Ann E. Berthoff's "Learning the Uses of Chaos"

Ann E. Berthoff  --“Learning the Uses of Chaos”

(Pages 647-51)

Blogger: Vickie Conner

“Proclaim” is not enough, as Berthoff declares in conjunction for proponents of process writing. Any time we teachers “proclaim” a specific pedagogical practice, it takes more than simply to proclaim. We must teach what we proclaim; we must follow through with classroom research and discover what makes writing so personal and effective. We find out what does not work in teaching writing. This is what good teachers do. In essence, the proclamation is nullified.

In order to teach and improve writing, the process, as well as the synthesis of writing, needs to be taught and discussed. A derivative of Berhoff’s essay “Learning the Uses of Chaos” is one that is most imperative to teaching writing: writing is not solely a process, such as a one-size-fits-all five paragraph essay. Some composition teachers seem to believe that if they teach sentence, paragraph, and essay in all of their structure, that students will master any writing. This is simply not true. Students need to think; they need to think about what they are writing, for whom they are writing, and what these readers expect. A simple essay format does not teach this type of critical thinking.

This thought of separating process from meaning (thought) reminds me of the dilemma of whether to teach phonics or whole language to young readers, and, in my opinion, these need to be taught simultaneously and contextually. This also holds true in the teaching of grammar/conventions of writing. As Berthoff so pragmatically explains, she uses her cooking analogy, which “brews” a perfect soupé: it all depends on what is on the shelf, what flavors are desired,

For example, students need to know that three factors come into play when choosing a topic: 1) Am I interested in the topic? 2) Do I know a bit about my topic? 3) Does the topic matter to an audience today? Is the writing relevant? Berthoff mentions the misuse of the pre-writing stage in myriad classrooms as outlining; however, outlining, in essence, is a shorthand version of the actual drafting stage. Pre-writing allows a writer to think about and choose a new angle, for we know as writers that new discourse is branched off of old trees. If students think of writing as an isolated activity and carries no relevancy for their lives, then the wrong message is being portrayed. Students need to understand and discover in myriad moments of discourse invention that new writing derives from the birth of a baby, a tragedy such as a hurricane, or simply construing everyday text. We discuss these moments with students, we generate new ideas, and they discover new angles of writing. When students find a passion in a dogmatic conversation, then new discourse is already in the making, and students figure it out through their own synthesis of a particular topic that perhaps is discussed in class or is perusing the media. Yes, we need to teach students to think to write.

Bartholomae and Ghostbusters

1.22.2013 Bartholomae and Ghostbusters.

I read this piece this summer and wish I had remembered to re-read it during Dr. Mara’s Invention & Innovation class. Love it. DB writes an actually pretty straight forward argument that hinges on two ideas: basic and first-year writers’ writing reflects what we call errors because 1) they are clumsily attempting to locate themselves in a privileged discourse and 2) they are at a stage of cognitive development that limits their ability to do so.

Think of a closed portal, like in Ghostbusters. It’s a limited analogy. The student is Gozer, on one side of the gate, the world of normal discourse, trying to gain entry into the world of privileged discourse. On the other side of the portal is the discourse community into which he or she wants to gain entry. Zuul, the “Gatekeeper’ represents the discourse community’s standards. Vinz Clortho, “The Keymaster,” represents the combination of the student’s cognitive development and knowledge of discourse community’s rhetorical and stylistic moves. Not to intentionally conflate negotiating entrance into a discourse community with the coital act, but there is a complex interplay of factors that influence how the student is allowed entry into the privileged discourse community. Yes, Zuul and Vinz get down: this act of negotiation represents a complex array of factors and tools that come together in the production of the text. As the discourse community is that in which the writer wants to gain entry, then the key is writing: the act of, purpose, cognition of audience and style, author’s sense of self adjusted to the author’s understanding of conventions of discourse community. Basic writers are less adept at this negotiation, i.e., Gozer doesn’t get to New York, and more proficient writers are more adept, i.e., they’re able to unleash the StayPuft Marshmallow Man on Manhattan.

To avoid being too reductive, I’ll explain three points that remain vague in the above analogy. Gina in her excellent post does a nice job of explaining the concept of "successive approximations," so no need to articulate that thread.

