Gallo, Melina. "Immigrant Workers’ Journeys through a New Culture: Exploring the Transformative Learning…" Studies in the Education of Adults, Oct 2001, Vol. 33 Issue 2, p 109. ERIC. Goucher College. 10 Sep. 2002. http://www.goucher.edu/library/dbinfo

        Melina Gallo’s study looks into an unusual approach in the teaching of English as a second language to adults, for she shows how photography can be a means to lead each student towards confidence in communicating to the English speaking world. During a 26 week span, Gallo gave each of her 23 students a camera, instructed to take pictures that represented their lives, and then share them with the group. Her study shows that her "autodocumentary" approach creates opportunities for the students to employ and become comfortable with English, both in and outside of the classroom (paragraph 5). The tie between each photograph and the impetus to utilize their English skills begins with conversations among the students within the classroom, as they discuss their lives and common circumstances. Eventually, as the students become more comfortable with talking amongst themselves, many also branch out to talking to English-speaking coworkers while using their photographs as a conversational tool. Verbal discourse also transformed into written, as each student wrote and published several passages on the class website. Some were even confident enough in their proficiency to effect change in their workplaces by asking their bosses for improvement in their work environment.

        Reading the results of such a period really is inspiring, especially when it seems that without the pictures that each student created, much less might have occurred. Although Gallo attempts to portray her experience as an empirical study, inevitably it seems to be more of a retrospective of a teacher’s experience, which doesn’t weaken the effects that she reports. In some passages a non-empirical approach is her strength, for it is easier to identify and relate the students’ experiences to a broader population. What is of such importance within the application of this method is that it shows yet another unique way to motivate people to verbalize, communicate, and want to write in a way that is meaningful to them.

        Although the actual method can’t be utilized in every circumstance in which a person must write, this study does provide a tool in creating movement from ideas and images to language, and from language to writing with a purpose. Each photograph made the students feel as though their experiences and ideas mattered. As a peer tutor, one can definitely see that some sort of visual stimulus can help in making the connection between ideas and translating them into words. Of course, for the most part, a tutor can’t expect anyone who comes for help to document their personal experiences using photographs, yet asking about pictures that the student may have come across during research could help to facilitate discussion during brainstorming. Also, if the student is visiting during an early point in his research, and they seem to have a creative side, this approach may prove to be quite helpful throughout their project. The most important message from this study is that the creation of, or exposure to, visual images can inspire communication both verbally and through the written word.

        The need for a writer to feel that they have a meaningful tie to what they write is of utmost importance. Beginning as early as elementary school people can be helped throughout the writing process, as shown with Michael and his drawing during the composing process within Graves’ article. Gilmartin and Turk both highlighted a similar them in that it is often necessary to utilize creative ways to get students brainstorming and writing, and the use of visual images is yet another unique way to do so. The emotional value that Brand emphasized within writing, as well as the tie between memories and verbalization is definitely evident within Gallo’s study due to the impetus that spurred action due to the class photographs. Also Koundakjian’s emphasis on verbalization of personal stories in informal language comes alive within Gallo’s study, thereby showing the power of making whatever one writes one’s own.--Christine Bunting, 9/15/02

Barron, Nancy, and Grimm, Nancy.  “Addressing Racial Diversity in a Writing Center: Stories and Lessons from Two Beginners.”  The Writing Center Journal  22.2 (2002): 55-83.

         In this essay on racial diversity issues in writing centers, Barron (a Mexican-American) and Grimm (a Caucasian) discuss the conflicts that surround our present educational system, which requires writing that matches “the institutionalized image of the typical student,” and the way writing centers have become places that not only teach students to write, but that teach all students of all races and backgrounds to “write ‘white’” (59).  Writing center directors Grimm and Barron share their attempts to create a helpful work center that acknowledges and respects differences in race even on a liberal arts campus “that pretends to be colorblind” (58).

