Chapter 15 – History of Writing in the Community

Chapter 15 – History of Writing in the Community
History of Writing in the Community - Ursula Howard

I thought it was particularly relevant to comment on this chapter after our discussion this week. Unless I am way off, this clearly relates to the idea of “the big D” – Discourse.

Though this movement began in the UK, I can see some of the vestiges of it. First and I’m sorry if I write about this ad nauseum, I can see how the National Writing Project builds upon these principles. The first I attended the Summer Institute in 2001, each of us brought pieces of writing that reflected who we were and how we’d used writing. We pinned each piece on the wall and did a gallery walk, using sticky notes to post our thoughts here and there. It was amazing to see how the pieces varied – from grocery lists to very revealing personal poetry. Right away, we all knew each other a little better as writers – and a lot of the “mystique” of being a writer vanished. We were all writers now. To me, this also reminds me of Barton and Hamilton’s work: each participant was literate – just to a greater or lesser extent. I’ve read other posts about how people don’t feel like writers yet; I would argue we are all writers; maybe not in the academic sense, but that comes. It is just a different genre! Shame, shame on teachers who use writing and language as a barrier rather than a tool. NCTE seems to be taking an advocacy role in this realm by promoting “The National Day on Writing” and the National Gallery of Writing. It is the written version of NPR’s StoryCorp, which is oral, not written. Just like we all have stories, we all have things to write about – or about which to write…

I also found it interesting to see how literacy was used to subjugate groups who were disadvantaged. In the UK, it was mostly the poor and women. Howard writes that, “Opposition to writing reflected broader fears about teaching the working classes that could upset the social order.” (p. 241) In the US, the disenfranchised groups who were excluded from the “literacy club” were mostly women and African Americans. But I think I have to be careful about claiming that Americans were more inclusive in some way, because though we did educate the poor and later generations of immigrants (mostly from Ireland, Italy, Eastern Europe and Asia), I think the worry about providing "too much" education existed (exists?) here as well. Education and literacy have had the capacity to both create and break barriers – that seems to be fairly universal. I do conjure up images of serfs and lords when I think of Europe, though. I know people who have family that have lived in the same town in Belgium for over 400 years! It seems that it would be harder to break through cultural barriers that have existed that long.

Howard writes about how writing led to self-improvement and ultimately, social change. (p. 246) to write is to be, to read is to think; without the capacity to do either we can neither share our ideas nor be exposed to other’s ideas. Howard cites Raymond Williams on page 239 noting that, “…the first half of the 19th century was the moment of change following 2,000 years of ‘cultural division’ during which writing was known only to a minority. In this period, a majority of people rapidly achieved at least ‘minimal access to writing’ giving rise to a ‘confusion of developments’, a confusion exacerbated by a continuous relocation of the boundaries that kept the social divisions in education, cultural production and life choices in tact.” You wonder what role political revolutions like the American, the French and the later Russian revolution played in this opening of the world of literacy- and where the internet will lead us as we progress through the digital revolution.

I wish every potential high school drop out could read an (abbreviated) version of this chapter. It might help them to reconsider the relationship between education and empowerment.

I also have a lot of thoughts about the role of literacy within the context of religion, but in order to avoid offending anyone, I'll refrain from posting my thoughts in a public forum. If anyone wants to talk more abut it, I'd LOVE to meet before class and discuss it over coffee at Grounds4Thought!

Nystrand, Greene and Wiemelt

Although I alluded to my reading Nystrand in the last post, I wanted to take some time and comment on it article more deeply.

I still stick by my initial assessment that the first few pages are a tough read unless you have some background in literary criticism or linguistics. It does provide an excellent background of the study of teaching writing and composition in the 1970s after the open-admissions programs at CUNY and the Newsweek cover story "Why Johnny Can't Write." (1983) After reading this article in addition to the other assigned readings, I find it interesting that composition and rhetoric is literally another entity within English Departments at the collegiate level. One of the site leaders at the Kent National Writing Project is a doc student in Comp and Rhetoric now. At our meeting this weekend, I asked him about the reading/writing connection at the collegiate level. He told me that a lot of folks in the English Department might not necessarily see a reading/writing connection. Though this may not be news to others, it was certainly news to me. Apparently, you either teach writing courses or literature courses in the English Department - you don't do both. This makes me wonder if we are being honest enough with our students about what they are expected to do at the university level. I always thought divorcing reading and writing was the worst pedagogical idea since corporal punishment. I realized that English Education folks may be alone in considering how writing can be used to teach reading (not merely assess it) and how reading well-crafted texts can be used to inspire and teach writing. Perhaps because I am clearly in the education camp, this article held quite a few surprises for me. I'm guessing this was written for more of a rhetoric and composition audience.