First, DB’s idea of commonplace kind of mystifies me because it seems to simultaneously refer to genre, assumptions, and discourse conventions. It’s not all three, but instead a conceptual resource that informs members of the discourse community whether someone is “worthy” of entry: following the above analogy, the idea of commonplace comprises the actual keyhole used. Is the analogy getting weird?

The second bit concerns DB’s expressivist bent. Expressivism, touching on Kinneavy, consists of locating the “I” amid complex social (more immediate contextual forces such as the particular teacher, his/her preferences, etc.) and political (the larger discourse community and its influence on the teacher and writer) forces, somewhat similar to the sense of Being-for-itself negotiating with Being-for-Others and Being-in-the-World. Locating the “I” for DB therefore consists of a process of negotiation: there is a give and take between different actors to achieve a similar goal.

Finally, DB comments on the issue Mike Rose articulates: the problem of instruction as articulation of error. DB responds, in particular, to the assumption that teaching basic writers consists of fixing them so we can put them in more privileged situations. The problem with that, according to DB, is that error-rectification reduces a varied array of mostly idiosyncratic factors that lead to errors, ignoring the individual writer’s cognitive development. By extension, first-year writing instruction that focuses only on rectifying errors ignores students’ cognitive development. To the point, DB suggests that in addition to attending to a writer’s cognitive development, the rhetorical factors that influence entrance into the academic discourse community be addressed, looking more at what the student can do rather than what the student has done incorrectly. In other words, strategy instruction instead of copious red marks, if I estimate DB’s assumption correctly.

Elbow v. Harris

I was initially struck by Elbow’s review of Harris’s Expressive Discourse for its Wayne C. Booth-ian qualities. Over the course of his career (and perhaps most particularly in The Rhetoric of Rhetoric) Booth sought to rehabilitate the public reputation of rhetoric, which he felt skewed towards the deceptive end of its scale.  Elbow attempts a similar move in his review, I think.  Whereas Booth fought against the influence of media rhetoric, win-rhetoric, and retrickery, Elbow looks to rescue expressivism from the pointed attacks of Harris, who refers to expressive discourse as “virtually meaningless,” “poorly defined,” and “not a real category” (933). Elbow attempts his rescue by reestablishing the core values of the label (“the idea that [expressive discourse] reveals something about the person who created it” [939]) and also by advocating for the inclusion of its pedagogies in writing classrooms (writing for an audience of self, writing about personal experience, writing with no intention of turning the product into something more structured).   

Elbow does admit that expressivism is a problematic term—a “slippery” term that “has become a site for ideological mud wrestling” (939).  He agrees with Harris that expressivism’s scope is too broadly rendered and specifically cites Kinneavy as a possible culprit (Kinneavy, we remember from his chapter, puts all discourse beneath the umbrella of expressive discourse).  However, Elbow expresses his own dismay over the extremity of Harris’s views, particularly her call to do away with all forms of expressive pedagogy in the writing classroom (937).

In my view, Elbow walks away from the encounter with Harris the clear “winner,” because his view is the more balanced one.  Harris dismisses expressive discourse as “unworthy” and “inferior” (937); Elbow reminds us that student writers should be exposed a variety of different discourses.  He avoids the binary of better/worse, inferior/superior (942).  I much prefer his balanced, let’s-be-open-to-the-spectrum approach because at the end of the day, it’s potentially more effective in the writing classroom than the Harris hardline.  

I was going to add that theoretical hardlines are always revealed as too extreme—but then I thought, what’s an example of that?  Where is a specific example of a problematic, extreme approach being completely abandoned?  Error-focused approach to writing assessment?

I also want to highlight this Elbow / Harris conflict as a way to revisit a tension I felt during my MFA coursework.  I should mention that I first encountered the work of Peter Elbow during this time;  we used Writing With Power as a text in one of my own classes, and were encouraged to use expressivist writing techniques both in and outside of class.  We were also taught to use some forms of expressivist pedagogy in our own TA training (all MFA students taught sections of first-year composition).  I wonder to what extent the conflict between a pragmatist like Harris and an expressivist like Elbow mirrors conflict between Creative Writing and Composition.  I think these two fields should talk to each other about writing pedagogy more than they do, and I’ve often feared (perhaps unreasonably) that they do not because of a potential tension related to a possible superior/inferior dynamic (composition scholarship/theory/pedagogy is serious; creative writing is not).

Questions to Consider:

1)   Pick a side: Harris or Elbow?