         Before attempting to make changes within the policies of the writing center, Grimm and Barron assigned their staff members with three texts: Takaki’s A Different Mirror, Loewen’s Lies My Teacher Told Me, and Spring’s Deculturalization and the Struggle for Equality.  Instead of making the “white middle class coaches” aware of “the different experiences and memories that students of color bring to literacy education” and “more cautious about the assumptions they brought to tutoring sessions when working with students of color,” the readings made the tutors defensive, and they refused to admit to any sort of “systemic domination and injustice”(62-63).  Slowly, and with the help of several other texts (Fox’s When Race Breaks Out, Tatum’s “Talking about Race, Learning about Racism: The Application of Racial Identity Development Theory in the Classroom”) Grimm and Barron worked with their students on issues such as colorblindness, equal opportunity, and denial, or “keeping the lid on Pandora’s Box”(64).  They conclude that if the “writing center training does not directly engage these beliefs, they are strong enough to undermine the best of intentions”(64).

         I believe this is a particularly interesting subject because I am aware of how prevalent race issues are at an almost all white college, and how easy it is for students and teachers to dismiss them.  Goucher is a decidedly liberal college, and we would all like to pretend that we are enlightened enough to have risen above such seemingly old issues.  In truth, Goucher is still segregated in many ways, and I was fascinated by this article’s attempt to “show the mainstream students how a commitment to productive diversity can benefit them”(69).   

        However, Grimm and Barron did a poor job of expressing their attempt to remedy the issues.  While they did point out several major issues (a black woman refuses to post anonymously on issues of race because she is afraid that those reading will immediately identify her, for example) their description of the race relationship training they put their tutors through was unclear, and ending result even more so.  I hoped that in reading “Addressing Racial Diversity in a Writing Center” I would learn a few ways to cope with an extremely important matter, but I was disappointed: in finishing I was even more certain that racial diversity was a problem in writing, and even less certain of the appropriate way to deal with it.       Sarah Raz, September 14, 2002

Kaufman, James C.  “Dissecting the Golden Goose: Components of Studying Creative Writers.”  Creativity Research Journal 14:1, 27-40.

                 This article presents an empirical review of the psychological components of creative writers based on a model of creativity developed by Sternberg and Lubart that proposes six variables involved in and of significant influence to the cognitive and emotional processes of creative writing.  Kaufman begins with a discussion of the issues and questions commonly approached by past research into the substance and dynamics of creativity.  He points out that creative writing has usually been studied in every context except its own, that is, from the perspectives of sociology, education, the political and health sciences, but not literature. Research into creativity has also tended to distance itself from the individual premise of the creator; there are many theoretical explanations as to the successful production of a poem or a work of fiction, but little attention has been given to the question of how the creative writer functions as he does.  Kaufman then presents several models of creativity that have been proposed and employed in previous studies, such as studies on the interrelation of intelligence and creativity, intelligence and personality, and neurological activity involved in creative tasks.  Those studies have tended to rely on physiological method and assessment, and although they may provide valuable insight into the biological side of creativity, Kaufman leans toward research models that have directed more focus on into the cognitive and emotional components of writers.  One such model was developed by Csikszentmihalyi, who studied creativity as an interaction involving the components of domain, field and person, in which domain is “a set of symbolic rules and procedures” (Csikszentmihalyi qtd. in Kaufman 28), the field is “comprised of the people in charge of the domain—teachers, editors, critics… [and] the person is the individual who produces a creative idea or product that is accepted by the field into the domain” (Kaufman 29).  Amabile suggested another model of creativity that focused on the components of task motivation, domain-relevant skills and creativity-relevant skills.  This model allows for the study of variables such as intelligence, knowledge, motivation and personality.  Runco and Albert expanded on this model and studied creativity within four distinct foci:  personality and family, motivation and personal histories, ecology and culture, and pragmatics and cognitive processes.  After considering the strengths and weaknesses of each model, Kaufman settles on the Sternberg and Lubart model as the theoretical framework for his findings, ascertaining that their model “encompasses nearly all the key components raised by the earlier theories” (29).  The six elements involved in the Sternberg-Lubart model include motivation, intelligence, personality, knowledge, thinking styles and environment, and they provide the context in which Kaufman examines and evaluates the findings of various research studies on creativity and creative process.  Through the presentation and analysis of several studies within each element relating to creative writing (and sometimes the larger scope of creativity in general), Kaufman comes to the following summarized conclusions: that intrinsic motivation is more important to the creative writing process than extrinsic motivation; that verbal intelligence is highly correlated to creative writing, but insufficient as a single condition; that the personalities of creative writers seem particularly prone to instability and impulsivity; that their thinking styles tend to be more intuitive than sensory; and that experience in the domain of writing outweighs the influences of surrounding environmental factors. 

