Trimbur Circulates (Contradictorily)

Ahhh...the beginning of another academic year. As promised, we invited John Trimbur back (OK, just his article) to the first meeting of the CRG this semester. I'll go out on a limb here and say that I think Trimbur was pleased to join us in our little academic outpost in the far north of Kutztown's campus.

It didn't take long to get into a lengthy discussion of Trimbur's "Composition and the Circulation of Writing" and his emphasis on the importance of paying attention to circulation and delivery in the teaching of writing. Here's a little sample of how Trimbur set up his argument:

To my mind, delivery can no longer be thought of simply as a technical aspect of public discourse. It must be seen also as ethical and political--a democratic aspiration to devise delivery systems that circulate ideas, information, opinions, and knowledge and thereby expand the public forums in whihc people can deliberate of issues of the day (Trimbur 190).

Trimbur suggests that the contributions of cultural studies--in particular Stuart Hall and Richard Johnson (as representatives of two poles of cultural studies research--to progressive composition pedagogies, while important, do not pay enough attention to the circulation of commication. Not paying enough attention to circulation carries an unintended consequence:

the tendency...to identify students mainly as readers, consumers, viewers, and spectators in need of training to resist the onslaughts of mass culture (198).

What Trimbur suggests is that we return to Marx's notion of circulation in the Marx's Grundrisse--"notebooks" representing an "extending process of exploratory writing" (207)--to aid in a concept of circulation that pays attention to "the rhetorical transformation that occur" as a cultural product, text, discourse circulates through different moments in the circuts of communication. In particular, Trimbur draws attention to how a research finding, for example, as it is first conceived as a "scientific study," then presented in an academic journal, and then reported in The New York Times, does not only go through a shift in genre, but also a "passage of forms" (213). That is, the shift in discourse is more than a "translation." The shift also does work of reproducing a historically specific process of production and relations of production--in particular, the "distribution and authorization of expertise" (213) as THE model of who has access to and who is authorized to produce socially useful knowledge.

As you may guess, we spent quite a bit of time working through what Trimbur means by circulation, "passage of forms," and a range of other concepts in his text. But we also raised many questions about how divisions between tenured, tenure-track, and temporary faculty also participates in a process of circulation, what it might mean to enact a pedagogy of circulation, Trimbur's "expert" discourse, the magic of writing, and Trimbur's examples of Breast Cancer and AIDS activists work "intervening in the process of production and changing the way science gets done" (215).

We talked about how PMS was not recognized as "real" in official medical discourse until fairly recently, and how this lack of recognition contributed to women being labled "crazy," "over-emotional," and "irrational," reproducing a patriarchal power structure. We grappled with whether or not Trimbur's suggestions were realizable. We laughed. We told anecdotes. And we talked about where we want to go from here.

And we decided to read Richard Miller's “On Asking Impertinent Questions,” in College Composition and Communication, 57.1 (2005): 142-159. The article is in the Composing binder in the mail room and on eReserve under English Department>Composing Group. Our next meeting will be October 5th in Lytle 207.

So enough of me...anyone else?

JT Will Get Over It

Hello fellow CRGers. Well, the verdict's in: we're packing it in and calling it a semster :-(. I know, I know...We're all concerned that John Trimbur's virtual feelings will be hurt because we will not be discussing his article, "Composition and the Circulation of Writing" this semester. But just look at him...he doesn't seem to be too upset. I think he'll understand. JT can rest assured that his article will be first on the agenda for our next meeting--either this summer or next fall.

All in all, I'd say we've had a pretty good inaugural year of our little CRG. Yup. I don't know about you, but the CRG has been one of the highlights of the year for me. Our discussions have helped nurture our burgeoning little intellectual community in the department...and I hope they have also provided another venue for (re)thinking what we teach, why we teach what we teach, and some of the broader issues that impact how we think about literacy.

Thanks for a great year all! And, JT, thanks for understanding :-).

CRG Y2

Yeah, I know, I already posted to the blog today...I guess my earlier post has given me the blog bug again. After posting earlier today, I started thinking about post-spring 06 semester.

This past year, we've had some good discussions in our CRG meetings and I am beginning to think about this summer and next fall. Like last year, I'll put together a list of possible readings for next year. However, I thought I would ask everyone if they have any ideas about what to read. Are there certain articles or books that you have been dying to read? Are there particular issues that you'd like to get into?

