[Englecturers] RE: Devoid of Content--Form and Function

[englecturers at lists.ucr.edu]

I just swam through Fish after dinner and was immediately attracted to the 
bait of his line: "Content is a lure and a delusion, and it should be banished 
from the classroom. Form is the way." So now the bite and I'm hooked...reel 
this in!

Enough of the puns already.

Fish offers a semi-provocative assignment, it seems, to reject a shift over 
the last 30 or so years in composition classes (at this number, I defer to 
research and the voices of more seasoned composition teachers) away from a 
focus on form, modes, syntax and such and toward a more experiential, 
process-driven, egalitarian (we might say voice-giving) approach that latches 
on to common humanist themes and current events as a vehicle for diverse 
expression in our students. Although I have suspected that our discipline is 
often seen by other academics as one void of meaningful content (I have heard 
the College Composition and Communication Convention or "4Cs" called the 
"blue-collar convention" by my fellow attendees and faculty outside of the 
discipline), and although I have secretly lamented this barrenness myself, we 
should consider what we might be giving up by refocusing our energies on forms 
of any types; one issue that immediately comes to mind is the re-centering of 
the instructor in the classroom and in the composition process, as the 
instructor in Fish's assignment seems to be the sounding board that students 
are using for approval. That is, Fish has the answers (i.e., knowledge) that 
the students are fishing for.

Not that there is anything inherently evil with this approach and I suppose 
that many of us balance the depositing of our knowledge into our students with 
the posing of problems for students to analyze and develop on their own (to 
borrow some of Friere's language) in the classroom. It's a matter of the 
distribution of the balance that seems in question.

I can say that there is strong allure in focusing on form; ultimately we might 
be able to reduce the language and syntactical arrangements into equations, or 
as Fish calls them, "structure[s] of logical relationships." Maybe then, we 
can measure a student's proficiency with language in a scientific and 
mathematical way--Scranton finals, everybody!--that would lessen our 
tremendous workload and give us purchase with the rest of academia. The sirens 
are singing; the song is tempting.

But what would we have to give up? I think team-teaching a logic and grammar 
class might work, an interesting pairing for 1C perhaps. By the way, this 
assignment is not new: I remember doing something similar in junior high 
school (albeit, probably with much more sophomoric results). Now, if we had 
fewer students, fewer classes, and spent more hours each week with said 
students, many things might be possible that currently are not. Until then, my 
focus will remain: some discussion on syntax, some on modes, and some on 
critical thinking by exploring concepts in depth, all for what I believe is 
the greater good of my school of students (I couldn't resist).


Devon Hackelton