2)   Is Kinneavy’s definition of expressive discourse problematic in light of Elbow’s response to Harris?

Kinneavy and the Myth of the Self

1.21.2013 Kinneavy

Here's another blog of Kinneavy. I hope people find this a useful addition to Jess's excellent response (I flaked out and didn't get in on the signup process for the first week, so I had to double up in places).

I’m writing about JLK on MLK day… JLK advocates an expressivist theory in his focused but clumsy argument. Essentially, as C.S. Lewis’ (Anthony Hopkins) student Peter Whistler (James Frain) quotes his, Whistler’s, father  in Shadowlands , “We read to know we’re not alone,” JLK commands us to attend “We write to know we’re not alone.” Moving from the phenomenological ethos in the first part of the argument, JLK gets to the meat of his message: expressivism is germane to all instances of discourse because it is a fundamentally human quality. And expressivism is a fundamentally human quality because the three nodes of discourse, analogous to our own rhetorical triangle (must be the communication triangle to which JLK refers on p. 373), influence discourse. Being-for-itself (author), Being-for-others (writing for, influenced by, audiences), and Being-in-the-world (context as a toolkit for self-definition) shape style, which is of course manifests in individual texts. By writing, reality is given value because, according to JLK, everything is used to define the self. Even magnanimous acts, subsumed under Being-for-others presumably, take on a sort of self-shaping reality. In other words, it’s what can what I can do for my country do for me? Obviously, this theory is problematic if you’re an idealist who believes in true magnanimity. More to the point… Though I agree that we write to define and shape ourselves—writing, context, and audience—offers us those tools by which we can be free (380, 383)  to construct our identities, JLK doesn’t address any sort of magnanimous impulse. My objection doesn’t come from a thin ideal but the annoying desire for thorough arguments. Or rather, can this emotion that he erroneously associates with myth provide the basis of writing that can be divorced from one particular author? As mentioned, JLK associates emotion with myth (373, 378). Myth is “colored” by emotion, sure. Each individual interacting with and/or composing a myth invests the myth with a certain force. But myth, unlike many other forms of discourse, by definition supports the society that made it. Sure, it benefits individuals as myths, particularly the Campbell-described Hero-journey, show individuals how to survive the “inevitable crises of life.” But myths also show individuals how to function within and provide boon to their respective societies.

Campbell pithily said over and again, “Dream is a private myth; myth is a public dream.” The self according to Campbell, is a part of a whole, even if a culture’s myth purport the rugged individual. So it seems that, though JLK and his cronies definitely articulated one level of expressive discourse, they failed (at least what I can see from the anthologized chapter) to acknowledge a higher order of context that subjugates the all-governing self JLK et al describe: the Other, according to JLK, exists for the sake of the individual; the World exists as a toolbox for the sake of the individual; style is, as Nikos Kazantzakis says, “My soul is a cry; my work is a commentary on that cry.” JLK does not consider that the self may take on existence for the sake of others and for community—sure, s/he knows his/her role in the process, but that role has a higher end. JLK acknowledges that all writing has expressivist qualities. We agree on this. The human ego is nothing to ignore. However, JLK’s argument suggests otherwise, that all writing is fundamentally expressive. Some is, sure. That depends on the author. One who exists solely for him or herself would write mostly expressivist discourse. However, that’s not everyone or even most people. Most people are egotistical to a degree, but they are able to subsume themselves within a group or cause, which brings me back to the emotion-and-myth issue. One assumption that informs JLK’s argument is that the presence of emotion indicates an investiture of the self. That’s true. But, especially in regard to myth, when a society/culture appropriates a text, individual emotions, however valid, become the culture’s emotions.

On behalf of writers in unfamiliar discourses everwhere....

David Bartholomae’s “Inventing the University” deconstructs the challenges students, particularly students he considers “basic writers,” encounter whenever they are asked to write in a university or academic setting. It’s a pretty dense article, but in essence he argues that a “central problem of academic writing” occurs when instructors ask students to write in a discourse they are unfamiliar with (610). Doing so puts students in a tricky rhetorical space because

“To speak with authority they have to speak not only in another’s voice but through another’s code; and they not only have to do this, they have to speak in the voice and through the codes of those of us with power and wisdom; and they not only have to do this, they have to do it before they know what they are doing, before they have a project to participate in, and before, at least in terms of our disciplines, they have anything to say” (622).

