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

[englecturers at lists.ucr.edu]

A good resource on the "shift" in composition pedagogy along the lines Devon 
describes is Robert J. Connors, "The Erasure of the Sentence" (College 
Composition and Communication, Vol 52., No. 1, 96-128).

Connors documents "the erasure of sentence pedagogies" in a "culture of 
writing instruction that has very little to do with or to say about the 
sentence outside of a purely grammatical discourse."

Ok, I promise this is my last post.

Dean Papas

>From: englecturers at lists.ucr.edu
>Reply-To: englecturers at lists.ucr.edu
>To: englecturers at lists.ucr.edu
>Subject: [Englecturers] RE: Devoid of Content--Form and Function
>Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 21:16:46 -0700
>
>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
>
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