This article helped me to situate my understanding of the different types of critical theories we will encounter in the Tyson book. I think it is an important read before we begin those conversations. I would like to discuss the three different types of rhetoric mentioned on page 269 and 270 - cognitive, expressionist, and social-epistemic. Though I recognized some "big names" as proponents of each (Emig, Flower and Hayes and cognitive rhetoriticians, Peter Elbow and (Donald?) Murray as expressionistic rhetoriticians, and (Carolyn?) Burke as the social-epistemic rhetorician), I would like to discuss how these different theorists might approach the act of teaching writing differently. I can draw my own inferences, but I'm curious how each would figure in today's climate of standardized testing - the great highjacker of pedagogy today.

As I mentioned, I have been looking at this article through the lens of the reading-writing connection - specifically in relation to inference as intention in writing. I found it interesting that, "the study of composition emerged from the strictly pedagogical domain of composition instruction to become a vital area of research on discourse and language processes, akin to psychologists' studies of reading, psycholinguistics' investigations of speaking and language development, and anthropologists' and sociolinguists' research on speech communities." (p.271) I am discovering that as I move away from pure pedagogy into theory, I must have some basic understanding of these other fields. Education does not exist in a bubble. This aspect of the course is what separates my graduate studies from my doctoral work: even master's students still approach the field of education with a practioner's stance. This is the first time I have been forced to consider the implications of theory and, to some extent, science. In light of my reading- writing lens, I thought this quote was the most telling regarding the field of composition studies, "More than anything, the field evolved in its efforts to understand the central problem of meaning in discourse." (p. 272) This is where I see a disconnect between the division of reading and writing paradigm and the act of writing as encompassing writing, reading, listening and speaking. I would really enjoy hearing from a guest speaker one night from the English Department at Kent. If we are preparing teachers to teach students, I think it is important to know what is expected of our elementary and secondary students if and when they reach the university. What are the expectations in a university level English course? Does it differ from teacher to teacher? Is it much different than what I was expected to do fifteen years ago as an undergrad? Has much changed? I was very well prepared for courses I took through the English Department at KSU, but then I had a teacher who, looking back, probably viewed literature and literary criticism through the lens of the New Critics. I took detailed notes about what the professor said the book meant and when I did have to defend my thoughts on texts through literary analysis, I was very good at finding textual support. Are we preparing students for the "game of school" or are we preparing students to be real readers and writers?

But I digress. After reading Nystrand I also had a better understanding of the various "periods" in both literature and composition studies (because, you will notice, even in an analysis of composition studies, it is tough to remove literature). I thought the authors did a nice job of prefacing the description of each consecutive movement and time period by commenting, "In this article we seek to trace the changing centers of gravity that carries composition, linguistics, and literary studies across the last half of the century, not to define hard boundaries or set strict chronologies between the evolving intellectual positions. The irony is that it is only through an articulation of differences in formalist, structuralist and dialogical approaches that we can begin to see important connections among them." (p. 274)

Nystrand, Greene and Wiemelt, or, For An Article I Started Out Hating, I'm Sure Citing It a Lot

Reading this article really made me reflect on my myself as a reader.  When I first attempted to read this article, it was the first week of class.  I hadn't had the priviledge of hearing Dr. Kist speak about the different eras of English education or the predominent forms of critical theory used to interpret literature.  I literally had, "nothing in my suitcase," to quote on of the teachers I interviewed on the teaching of inference; in other words, I had NO background knowledge on this topic.  Since my first attempt at reading this article I've read all of the chapters in The Handbook of Research on Writing as well as my chapter on New Criticism in the Tyson book.  It is as if I am reading a different article.  The text seems much more conversational (though not nearly as much as Tyson) and I'm less angry at the authors for being verbose and (in my opinion) needlessly name dropping -isms!  I wish every social studies and science teacher in the world could keep this principle in mind.  How often was I assigned to read a chapter say, on the French and Indian War or imperialism before the class discussion?  Often!  How much deeper would my reading have been if I'd been given a 1-5 minute preview/ highlights/ chapter walk before the assignment? 

RefWorks and JStor

Is anyone out there using RefWorks?  From what I understand, I should be able to import articles from JStor (the best way I've found to get a full PDF from any NCTE publication), but when I hit the export button, I get a pop-up blocker.  I disable the pop-up blocker, but it still won't work.  If you've done this, I'd appreciate any feedback.