In other words, it’s sort of really kind of unfair. What beginning students need, Bartholomae claims, “is to extend themselves, by successive approximations,” into the discourse (614).

I have to say that reading Bartholomae’s article was illuminating as both an instructor and student. It got me thinking whether English 120 is too big a “successive approximation” for those students whose experiences with the class are less positive, and how much that may have to do with things like course material/teaching style/student maturity. It also got me thinking about my own experiences as a student, and how uneasy it makes me to have to make claims and whatnot in a discourse I have taken one class in.

Questions:

1) Does anyone else feel as though, despite already having at least one degree, that you still experience the challenges Bartholomae highlights, i.e. being required to write as an authority in a discourse you are unfamiliar with? If so, who feels like sharing coping mechanisms?

2) Bartholomae seems to be advocating for students to “bluff” and “mimic” the academic discourse until they actually get it, but doesn’t really discuss how to help students get it. What happens if/when students graduate and still don’t get how to write in their discourse, or that there is a discourse to be learned?

3) What can/should we be doing, or doing more of, in our 120 classrooms to get students to get it?

4) Still lost on the whole writing is a skill or tool?

Modes, Forms, or Strategies: Are We Confusing Students?

By Vickie Conner--(Based on Frank D'Angelo's "Nineteenth-Century Forms/Modes of Discourse: A Critical Inquiry" --pages 347-357 in Composition Studies text)

The term “didactic” concerns me in D’Angelo’s essay. It seems that modes of writing have always been a main focus in writing curriculums, and because these modes are concentrated on as classifications, especially with description, narration, expository, and argument, the definitions tend to be given the most emphasis in middle and high school language arts curriculums; however, do definitions need to be the main focus? Isn’t learning the process of writing myriad genres the main objective for the course?

If teaching the process of writing in any given genre is the objective, then we cannot fail students by offering merely classifications of writing. The writer’s thinking in attacking a piece of writing, in essence, needs to synthesize information from each genre with what the boundaries and expectations are for each genre attempted. Yet these modes, as we see in D’Angelo’s essay “Nineteenth Century Forms/Modes of Discourse,” are arbitrary. Several texts list different modes or use different titles for modes that seem to be similar from author to author, but calling one mode a mode and another a form or strategy is confusing.

Therefore, as D’Angelo states, “Like cause and effect or comparison and contrast, description and narration are strategies that can be used in the service of any of the writers’ aims (what we call “purpose”) and in any kind of discourse” (351). In other words, description is not a type; it is a strategy for writing based on the main purpose for writing. By listing narrative as a mode and chronological sequencing as a mode, students naturally do not put the two strategies together to create a narrative based on time lapse. Yet if students were taught to write down personal experiences, develop a purpose for writing the narrative, and which strategies to use, such as dialogue and sequential order, then the writing makes more sense to the author. The writing becomes a rhetorical situation with the readers and the topic and not a class for which to complete.

Modes of writing are arbitrary, and when they should be introduced and how they should be taught is even more so; however, most pieces in the educational setting should be considered didactic; of course, at different levels. In poetry, we have specific pieces meant to be read merely for pleasure or for auditory purposes, such as in Poe’s “The Raven” yet persuasion in argument, though didactic in nature, should be observed or analyzed for purpose and logic and not simply just as a type or mode of writing. When developing a subject, different strategies (compare/contrast, cause/effect, etc.) are employed based on the purpose of the writing. As D’Angelo said: “Description can be found in expository writing where the aim is informative, in persuasive writing  (such as magazine ads) where the aim or purpose, and in literary discourse where the aim is aesthetic (350).

Therefore, it might make more sense to have students, starting in primary grades, to analyze myriad genres and determine the mode rather than the opposite order of thinking. If students could study the factors of genre theory (purpose, audience, genre, style, and context) of each piece of text, it would be encouraging critical thinking and analysis into the process and aid students in replicating such a document. Furthermore, an opportunity to possibly blend genres to create new ones is provided, and opening the door to new, possible genres is excellent thinking in writing. In essence, scaffolding writing instruction according to elements of a genre, along with progressive text complexity, allows students to find new angles of writing and to practice writing these genres based on the five factors of genre theory.

According to Read, after the observation and synthesis processing of text and understanding the components and expectations of a genre, students are much more prepared to write independently (47). In this process, of course, genre has become more complex while the reading becomes more complex (for example, going from process to satire).