                Kaufman’s observations on creative writing are certainly applicable to our further study and understanding of it, particularly in exploring the psychology of the creative individual and the closely linked cognitive and imaginative energies involved in writing. There are two theoretical issues raised in this article in particular that I think may warrant more attention in the effort to further develop our understanding of creative writing; the first has to do with the much-mythologized relationship between creativity and psycho-emotional instability or illness.  Kaufman suggests that “[p]erhaps the phenomenon is one of causality: Creative writers may not necessarily be unstable; perhaps being unstable is a factor that may help produce creative output” (32).  How does instability facilitate and seemingly encourage creative process and development?  The second point of interest, concerning knowledge, is raised by Minsky cited in Kaufman; Kaufman states, “Minsky (1997) theorized that a great deal of our knowledge is geared toward avoiding negative experiences—and yet it is these very negative experiences that may result in creativity” (35).  How do “negative experiences” induced by an absence of knowledge actually foster creativity?  How may dependence on traditional knowledge inhibit creative innovation?     Adrienne Casalena, September 15, 2002 

Myers, Sharon.  “Teaching Writing as a Process and Teaching Sentence-Level Syntax:  Reformulation as ESL Composition Feedback.”  Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language – Educational Journal.  Vol. 2 No. 4.  A-2.  June 1997.

        Myers recognizes that the process of composition was investigated as a cognitive and social process, the very things that Emig and Flower & Hayes have been researching in our readings.  These social scientists also considered the implications that race, class, sex, and gender have on writing – specifically on the writing process – and tried to apply that to the way they teach writing, and the way they teach how to write.  Myers, however, suggests that teachers and tutors of ESL have to teach the writing process differently in order to make their students successful.  This change is not because non-native-English-speaking students have less of a capacity for writing than do native-English-speaking students, or do not know how to write, but they have different needs about the process of how to write in a foreign language.  Most of these students in ESL classes because do not have enough knowledge of English vocabulary or syntax to write fluidly, but that does not mean that they cannot generate meaning.  “Figuring out what to say is not so much a problem as how to say it in English,” she says.  (Myers also observes, from her own work with ESL students in a college context, that many international students are more mature than natively-American freshmen, a theory about which I am ambivalent.)

        ESL students express specific needs for instruction in vocabulary and grammar because there has been strong evidence that native-English- and -professors react negatively to poor sentence structure or vocabulary usage in the writings of these students.  Most college-level English-speaking students, however, worry less and are instructed less on the essential dryness of grammar.  Many people seem to believe that it is “obstructive to students’ efforts to write” to focus entirely on mechanics – as long as students are native English speakers and have already been taught the basics of syntax at an earlier age.  International students, on the other hand, find their grammar and spelling being the subjects of close scrutiny, presumably because professors are not certain that they have been carefully trained in these elements.

        That dichotomy does not suggest that ESL students should not worry about the mechanics of writing.  Myers says that it is important for ESL students to develop some degree of automaticity in the use of articles, verb tenses, subject/verb agreement, spelling, and other “surface” features. Thus, one of the most important things in tutoring or teaching an ESL student is to teach the syntactic features that are so automatic to native-English-speakers but not to non-native-English-speakers.  Myers includes two examples of how to revise an essay for correctness in grammar as well as meaning, using simple symbols (such as ^ for “add something” and | for “separate something”) that we all probably learned in third-grade language arts.  The point of helping ESL students revise their essays in this way is not to “dumb them down,” or make them feel stupid, but to make the process of revising elementary.  ESL students need to learn how to write things in English before they can begin to write them eloquently in English.

Other exercises in developing students’ comfort level with written English include writing short journal assignments on self-selected topics, point/counterpoint essays, and short papers on impromptu topics.  All of these assignments are geared toward enabling ESL students to write out their feelings and opinions, but in English – their non-native language.  Since format is unfamiliar to them, but content is not, the idea is that they are better able to focus on the task of writing in English.