Silent films and inferential thinking

I thought this was a great clip to use to highlight how we "read" film and as an opening to discussing what it means to infer.  If you are in class with me now, there is a good chance you will see this one again!

Charlie Chaplin - "The Lion's Cage"

Meyers, Monaghan and Saul

Meyers Changing "Our Minds: Negotiating English and Literacy" and Monaghan and Saul "The Reader, the Scribe, the Thinker: A Critical Look at the History of American Reading and Writing Instruction."
Both of these pieces helped to situate my understanding of why writing instruction is so often subordinated to reading instruction and to give me a historical overview of why the IRA and NCTE exist as two separate entities (although they now put forth joint position statements and created the Read. Write. Think resource jointly). I also paid very close attention to the dates of both articles. If I am correct, both pre-date NCLB (2001) and the National Reading Panel (2000). That changes much about my reading of each.

Monaghan and Saul argue that there has been a surge in research on writing, and while I would agree, I would say that again the political pendulum has swung back to the need for a greater governmental, nee societal, control of reading. Monaghan and Saul point to, “A study of the teachers guides put out by two publishing companies between 1920 and 1980 documents a decline in trusting the teacher as a professional.” (p.93) I would argue that with certain government approved, “scientifically-based” reading programs that emerged from Reading First that we are again at a time when societal forces are trying to “teacher-proof” reading instruction. Writing, on the other hand, takes the back seat because subjects that are not tested is often less valued – and it is my understanding the state of Ohio has removed the writing assessment from all grade levels except the OGT. Although I would argue, at least in Ohio, all of the subject-area tests test writing to some extent through extended response questions. If Governor Strickland prevails, the ACT will replace the OGT (are you keeping up with all of this), but the ACT (and SAT) have recently reintroduced writing components. (So the issues of reliability the authors outlined on page 100 seem to have again gone by the wayside…for now.) So the reading crisis the emerged from Sputnik and the Great Society that was then replaced by the writing crisis of the 1970s has again been replaced by the reading crisis spawned by NCLB and the NRP in response to whole language… I’m very interested in investigating the research, “…studies that show that children who learn to read while very young actually prefer to start on the road of literacy by writing, not reading. (Durkin, 1970, as cited by the authors)

This year, NCTE went so far as to create a “National Day of Writing” to attempt to convince policy-makers and every day Americans just how important writing is to all of us, everyday. Perhaps the latest emphasis on “21st Century Skills” will again bring writing to the forefront? Monaghan and Saul point out that “…reading has been defined more clearly than writing.” (p.87) Reading also seems to allow societal forces to exert greater control of students as well as teachers, as the quote on page 91 outlines, “Society has focused much more on children as readers because, historically, it has been much more interested in children as receptors than produces of the written word.”

Monaghan and Saul outline to some extent the changing definition of what it means to be literate (to read is to say, to read is to decode & respond to literal questions, to read is to understand), but I found that the Myers chapter provided a richer, historical overview. While Monaghan and Saul’s main point seems to be that reading is more political because it is about control (of teachers, of students, of content, of values), Myers more skillfully outlines the epochs of literacy in America. I truly had no idea that recitation literacy was the focus of American literacy instruction until almost 1920. I guess I never realized that the definition of what it meant to be literate changed dramatically three times in the course of American history – and perhaps given that these chapters have a 1996 publication date, you could argue that with web 2.0, they have changed again. The vignette Myers highlighted that captured the first shift so well was on page 87, when the author pointed out, “In 1916, draftees into the US Army were encountering a new definition of reading: reading is silent decoding and analysis of the parts of unfamiliar materials. These recruits were being criticized for not doing what they had never been taught to do.” I haven’t gotten my Tyson book from Amazon yet, but I’m wondering if that shift from recitation to decoding, defining and analyzing is when the “New Criticism” paradigm emerges. Although the article places the end of this era roughly in 1983, I would argue that much of my experience in high school English classes mirrored the work that students did in this period more so than the transition to a new standard of literacy. It wasn’t until I starting teaching in the upper grades that I began to read professional texts that suggested students could have their own personal interpretations of text – if those students could ground those interpretations in textual evidence. I seem to remember one way of interpreting literature: the English teacher’s way, which, I realize now, was probably the literary critic’s way. She parroted their interpretations of literature just as we parroted hers.