Looking back at this past year, it seems we had a Critical Discourse Analysis arc in our readings. I am curious where Trimbur's piece will take us. In any case, if anyone has suggestions for next year, post your ideas or email me suggestions. I'd love to get a head start on putting articles up on eReserve. I was also thinking that if people will be around, we could continue our readings and discussions over the summer. I'm certainly game.

Anyway, just some thoughts as the rain begins to fall. Have a good weekend all!

Where'd I Go? Where We Goin'?

It's been ages, ages I tell you, since I've written. Yes, folks, the semester hit full stride a while back and I've neglected our little space in the blogosphere. The worst part of not writing is that I didn't post a summary of our last meeting. Last time, way back in early March, I believe, we read "Composition Studies and Critical Discourse Analysis: A Study of Presidential Discourse and Campus Discord," by Pegeen Reichert Powell.

The worst part about allowing so much time to elapse is that the details of our last meeting are not as sharp, the tenor of our conversation not as vivid, and the joy of intellectual community mediated by the end of the semester duties of paper grading. But alas, I will take a moment to recall some of what I remember and leave it up to the group to collectively rebuild our memories.

One of the things that we all seemed quite intrigued by was Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and its use in the composition classroom. Similar to our discussion of Micciche's "Making a Case for Rhetorical Grammar," many of those present seemed very interested in how CDA allowed a different approach to the analysis of language and student texts. What seemed to stand out in our discussion, was also the ways in which Reichert Powell's text provided some language for looking closely at some of the rhetorical/discursive features of texts and connected those features to broader social, political, and ideological functions of the text. All in all...CDA seems to be a direction that many of us are interested in exploring further next year.

Anyway, I'll keep this post short...CRG will meet one more time before the semester is out. We will be reading John Trimbur's, "Composition and the Circulation of Writing." The article will be available in the CRG binder in the mailroom for copying. Keep your eyes on this space for the specific date and time!

Times Article

Here is an article from today's New York Times on email and professors.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/21/education/21professors.html?pagewanted=1&incamp=article_popular_1

Professor@University.edu Subject: Why It's All About Me

By JONATHAN D. GLATER
Published: February 21, 2006
One student skipped class and then sent the professor an e-mail message asking for copies of her teaching notes. Another did not like her grade, and wrote a petulant message to the professor. Another explained that she was late for a Monday class because she was recovering from drinking too much at a wild weekend party.



