We need speaking and listening skills, to be sure, and we need to be literate in the traditional sense: able to read and write. But we also need to be "literate" across a various and complex network of different kinds of writing and various media of communication (130).A couple issues have been in the back of my mind while reading this. This year, the Composition Committee will be taking a look at the College Composition curriculum in order to update/revise it. The question is: what principles and assumptions about literacy and the purpose of composition are we using currently? To what degree is our teaching relevant to today's world? That is, I am thinking about why we do what we do, who we serve, and toward what ends. Scholes is giving me some things to think about. In particular, Scholes gives us the following definition of literacy:
Literacy involves the ability to understand and to produce a wide variety of texts that use the English language--including work in traditional literary forms, in the practical and persuasive forms, and in the modern media as well. Whether students go on to higher education or enter the workforce after graduation, their success will depend to a great extent on their ability to understand and use the English language. That is why this course [a high school capstone course in English Studies] makes language itself--and its use in various forms, genres, and media--the center of attention (130, brackets mine).Yes, Scholes is writing about a high school senior English course he helped develop for the College Boards with high school teachers around the country called "Pacesetter English." But his definition of literacy as something broader than "academic writing" or "good prose" interests me. It also makes me think that one of the things that is important to do when planning a course is to ask ourselves what assumptions we are making about literacy and the purpose of College Composition.
These are very provisional thoughts...and one's that make me want to get back to reading Pegeen Reichert Powell's, "Critical Discourse Analysis and Composition Studies," since she has bit of a different take, although still very interested in the assumptions and purposes of comp. And there's also that article from the New London Group, "Multiliteracies," that is quite useful. Both are on eReserve, by the way.
Kevin
8 comments:
Related to your comments is something that has concerned me, now, for quite some time. That is, the fracturing of the profession. We now have specialists in Composition and in Literature... fine, in itself, but only if it comes with the realization that any such specialty should presuppose a good grounding in the other. In other words, the two should not be exclusive: anyone teaching Or studying) the one should be able to teach (and study) the other. Reading and writing are inextricably mixed: we harm our profession when we make a necessary distinction into a division.
Yet, what I think is worth thinking about in Schole's text is that for English Studies to address the kind of social, cultural, and economic shifts, it's not simply a question of having everyone teach everything (not that you're saying that exactly), but it becomes crucial to rethink HOW English Studies is organized. That is, it's not simply a matter of teachers learning each others discipines/fields and becoming "flexible workers" (I'm thinking of David Harvey's text The Condition of Postmodernity, capable of "multi-tasking". Rather, at least if we consider Scholes, we have to reconstruct English Studies in such a way that it is historically relevant as a discipline .
What concerns me is not so much that everyone be able to teach beyond specific specialties, but that we tend to limit ourselves by the definitions we create (out of necessity) in response to an academic world that grows increasingly complex daily.
In fact, I think I may be approaching that same question of "HOW," but simply from a different angle. What concerns me is that we often will create a definition and stop there, feeling that we have conquered the question through definition.
If we think of definition as "thing" and not "process," we drop into patterns that, soon, no longer reflect the needs of the society we operate within. That, if I am not completely off the mark, seems to be what both you and Scholes are addressing.
And that we all should be addressing.
Yes, definitions do have a way of hardening when they are put forward as answers. I'm totally with you there. Matter of fact, I wrote a grad seminar paper for a class on "The World Disclosive Tradition" (we read Foucault, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Irigaray) on definitions as Contain-ers in similar ways that you're touching upon.
Anyway, back to comment #1--I'm not resisting what you're saying about definitions. Only that once we open up the question of English Studies, then I don't think it can be only a matter of "anyone teaching Or studying) the one should be able to teach (and study) the other." For me, that's a "multi" disciplinary model in which both the "fields" or "specializations" remain in tact, relatively unchanged.
What I'm thinking about is more of a "trans" disciplinary or "re" disciplinary. That is, what if we began with the question: given the social, political, global, economic, and technological changes over the past 50-100 years, what does it actually mean to study "English?"
And just another quick thought on your first comment...I think one of the issues I was thinking about in my response was the fact that, for examaple, my undergrad degree is in Poli Sci, NOT literature. Any many people I know in the field come out of fields in Psychology or Education. That doesn't mean that "Comp" is somehow special...rather, I am trying to draw attention to the assumptions we might make about what the fields of "comp" and "literature" are.
I am learning that I need to take a little time to review my posts more carefully before I "publish." Two typos in two posts. Not a good record :-).
The dividing lines of academia have always perplexed me. My undergrad degree was in Philosophy, basically so that I could take as many courses in as many different areas as possible. I hated being forced to specialize.
You certainly are taking a broader view of things than I expressed in my first comment... and that is probably the difference in what you are saying and what I said. You are right: just concentrating on divisions within a particular field almost presupposes that the greater divisions have validity.
Your question (and Scholes') of what is the meaning of studying English is particularly important in the face of the attacks on academia by the likes of David Horowitz. One of the things he wants through his "Academic Bill of Rights" is an insistence that professors stick 'to their fields.'
The question, then, is what are we teaching, the 'facts' about literature or composition, or how to use reading and writing in successful negotiation of the contemporary world? Many want us to stick to the 'facts'--and we certainly need to be able to explain why that is not enough, certainly, for 'good' education.
Yes, I agree that perhaps I began by responding to a different set of questions.
I agree whole-heartedly what you say in your last couple of paragraphs--especially as we face pressures to "stick to our fields." That's a very static notion of education that suggests that education is a set of "things" that need to be "deposited" into students' heads (what Paulo Friere has termed the "banking model" of education).
Horowitz's strategy is a kind of back-door strategy to "preserve" the "way things are," or better, an ahistorical reading of the "way things used to be." It's useful, I think, for all of us to see how Horowitz's strategy is developing. For example, see http://www.studentsforacademicfreedom.org/. What's "smart" about his (and affiliated organizations) strategy is that he uses "progressive" language concerning academic freedom and freedom of speech to accomplish goals that are counter to academic freedom. It enables him to target specific academics (and students, I should add) to stand in for "the state of higher education."
Have you ever looked for ways to improve your habit of sending text messages and avoid using the wrong grammar? If that's the case, just use the Android grammar application that you can use to improve your speaking and writing skills.
Post a Comment