I would like to hope that we are, by the nature of the workforce, moving toward a different type of literacy marked by higher order thinking skills as Meyers points out, “These gains [in standardized test scores], however, were no longer adequate by the 1980s. Higher order thinking skills were becoming essential for all students, but decoding/ analytic literacy had not attempted higher order thinking for all students,” (p.101) I see a tension today between reading programs that are governed by one day of testing, be it in March or May, and the need for 21st Century skills. I have heard teacher’s stories of warning students not to think too deeply on testing days and of the need to teach the genre of testing. I believe we are at a time of another upheaval in what constitutes a literate person, and I certainly hope that the emphasis on literacy as thinking is what emerges – and not just thinking to pass a test, trying to guess what someone else’s correct answer is or using the right number of sentences in a paragraph.

Chapters 1,9 & 10 - Handbook of Research on Writing

Chapter 1
Though I'm not sure I agree 100%, Schamandt-Besserat & Erarad, argue that writing developed more distinctly from art and as a need to record & manage consumer transactions. (Wait a minute, how many goats did I sell you?) Dr. Kist brought this up in class as well.

I think this text thus far has been very careful with presenting the how writing emerged in the world, not just from a very western perspective. Writing emerged in three different geographical areas: Mesopotamia, Mesoamerica and China. Societies that placed a greater emphasis on writing were of course societies that we tended to better understand, thus to value as more "cultured."

As a person who has studied phonics (through the form of spelling - I didn't use a spelling book to teach spelling, I used more of a developmental spelling approach), I found the way that different forms of writing emerged grapho-phonemically really fascinating: while cuneiform began as a logographic system (one sign = one concept), it eventually evolved to include the concept of different syllables, but not individual sounds making it a syllabary. (p.15) I also found it absolutely amazing that the alphabet emerged only once and that ALL alphabets derive from the same first alphabet. Now here is where I would love to ask a speech pathologist if this is because these same sounds have a physiological component to them. The alphabet as we know it began with 22 letters (all consonants) which were phonemes. It apparently sure beat learning 600 cuneiform signs. It was the Greeks who added letters for vowels (adding some aspects of their Indo-European language to the Semitic), so it was easier to transcribe the spoken word. From the Greeks the alphabet spread to the Etruscans who were conquered by the Romans who went on to conquer a whole bunch of people, thereby spreading the Latin alphabet that we know and use today. The chapter also cleared up some misconceptions I'd had about Chinese in that most characters do represent speech sounds (p.16).

I thought the John Goody quote on page 18 that characterizes writing as " technology of the intellect" (p.18) was a good one to keep in the pocket.

Finally, writing is still evolving - we are not "there." I remember the first time I saw an emoticon and thought that the person sending the message had clearly missed a few days of school when the teacher was going over punctuation...

Ch. 9
A quote for potential future use:
"The invention of writing made knowledge more readily and reliably remembered, transported across time and space, and shared, by copying among multiple people and sites." But writing to, "construct[ing] abstractions apart from instances" leads to the possibility of multiple interpretations - thus, the reader has to make inferences to reconstruct situations. (p.143) As Dr. Sandmann said, "Without writers, readers would not make inferences." I thought the next few quotes also had implications for literary inferential thinking (as I can make inferences visually as well as auditorally as well - inference is found not only in the domain of the printed word):
"Writing facilitates inspecting exact wording to hold authors accountable for what was said, as well as comparing accounts and inconsistencies, differences and contradictions. Although these tasks can be carried out in oral contexts, and none are necessarily consequences of the acquisition of literacy, these facilitations nonetheless are consistent with historically observed changes occurring with literacy." (p.144)
{Are writers always writing to capture things exactly as they are? I would say that when that happens it falls within the range of nonfiction, but as writing became an art (and not just a method for replicating life in printed words), I have to believe that through the use of figurative language, writers were leaving cognitive "holes" that they hoped would be filled with thought. What that thought was was reader dependent. But think of poetry. As a poet, the language used can be pretty spartan ("So much depends on the red wheelbarrow"), but I have to imagine William Carlos Williams wanted it the line to read that way. His "wheelbarrow" might be very different from my own "wheelbarrow."}
"[Thus,] the impact of literacy on thought and knowledge should be understood within particular social, cultural, and historical circumstances and practices."