Jennifer Schultens had a student ask what kind of notebook to buy.
Jennifer Schultens, an associate professor of mathematics at the University of California, Davis, received this e-mail message last September from a student in her calculus course: "Should I buy a binder or a subject notebook? Since I'm a freshman, I'm not sure how to shop for school supplies. Would you let me know your recommendations? Thank you!"
At colleges and universities nationwide, e-mail has made professors much more approachable. But many say it has made them too accessible, erasing boundaries that traditionally kept students at a healthy distance.
These days, they say, students seem to view them as available around the clock, sending a steady stream of e-mail messages — from 10 a week to 10 after every class — that are too informal or downright inappropriate.
"The tone that they would take in e-mail was pretty astounding," said Michael J. Kessler, an assistant dean and a lecturer in theology at Georgetown University. " 'I need to know this and you need to tell me right now,' with a familiarity that can sometimes border on imperative."
He added: "It's a real fine balance to accommodate what they need and at the same time maintain a level of legitimacy as an instructor and someone who is institutionally authorized to make demands on them, and not the other way round."
While once professors may have expected deference, their expertise seems to have become just another service that students, as consumers, are buying. So students may have no fear of giving offense, imposing on the professor's time or even of asking a question that may reflect badly on their own judgment.
For junior faculty members, the barrage of e-mail has brought new tension into their work lives, some say, as they struggle with how to respond. Their tenure prospects, they realize, may rest in part on student evaluations of their accessibility.
The stakes are different for professors today than they were even a decade ago, said Patricia Ewick, chairwoman of the sociology department at Clark University in Massachusetts, explaining that "students are constantly asked to fill out evaluations of individual faculty." Students also frequently post their own evaluations on Web sites like ratemyprofessors.com and describe their impressions of their professors on blogs.
Last fall, undergraduate students at Syracuse University set up a group in Facebook.com, an online network for students, and dedicated it to maligning one particular instructor. The students were reprimanded.
Professor Ewick said 10 students in one class e-mailed her drafts of their papers days before they were due, seeking comments. "It's all different levels of presumption," she said. "One is that I'll be able to drop everything and read 250 pages two days before I'm going to get 50 of these."
Kathleen E. Jenkins, a sociology professor at the College of William and Mary in Virginia, said she had even received e-mail requests from students who missed class and wanted copies of her teaching notes.
Alexandra Lahav, an associate professor of law at the University of Connecticut, said she felt pressured by the e-mail messages. "I feel sort of responsible, as if I ought to be on call all the time," she said.
Many professors said they were often uncertain how to react. Professor Schultens, who was asked about buying the notebook, said she debated whether to tell the student that this was not a query that should be directed to her, but worried that "such a message could be pretty scary."
"I decided not to respond at all," she said.
Christopher J. Dede, a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education who has studied technology in education, said these e-mail messages showed how students no longer deferred to their professors, perhaps because they realized that professors' expertise could rapidly become outdated.
"The deference was probably driven more by the notion that professors were infallible sources of deep knowledge," Professor Dede said, and that notion has weakened.
Meanwhile, students seem unaware that what they write in e-mail could adversely affect them, Professor Lahav said. She recalled an e-mail message from a student saying that he planned to miss class so he could play with his son. Professor Lahav did not respond.
"It's graduate school, he's an adult human being, he's obviously a parent, and it's not my place to tell him how to run his life," she said.
But such e-mail messages can have consequences, she added. "Students don't understand that what they say in e-mail can make them seem very unprofessional, and could result in a bad recommendation."

Still, every professor interviewed emphasized that instant feedback could be invaluable. A question about a lecture or discussion "is for me an indication of a blind spot, that the student didn't get it," said Austin D. Sarat, a professor of political science at Amherst College.

College students say that e-mail makes it easier to ask questions and helps them to learn. "If the only way I could communicate with my professors was by going to their office or calling them, there would be some sort of ranking or prioritization taking place," said Cory Merrill, 19, a sophomore at Amherst. "Is this question worth going over to the office?"
But student e-mail can go too far, said Robert B. Ahdieh, an associate professor at Emory Law School in Atlanta. He paraphrased some of the comments he had received: "I think you're covering the material too fast, or I don't think we're using the reading as much as we could in class, or I think it would be helpful if you would summarize what we've covered at the end of class in case we missed anything."
Students also use e-mail to criticize one another, Professor Ahdieh said. He paraphrased this comment: "You're spending too much time with my moron classmates and you ought to be focusing on those of us who are getting the material."
Michael Greenstone, an economics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said he once received an e-mail message late one evening from a student who had recently come to the realization that he was gay and was struggling to cope.
Professor Greenstone said he eventually helped the student get an appointment with a counselor. "I don't think we would have had the opportunity to discuss his realization and accompanying feelings without e-mail as an icebreaker," he said.
A few professors said they had rules for e-mail and told their students how quickly they would respond, how messages should be drafted and what types of messages they would answer.
Meg Worley, an assistant professor of English at Pomona College in California, said she told students that they must say thank you after receiving a professor's response to an e-mail message.
"One of the rules that I teach my students is, the less powerful person always has to write back," Professor Worley said.

Composing in 2006

Welcome back fellow composers. I hope everyone had a great break and a smooth transition to the new year. I'm sure that you can feel the coming semester and are busily working on finalizing your syllabi and gearing up for Part II of the 2005-2006 academic year.

I thought I'd take this opportunity to remind everyone that the Composing Reading Group (CRG) will have it's first meeting of the 2006 spring semester on Tuesday, January 24th, from 11-12 noon in LY 207. At our last meeting of the fall semester, we decided to read Pegeen Reichert Powell's article, "Critical Discourse Analysis and Composition Studies: A Study of Presidential Discourse and Campus Discord." As usual, the article is available on eReserve as well as in the Composing Reading Group binder in the English Department mailroom.

Looking forward to seeing all of you then!