        Obviously, the subject of this article is not so applicable to Goucher College as it is to other colleges and universities where there is a higher influx of non-native-English-speaking college freshmen.  (Nancy Myers hails from Berkeley.)  I do not know many international students here at Goucher, and the few I have met are not people who seek help with their writing in a non-native language.  I think the theories presented in this article are important, though, because they remind us that not everyone writes the same way we have all learned to write in our very American educations.  We assume that the things students need help on are clarifying their theses, developing their arguments, perhaps finding more research to support their topics, but there are also people for whom just creating the correct sentence structure is a real challenge.  These can include learning-disabled students or young writers, not just people whose first language is not English.

        When helping ESL students with their writing, you have to teach them differently than you would a native-English-speaking person.  This is not a popular opinion because people want to say that all students are equal, that separating them into those categories singles them out or is unfair or politically incorrect.  But we have honours and non-honours classes; many public schools still have special education systems.  Recognizing that students who speak different native languages have to be taught differently is as essential as recognizing that two individual students have to be taught differently.

        I came upon this piece and found it interesting because I lived at boarding school my junior year of high school and ended up dorming with five other teenagers, all of whom were ESL students.  When one of our Japanese students came over in September, basically the only English word she knew was “chocolate.”  It is difficult to teach not just the nuances of written English but also spoken English; many native Asians have a tendency to use the “so” modifier for every adjective:  “She is so nice person; that is so good book.”  While I felt that some of the ideas presented in this article were a little elementary, they also remind us of the reality of teaching people who have very different bases in education.  Sometimes you have to be reminded of things you already know before you can be successful.--Elizabeth Fields 09/15/02

 

Tower, Cathy. “It’s a Snake, You Guys!”: The Power of Text Characteristics on Children’s Responses to Information Books.  Research in The Teaching of English. 27 No 1 (August 2002): 55-86. 

        The study done for this article explored the different ways in which pre-school children respond to different genres of reading material.  Playing off of the imagination of children, Shine and Roser explored the verbal responses of children to readings of fantasy, realistic, poetic, and informational books.  They wanted to see if children would add character descriptions and storylines not mentioned in the text in their comments.  The conclusion showed that children incorporated narrative elements in discussions of all four types of books.  Cathy Tower then took this same idea and focused solely on the response of children to information books.

         In an information book the main purpose is primarily to inform, subjects are topically organized, and it contains photographs featuring different aspects of the subject.  There are no specific characters in the text and does not contain an overall plot.  Tower showed, however, that pre-school children naturally try to connect the information they are learning within the context of a story.  One way this point is shown is that children tended to focus on events mentioned in each book used in the study.  Tower explained one reason for this is that the children were able to used the pictures in an information book to separate one event from another.  In general knowledge books, the children were able to apply events from their personal life as examples.  When the children were familiar with the topic being read about, they were more interested in the material and thus more likely respond.  The ability to use text characteristics plays “an important role in children’s developing knowledge about books.”

         One might think that all of this is common sense.  Children are wonderful storytellers, so of course they will take every opportunity to develop a new story.  However, with studies such as this one and the data they produce, one might wonder why schools are not making more use of the material.  In many classrooms, historical, science, and even mathematical facts are taught through storytelling.  But many teachers have not made this step.  Tower’s study shows that children naturally look for the characteristic text, even in an information book, so drawing on this talent teachers would be able to share more knowledge with the children.  Anyone planning to work with young children in an informal or formal education setting should read this article to better understand the ways children process information.-- Aileen Heiman. September 15, 2002

Hohn, Donovan. “‘The Me Experience’: Composing as a Man.” Working with Student Writers: Essays on Tutoring and Teaching (1999): 285-99. 

