meandering through Flower, et al (2-9)

I found the Flower essay to be surprisingly helpful (why “surprisingly” I’m not sure; I guess, when I first started reading it, I was tired and assumed that its emphasis on writer-based writing would be too obvious and too focused on a type of writing that is not the ultimate goal of English 1000). What I eventually appreciated about the article, however, was its way of talking about writing. The more I think about how we talk about writing, the more I realize that the ability and language to talk about writing is very important to improving writing. For example, when I was in the Writing Lab last Thursday or Friday, I went to the Online Writery and responded to one student’s paper. The assignment asked him to analyze an image, but what he had written was a jumble of ideas that ranged from description to analysis and wandered through first, second, and third person. Fortunately, I think I addressed his problems positively, suggesting that his first draft had helped him to generate a number of ideas, which he now needed to organize for his readers. This is exactly what Flower’s article is discussing: the student had the writer-based writing, but he had not taken the next step to help the reader. Intuitively, I guess I knew a lot of what Flower was discussing, but sometimes it just helps to have it explained more formally. (I suppose Flower did the reader-based transformation for me; we had the same ideas, he just happened to do more with them.)

The only question I had for the article, however, was if there was something else besides writer- and reader-based writing? While I was an undergrad and observed some of my roommates writing, it would sometimes take them a painfully long time. They would try to pin down exactly what they wanted to say in every sentence as they wrote it. Thus, they were almost painfully aware of their readers, and yet their writing sometimes still failed. Perhaps they can serve as an example of the necessity of the writer-based step; it helps get past the initial flow of ideas, which otherwise might overwhelm the limitations of human thought/memory. Actually, this “gap” in the article is where I see Flower and Bartholomae as fitting together. (As in most academic debates, I think the truth often lies somewhere in between the two different responses.) Not only being able to think in complex thoughts but also being able to express them in the language of a discipline is very difficult indeed. (And I’m not even sure where I stand on the issue of whether or how the academic vocabulary is allows the expression of certain complex ideas.) Ultimately, I think what I appreciate about both theorists is that they emphasize the process nature of writing—they don’t say so much that basic writers make mistakes, but rather they try to focus on where they are in the stages of writing and how we can use where they are to help them reach the next level.

Barthalomae’s essay, however, also disturbs me because it awakens my own fears about my ability to truly communicate with the proper level of authority. In other words, I realize that I am a master’s student in English, and one would think that I would be fairly comfortable with the discourse of the discipline by now, but I’m just not sure that I am. I am usually fine in class, and although reading journal articles takes me forever, I am eventually able to arrive at an understanding. Nevertheless, I feel most ignorant at Friday afternoon colloquiums. I can sit there and listen and honestly not have a clue about what the speakers are saying. I know all of the words, and yet I do not understand their organization, references, or sometimes even the main point.

In reading these articles, I wonder how many of these ideas/concepts/theories of writing I should teach to my students. I found the terms writer- and reader-based writing to be extremely helpful. However, I do not want to bog the students down with vocabulary, especially if they see the vocabulary as an ends in itself and not as a means to discussing and improving writing. Maybe it is enough if I use the terms and explain them the first few times I use them but not have them read the articles.

And I feel like I have to respond to the Punk article, because it always interests me how we can relate popular culture to academia. That does, however, leave a large guestion: what does it mean that we read academic articles about the Sex Pistols (and that Dr. K. can form a senior seminar around them)? I have this suspicion that the Sex Pistols might not appreciate our use of them, and it certainly seems to change them if we can write a fairly mainstream academic paper about them. My other question revolves around my own lack of familiarity with such cultural movements as Punk: what if I just can’t teach Punk because I don’t understand it? Of course, I’m not sure that the article way saying that everyone must incorporate the ideals of Punk into their teaching. (That goes back to the idea that teaching Punk in an institution like school just seems wrong and oxymoronic.) Maybe, rather, it helps in demonstrating how attitudes toward pedagogy change, and how one teacher may not be a perfect match for every student.

Final note to self: go back and ask my brother about the conversation we had about metacognition over Thanksgiving break in relation to ABGW p. 719 where it uses the word.