing and composition. How and when seems to be the continuing dilemma. It seems that there has always been a “see-saw” [of teaching rhetoric and composition] between concepts and content.

I get the impression that some people don’t like Peter Elbow’s philosophy or ideas. I liked his essay, or I should say I liked his tone and frankness in the piece. He writes with an informal tone that is easier for me, the unenlightened to English studies, to understand. He identifies his feelings about academic discourse with direct, straightforward comments –“I love…I hate”. He defines academic discourse as I am familiar with it, and as I expected English classes to be taught (Freshman English, anyway), as he defines it, teaching students how to write papers for other courses, in academic language and style, to be successful in their academic careers. He state that this is especially important to poorer, unprepared students, students that are, perhaps, the first in their families to come to college. To not prepare them for the tasks of learning to communicate in the language of academia would be doing a disservice to them. Then, why does he “hate” academic discourse?

At first he defends the need to teach academic discourse for the success of the student, than he tears it down saying he would rather teach them how to write about their lived experiences – Rendering. (More about that later). I like how he says Life is long – college is short”. He believes that student will not write academic discourse, once they are out of school and he would rather teach them how to write about their lives. I challenge his argument, though, that no one writes unless compelled to. Internet blogging, e-mail, and phone texting belie this. As he describes the many way students write, I wonder if he would include these things (blogging, texting and e-mail) as testimonials to successful writing courses.

In his essay he proposes three goals for teaching writing

1). Get students to write “by choice”

2). Get them to render experience (rather than just explain or narrate)

3). Teach non-academic discourse as a means of improving academic discourse.

He illustrates these goals as having students write in their own language about what they are studying. He feels that the student can write in the language of the discipline and still not understand it. They should write about it as they understand it; how the subject or topic effects their life or their world around them. (Nursing calls this “critical thinking”). He talks about most students being non-majors in English, taking only the required two semesters or classes in English. That is me. I never gave the study of English any more thought than I was required to, but I do remember how it prepared me for writing in other classes, specially nursing. He discusses the fact that English teachers are not qualified to teach academic discourse in other topics, in fact there are many discourses in the field of English studies.

He describes the “German Bulldozer” tradition of citing and quoting to support your argument or opinion (he’s very good at this). In my short “graduate” experience this is how I am interpreting the method by which I am expected to write papers for nursing. There is no original thought. I have developed my opinions or ideas or theories – my very thinking- based on someone else’s work. Therefore, I must reference a source for almost everything.

Elbow goes on to argue subjective vs. objective discourse. He is very conflicted and presents many points and, quite frankly, started to lose my attention. He quotes Berlin and Flowers and I found a passage that I was familiar with from learning to write for science publications; i.e. “First you say what you are going to say, then you say it, then you say what you said”(144). He is discussing explicitness in academic discourse.

Finally he defends himself and his stance on style and linguistics and state that students should be allowed to write “in their own words” when first learning academic discourse. It is too difficult for them to try to learn the stylistic and linguistic conventions of the discipline at the same time. And he cautions that the student may be able to do so (using all the right “buzz words”) and “learn only to mimic it while still failing to engage fully the intellectual task” (149).

In discussing metocognition and metadiscourse, he again, recommends allowing the student to use their own language or voice. He seems to agree strongly with Flowers concepts of process writing and metogonitive writing as process. I have recently learned this concept and find it difficult to “think out loud” as I write or to “write to myself” about my writing. It feels very foreign and forced. I understand the purpose of it, I am just not very good (or comfortable) with it.

Hartwell's dissertation on the grammars was a little difficult to follow, but I think I got the main points of his essay. He illustrates how the "rules" of grammar are very difficult to apply at times. That grammar is not the same in all languages. For example, in English, the adjectives and adverbs are placed before the noun or verb. This is not the same in other "latin" languages I was surprised he didn't speak to this.He uses the example of articles used with nouns. He discusses the intuitive ability to understand and apply Grammar 1 rules and how it helps and hinders using grammar 2 rules.

How much time would a teacher need to teach all he talks about in "the grammars"? I got lost on his diagrams, and I think this could be an entire course unto itself. He references much research into the teaching of language to non-English and Native English speakers. Is this linguistics or composition. I agree that the correct use of language in writing is important, but I do not have an opinion as to where or how grammar should be taught. I liked his reference to "grammar schools" I thought that I learned everything I needed to know about grammar in "grammar school". Apparently, the research that has been done indicates that what and how writing is taught especially in regard to language, does not change the quality of writing. Time to change the focus of research and writing?

I agree that knowledge and use of language IS power. People are judged on their intelligence by how they express themselves in speaking or writing. Having the command to speak and write in the language of your audience can open or close doors in the business world. The bias is there, there is no denying it, no matter how much we want to believe that it is not.

Transferring the power of learning to the student is a new and important concept. It means the method of teaching must change to allow the student to take the responsibility for what they learn. This changes the concept that students only learn what we teach because we teach it.

Sommers was actually the first article I read. The other article and essays seemed to support what she was saying in this piece. She talks about process and product. She talks about the time commitments of reading and commenting on and grading of students’ papers. But, I think it comes down to which is more important, process or product. I agree that correcting grammar and punctuation when the text may be revised and some of the content may be removed, should be the last step; Perhaps, in the final draft. Meaning and clarity are what the writer wants to say, everything else is how the writer want to say it. The caution against colloquialisms, and identifying the audience, I think, would depend on the medium or genre being used, such as informal blogs, and e-mail, vs. writing for a discipline.

She discusses the correcting and revising process as simultaneous tasks on different levels that can often confuse the student because no clear direction is really given. In one argument she admonishes the teacher for usurping the students’ writing in their editing instructions and then she talks about sabotaging the student’s conviction about the completeness of their drafts in order to help them understand that the something more than grammar and punctuation needs correcting. I thought sabotage was a very strong and negative word to use when, what I think she is trying to say is that the teacher needs to find a way to illustrate to the student (without putting words in their mouths) how to revise or rethink the ideas or concepts they are writing about. It is about the process.

She discusses the vagaries of the teachers’ comments. When I taught Paramedic students, I looked more at the content and concepts and less at the grammar and punctuation. I felt it was more important that they understood the concepts they were working with in the field and not so important that they knew how to spell or punctuate their sentences. They were not going to use complete sentences “out in the field” when writing reports.. If the writing had what I wanted in these areas, I might make a comment about grammar or spelling if it as vital (drug names, anatomical land marks) to the understanding of others ( a different audience, than me).

There was much in these reading with which I could identify because I was familiar and had experience with the concepts and some of the references and writers. I hope I have expressed my understanding of the readings in a way that makes sense. I guess I am one of those students that will edit the daylights out of the spelling and punctuation and not “see” the ideas that need revising.