                In “The Me Experience”: Composing as a Man”, Donovan Hohn reflects on his struggle as a male, white, young-adult writer within the field of composition’s increasing focus on process, audience, and personal identity at Oberlin College. Hohn opens this article by examining his own gender-oriented, cultural responses to essentialized politics of difference in the composition literature of prominent feminists. He describes his psychological training in individualism as a boy reading adventure novels which he claims perpetuate the myth of the “self-made man”, unaffected by origin, society, community or audience. He then demonstrates the correlation between those tales of toil and glory and the masculine perception of academic accomplishment, which for Hohn involved the desire to win approval from an all-knowing intellectual authority. Hohn explores its effect on writing by deconstructing several of his own analytical essays in which he used a detached, passive voice to access masculine privilege, dismissing minority perspectives as inconsequential. Upon encountering and recognizing the benefits of a feminized approach to composition, Hohn describes himself beginning to relinquish his previous objectivity in favor of agency, taking into consideration both his own identity and the identity of his audience. He ends the article with a description of his experience tutoring another male student from his acquired standpoint in feminized composition. 

                I chose to read this particular article after our conversation in class last week about the potential differences between male and female writers. In our discussion of Donald H. Graves “An Examination of the Writing Processes of Seven-Year –Old Children” we seemed unable to ascertain the distinctions between male and female writers beyond the second grade. Few of us had any exposure to the written content and/or the composition processes of men our age and those who did had not perceived that young girls’ inclination toward community and boys’ preference for adventure continue into adulthood. Donovan Hohn, however, reveals the considerable strife that young men undergo when, having learned to “(surrender) their own significance to narratives of the self-made man” (293) are then asked by feminist writers and professors to claim their voices as agency. This request encouraging men to “resist their own sense of self in order to access the benefits of a “femenized” composition pedagogy” (288) is one that, not having read this article, I never would have considered to challenge masculine identity. I probably would have approached male tutees with a feminized perspective of composition, expecting them to respond to it in the same way as a woman.

                 One aspect of “The Me Experience” that I found particularly inspiring was Hohn’s autobiographical description of the use of academic assignments to reconstruct his sense of cultural identity, which he labels “the rewriting of the body” (293). Through the process of writing literary essays at Oberlin Hohn redefined and continues to redefine his conception of himself as a male, white, young-adult writer. The lesson for me lies in learning to view writing as an opportunity for growth and development; a lesson which I as a tutor can foster in the composition processes of others while applying it to my own.--Becka Garonzik, September 15, 2002

Johnson, T.R. “School Sucks” The Journal of the Conference on College Composition and Communication National Council of Teachers of English.  Volume 52 Number 4 (June 2001) 620-650

             The essay begins with familiar and seemingly harmless school yard rhymes such as, “No more chalkboards! No more chairs! Throw the teachers down the stairs!”  Johnson recognizes that although very few students lean toward maxims set by groups like the “Trench Coat Mafia” almost all harbor aggression toward school and its authorities.  He wants to investigate the “School sucks” attitude affects the composing process.

            Johnson does so by looking into the pleasure of writing in order to see what ruins it.  He likens Georgias method of healing through chants to students writing persuasive papers.  He concludes that in order to do this one must first take pleasure in the action.  He looks to the origin of writing and discovers that it began with a drive for pleasure, often creating sensational works.  It is the current deviation from this “renegade” writing to professional prose that has considerably changed students’ attitudes.

            Using Helene Cixous’s “ecriture feminine” as an example, Johnson demonstrates the widening gap between renegade and intuitional writings.  Cixous’s excerpt is full of passion and vitality but lacks many elements of classroom writing.  He goes on to explain that renegade writing is viewed as “antagonistic, combative, and even apocalyptic”.  He sees the marking of student texts as an embarrassing procedure for students that will ultimately link writing with pain and suffering.  Johnson cites David Bartholomae’s respected textbook, “Ways of Reading” as a reference of how writing is now viewed as a decidedly non-pleasurable experience.  He sees Bartholomae’s ideas as turning writers into machines.  Johnson studies this dynamic between pleasure and pain to better understand the role of sub-cultures.  He infers that these groups have been influenced by “the demonizing tones of dominant discourses – decided to play the role assigned them to the hilt”.

            In the next sections of his essay Johnson examines the fact that by late adolescence most students are writing in the renegade style.  He believes they are actually seeking focus and structure.  He views renegade rhetoric as offering protection against confining institutions, thus it meets with authority in disruptive manners.