Ranking seventeenth in the world in reading scores, writing curriculum cannot be ignored. One of the misconstrued ideas implementing the Common Course Standards to K-12 curriculum is that more content needs to be added; however, the opposite holds true. Adding modes of writing to the curriculum is not necessarily imperative. Rather, it makes more sense to place greater emphasis on a diverse selection of genres and categorize them with the students based on specific elements that comprise each genre, as well as focusing on readers’ expectations to categorize or classify. It makes more sense to take specific genres and dissect them for the real purpose for writing.

I’ve always wondered why some K-12 textbook editors, especially those writers who edit for the primary level texts, decide to include abstract thinking activities, such as creating idioms in writing, in third grade basal readers who expect to invoke critical thinking and developing abstract ideas. Psychologists, of course, may want to question the knowledge of child development in these editors who claim to have Ph.D.’s in education, for this type of abstract thinking is virtually non-existent until about the age of 12.

Furthermore, D’Angelo makes another points out Jean Piaget’s stages of cognitive development: when given new information, it may be an arduous task to make sense of new information without any schema for which to attach information, and she points out the importance of connecting background knowledge to the new information. “Complex ideas are formed by repeating, comparing, and uniting simple ideas” (353); therefore, until the brain is fully developed formally (usually age 14), how do we expect students to understand these complex modes. These modes, then, need to be discovered and not explained through the process of deciphering the five factors of genre theory in any given assignment, whether it is a resume, a short story, or a poem.                  

                As John Watson stated: “Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I'll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select – doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief and, yes, even beggar-man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors. I am going beyond my facts and I admit it, but so have the advocates of the contrary and they have been doing it for many thousands of years (82).

This quote simply advocates the idea that we have control over what types of knowledge we can present to student; more so, we have fantastic control over how we present this information or the content we choose to present. Just fathoming this great power makes all the difference in what students learn and how they learn to do it. If modes are formulated through synthesis of a genre’s components, then the students can develop modes of writing, thus learning takes place.

Works Cited

Watson, J. B. Behaviorism (Revised edition). Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1930. Print.

 

Kinneavy-- "Expressive Discourse"

James Kinneavy—“Expressive Discourse”

(p. 372-86)

In this fascinating and insightful essay, Kinneavy argues that all discourse (whether intentionally by speakers or not), is grounded in expressive components. Discussing the important work of existentialists and phenomenologists in relation to expressionism, Kinneavy states that the failure of English scholars to acknowledge the value of expressionism “is certainly a symptom, if not an effect, of the impersonality of the university machines of the present day” (374).  Perhaps more clearly stated, by failing to acknowledge the purpose and value of expressionism in the classroom, students are unable to fully understand the connection between writing  and themselves.

As Kinneavy notes,  the formation of phenomenology is a result of the conflict between empiricist and idealism schools of philosophy (375).  More importantly however, it acts to explain the nature and being of the self in addition to the role of the self among others, thus effectively smoothing the gap between both schools.  In terms of writing, this enables speakers to not only express themselves, but also acknowledge a greater world outside of their selves.

I found myself most interested by the discussion of the three dimensions the self is composed of; the Being-for-Itself, the Being-for-Others, and the Being-in-the-World. These three dimensions mark the development, epistemology, and awareness of the self that individuals undergo in order to form their view of the world.  Additionally, these three dimensions have a distinctive element of time connected to them that is reflective of intellectual and personal development.  We often have our students reflect on their progression as a writer, but we don’t ask them to reflect enough on their three dimensions of being.

Another interesting point in this particular selection is Kinneavy’s connection between expressionism and the realization of “the presence of a goal to be achieved”( 379).  To know of a goal is to provide motivation to act, and to act with others to achieve goals and projects. With this in mind, expression can certainly assist students with “doing more” with writing.  “Doing more” with writing has been one of my primary occupations with teaching so far, as I believe that writing is very much a purposeful act grounded in social interactions (as I’m sure everyone else does).  This semester for example, I decided to do a proposal unit in order to demonstrate to my students that writing is in fact an active act that delivers real world change.

Language, as the ultimate act of expression and tool through which the three dimensions are realized, is also a source of freedom and therefore choice. It is not a surprise then, that Kinneavy connects Sartre’s principles of love and reciprocity with rhetorical principles.