Historically, writing seems to have initially been utilized for economics, social control and religion (and if you are a Marxist, the last two things are really the same, no?). I found it interesting that the Maya also utilized scribes to "mediate" between the gods and the common people-which is very reminiscent of Christianity during the Middle Ages. I found it so culturally different that in India, writing was considered to be for those too dull to remember and that religious learning was oral. Writing also initially had less value among the Greeks than "rhetoric." We tend to often think of learning in China as being very different than Westernized pedagogical methods - often more test-driven. I'm guessing that is because high-stakes testing appears to have been a part of Chinese culture (the imperial civil service examinations) that lasted for over two millenia (p.151). And we think No Child Left Behind can be awful...
Finally, though I knew that the Islamic world was responsible for "keeping" much of the knowledge that was "lost" during the Dark Ages, I don't think I realized just how much: it seems without translations from Greek into Syriac and Arabic, much of what was known in the ancient world about mathematics and medicine would have been lost to time. (Check out the history of the word algebra.) The Islamic world was also where East met West, thus their collections of knowledge were truly the first that were "international" in scope. (p. 155)

Ch. 10
This chapter helped me to situate much of what I know about what it means to be a scholar in the context of history. I found the emergence of the European university fascinating. Though I suspect I should have known it, I was still amazed at just how much control the Vatican exercised over curricula. (Perhaps this explains why my husband took Latin at his Catholic high school - something that has really served him well on all of our vacations, let me tell you...) It also makes total sense that the Reformation could only coincide with the invention of the printing press - it was the first time people were able to draw their own interpretations and inferences from the Bible. It was at this time (15th century) that, "learning became a competitive force that could enhance the status and power of monarchs.." (p. 159)

Skipping forward a few centuries, the idea of writing as a means of documenting the authorship of ideas (1883 Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property and the emergence of patents) was really groundbreaking. (Also, over half of patents currently come from the US.) Moving toward the economies of today, I thought the following quote captured an important central idea from the chapter:
"As modern society has become more dependent on knowledge, the economic value of many sorts of information and the texts that bear them has increased, particularly with the advent of electronic communication and the Internet, so that the purchaser may gain only transient use of the purchased knowledge product, the permanent and authoritative copy of which still resides solely in the possession of the owner." (p. 161) Might this explain why I cannot copy and paste to this blog from a word document? Or am I just slow on the uptake? (Likely the latter.)

Finally, I "got" why people said that the language you study depends on what field you plan to study. (Is German still the language of science? Or am I to believe the text that English is now the official language of scholarship from the mid-20th century forward?) It seems that we are still anchored to the Prussian idea of research and scholarship, so someone can throw the Germans a bone there.

"Implication in Writing" and Project Ideas

I spoke briefly with Dr. Sandmann today about this odd idea of looking at inference from the writing, as opposed to the reading, perspective. If you've been reading the blog, you know I haven't found much on the topic. There are a fair amount of professional texts for practioners and as well as research (which tends to focus on one type of inference, say at the word level) on the teaching of inference - but quite honestly, there is not even as much of that as one would expect.

She suggested I try a search term that centers around the quote above. The amount of inferential thinking (from the writer's end, intentional ambiguity) required of a reader is directly related to the sophistication (thus, readability) of the text. Though I think writers at all levels (reread the last page of The Cat in the Hat if you haven't recently) do require inferential thinking of their readers, the more ambiguity (one of the characteristics of good texts used to teach inference Dr. Bintz has developed), the more sophisticated the text. (I'm thinking of the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleberg in Gatsby.) So, after I do a bit of searching, I'll post my results.

My other question (if this one does not work out) will be, "Why use new technologies (like podcasting, Scratch, GarageBand, etc.) to help students communicate their thinking about a staid topic like grammar?" Why not just use work books? Or even just good old art projects? What cognitive and pedagogical benefits are there of using "new media" to share student thinking about one of the bedrocks of the teaching of English?

I'd be interested to hear from all of you out there. Do you think there is an angle I am missing? Is there anything you've read that you think I should check out? Also, does anyone have Ralph Fletcher's Craft Lessons that I could borrow?

Push by Sapphire/ New Criticism

I must get back to reading for class now that I have finished this book. I just can't stop thinking about it. I hope my daughter has a Miss Rain every year in school.

Off to read about New Criticism. A bit daunting now. While the text says that this form of criticism is out of vogue now (everything you need to know to analyze a text is found within), I would argue that state assessments are still asking students to read this way. During my inference interviews (conducted with teachers) one teacher went on at great length how she has to teach her students NOT to put themselves "in" what they have read when tested on thier reading in May. She commented again and again about the importance of text evidence, especially when the class was doing, "test genre."

So is "close reading" gone? I would say no.

Copy and Paste?

I wrote a post in Word, but can't seem to copy and paste here. Is anyone else having this issue?