            Johnson feels there should be a balance between the freedom and emotion in renegade writing and the structure and conciseness of academic writing.  He suggests humorous learning games that incorporate critical thinking with a release of tension and emotion.

            Johnson concludes the article by stating that many students have become masochists where writing is concerned.  Since most institutions seek to turn writers into machines, that is construct their work in a static mechanical manner, writing completed in school will often cause pain.  Thus, if students do take pleasure in writing, it is only because teachers have turned them into masochists.  He refers to J. Elspeth Stucky, author of “The Violence of Literacy” and her argument that in today’s world receiving an education has become an experience of being confined and learning to like it.  Johnson believes that students see the process of writing as a necessary pain, one that allows for the masochistic pleasure in completion.  Students therefore begin to despise revision and strive to create a work that does not need to be rewritten.  This follows with the masochistic desire for closure.  Johnson comments on the often heard question from students when presented an open ended assignment, “Can you please tell us what you really want?”  He views these goals of perfection and conformity to the cause of writers block.  Students get so involved in the idea of creating the exactly right response that they undermine themselves.  He then goes so far as to liken writer’s block to the masochistic experience of being in chains.  That through becoming trapped within a vision of the ideal, students cannot write with a natural flow or rhythm.  Oftentimes, this results in a poorly composed essay that receives a bad grade, thus making students hate school more than ever.

            Johnson is amazed that more do not lash out at the system in the manner of Columbine.  He believes that those students are seeking security from the torment brought by school in a prison cell or grave.

            I think this article brings up many interesting points.  I agree with Johnson’s general ideas on renegade writing versus academic writing.  I think it is important to have a balance between emotion and structure.  This follows with my feelings on the cognitive process of writing.  Emotion and feeling is ingrained in the writing process and to remove it will only cause pain and confusion.  I also see his point on writer’s block.  I have often found myself so concerned with the perfection of a final product that I feel nothing I can write will possibly be good enough.

            However, in my opinion, Johnson becomes a bit overly dramatic in his ideas.  I really see very little connection between harmless school rhymes and laughter at authorities and tragedies such as Columbine.  I think he has gone a bit far in his hypothesis that a hatred of writing can cause such actions.  I found his view of writing as a masochistic pleasure rather odd and much generalized.  He ignores all of the students in college who have gone through school and still love to write.  However, I would like to read more about these theories, and perhaps gain a better understanding of where he is coming from with them, since on a smaller scale they do provide valuable insights to those students who do despise writing.  Since I will be working in the writing center, I think this information could assist in my ability to connect with those types of students.--Alice Murphy, September 15, 2002

Flynn, Elizabeth A. "Composing as a Woman." Landmark Essays on Writing Process. Ed. Sondra Perl. Davis, CA: Hermagoras Press, 1994. 177-189. 

       In her article "Composing as a Woman," Elizabeth A. Flynn takes the position that although, as a relativly new field, composition studies are welcoming to women, what it truly means to compose a peice of writing as a woman has yet to be defined. She begins by describing the field: what it is, how it works, and to what extent women have been involved so far. Composition studies, she believes, "expose the limitations of previous product-oriented approaches" and "replace the figure of the authoritative father with an image of a nurturing mother" (177-178) in doing so. She proceeds to emphasize the role of the self in writing, citing James Britton as arguing that "writing for the self is the matrix out of which all forms of wiritng develop"(178).

       Flynn then goes on to discuss the underlying similarities between composition and feminist studies. "After all," she explains, "feminist researchers and scholars and composition specialists are usually in the same department and sometimes teach the same courses"(178). She describes several feminist/composition specialists who have integrated their interest in women into their courses, for example, using journals in a writing course the goal of which is to "empower women"(178).  However, she goes on to state, there is still too much of a divide between the two, there has yet to be a "serious and systematic"(179) engagement between the two fields. Flynn defines feminist studies as an inquiry into the theory that males and females differ due to a long instated dominance of males in our society-- "difference is erased in a desire to universalize," she explains, "men become the standard against which women are judged"(179). The goal of feminist research is not only to uncover the source of male dominance, but also to erase its negative effects. A feminist approach to composition studies, Flynn claims, would attempt to expose "difference and dominance in written language"(180).

         Following this section is a section entitled "Gender Differences in Social and Psychological Development," in which Flynn explores and summarizes the works of Nancy Chodorow, Carol Gilligan, and the group of Mary Belenky, Blythe Clinchy, Nancy Goldberger and Jill Tarule. Their works, summarized shortly, "suggest that women and men have different conceptions of self and different modes of interaction with others as a result of their different experiences"(180). Flynn goes into an in-depth analysis of these psychologists findings, with special attention to the experiences that shape women's growth.

         In the following section, four student essays describing learning experience are analyzed. Two of the students are female, and two are male, and the papers are from an introductory course at Michigan Tech. The two female essays, written by students refered to as Kim and Kathy, describe experiences that are defined by feelings of relationship and solidarity with others: Kim's essay is about a balloon ride she took with several girlfriends, and Kathy's is about herself and a group of other exchange students who were forced to work together while lost on the German subway. These essays are analyzed using the themes discussed in the previous section about women's psychology, with special focus on the fact that these women chose to discuss personal experiences involving others, and especially oriented around their relationships to the others involved. The men's essays differ in that while they also share experiences in which they felt they grew or learned as people, these experiences are solitary ones. Jim describes the cross-country flight he had to complete in order to earn his pilot's lisence, and Joe describes the intense swimming practice he used to do to please his father, and how he later regretted quitting the team and losing his ethic of hard work. In conclusion, Flynn summarizes that the female essays are stories of "interaction, or connection, or of frustrated connection," while the males wrote stories of "achievement, of separation, or of frustrated achievement" (182).

        Flynn ends the article with a discussion of a college course that included some feminist literature and some gender-sensitive literature in which students "began to suspect that males and females read differently...that they talk among themselves differently than they do in mixed company"(187). Flynn asserts that this discovery is an important one, because it suggests that too often women are reading as men, and "that they have to be encouraged to defend against this form of alienation"(188).  She ends the essay by describing the uniqueness of the female experience, and asserts her conviction that "we must encourage our women students to write from the power of that experience"(188).--Katelyn Dix, September 15, 2002

Chang, Grace. "Contextualizing the Debates: A Historical View of Expository Writing". Working With Student Writers. Podis, A. Leonard, Podis M. JoAnne. N.Y.: Peter Lang, 1999.

        The article explores the history of expository writing at Oberlin College. It looks at the records of  the College’s Annual Reports and compares notes through time as the attitudes toward expository writing changed from the early nineteen-hundreds to the present. It also addresses the groundless idea that college level writing should be sufficiently taught at the high school level.  Using actual Annual Reports from Oberlin College Chang traces the concrete changes in curriculum from when the English department taught literature and the Rhetoric Department taught essay writing. She also exhibits the metamorphosis of attitudes toward essay writing, or expository writing, which changed according to societal and academic perspectives. She follows the history of expository writing from early in the College’s history up to the present state of Oberlin’s Expository Writing Program.

        When the student body of the college consisted of "the wealthy gentry and would-be theologians" (332) the curriculum "was defined in opposition to the market place; pre-professionalism was openly scorned, and students were not trained for a vocation" (332). After the Industrial Revolution the sciences gained prominence and the humanities soon followed suit. Education became more specialized and was less based on its previous form: the "Classical humanist ‘liberal studies’ (332).  The Rhetoric and English departments melded and the skill of composition helped the study of English literature survive the emphasis on professionalization. In 1901 an Annual Report shows the contempt literature professors have toward their obligation to teach composition, arguing that it takes away from the study of literature. In 1918, composition is again valued. 

        The fluctuation of emphasis on the utility of composition unfailingly continues. Oberlin’s Expository Writing Program took five years from its inception in 1984 to establish two FTE (full-time equivalent) staff.  Chang’s theory is that expository writing and composition have been developed and studied over time and should now receive "the full professional consideration and support that they deserve" (336).  The article is derived from Chang’s personal study and values. It is an attractive argument that she makes, considering the current struggle for the teaching of composition in colleges today.  Noting that composition was a little examined subject until the values of society changed during the Industrial Revolution, the values toward writing have continued to change but remain locked in the issue of specificity. We have seen in all that we have read thus far, from "An Examination of the Writing Process of Seven-Year-Old-Children", Read Graves, to "The Why of Cognition: Emotion and the Writing Process", Alice G. Brand, that writing is being studied through an increasingly specific lens. Understanding why the study of writing has become important helps us keep in mind why it is still important to date. It is also useful to know that the arguments for and against teaching composition are not new. The emphasis on writing instruction needs continued support.--Talley English, September 15, 2002

Smutny, Joan Franklin.  "Creative Strategies for Teaching Language Arts to Gifted Students (K-8)."  ERIC Digest E612.  

        Smutny has written an article with a few suggestions for k-8 language arts teachers. She had idea for how to challenge a gifted student in class who may be working below their level because of a lack-of-challenge. Her ideas- free verse poetry, using images to jump off and create, changing well known stories and putting yourself in a historical view point are good ideas. She provides the teacher with examples and guiding questions. But I don’t think she’s going to help many gifted children.

        Her ideas, while challenging for kindergarteners or first graders would be jokes to children in middle school, or even 3 and 4^th grade. I wonder how many kids in k-8 she has worked with if she thinks the same things will work for 5 years olds as for 12 year olds. I also feel that she limits teacher by saying these things are for “gifted children”. These ideas are more creative than typical language arts curriculum, but should all children be able to try more creative things that filling in the verbs in their grammar books? After a child can write and read, they can do these activities, they don’t have to be “gifted”. As soon as they can talk they can explore the fractured fairy tales ideas, as it is presented as a conversation between teacher and the students. It could even be done by groups of students who then present their changes story to the class.

        Her ideas, as they are presented could be very useful for more advanced (I don’t say gifted because a lot of what you know in k-2 is from what your parents could teach you and how they raised you, not your own mind necessarily), younger classes perhaps k-2^nd grade, almost all 3-5^th grades and then more basic 6-8^th grades. For the older grades the language would need to be modified, so they students wouldn’t feel spoken down to.

        I think of her suggestions not a challenge or treat for gifted kids, but just as a simple alternative to “sit down and write”. Using an image could be helpful to anyone who is more visual. Perhaps that is a tool that we, as tutors can use- asking people to move from an image, to their ideas. I know one person who wrote a paper about photographs as a way of talking about the hardships of migrant farmers. For some, something as concrete as an image can help center writing a lot.

        The “putting yourself in history” can also help a lot. I had to write first person journals while studying ancient Egypt and that helped me relate to it much more. I wonder if college students would be adverse to thinking about how things like industrial revolution or whatever would have effected their lives, and if they would do it, would it help those boring history papers?--Matisse Michalski, September 15, 2002

Smutny, Joan Franklin.  “Creative Strategies for Teaching Language Arts to Gifted Students (K-8).”  ERIC Digest.  612.

             Of all the problems children can experience in school, most people don’t consider too much intelligence a major one.  The fact is, however, that gifted students in grade-level language arts classes may be short-changed.  Without the opportunity to exercise their creativity, they may lose it, and even think it is not worth using.  Some may become bored with school and disillusioned with school and stop trying to achieve.  In her article, “Creative Strategies for Teaching Language Arts to Gifted Students (K-8),” Joan Franklin Smutny offers some suggestions for counteracting these potential problems by challenging particularly creative young minds within the context of a grade-level classroom.

            One suggestion Smutny makes is for teachers to have students write free verse poetry. She advises teachers to use a picture as a starting point from which students can generate ideas (1-2).  Smutny also proposes writing “fractured fairy tales” by making changes in familiar stories, then discussing the tales with the class (2-3).  In addition, Smutny advises allowing children to use their creativity in studying history or biographies, by writing biographical or historical fiction sketches from an unusual point of view (3-4).

            I am so glad Smutny wrote this article!  In the special education class I took last semester for my elementary education major, I learned about the range of students I will someday have to teach at the same time- some very slow learners, some gifted, others in the middle of the spectrum.  Naturally, I worry about how I will teach so that all of them benefit.  Smutny raises the point that in creative thinking, at least, there are no levels, and creative projects can help students to learn nearly any subject.

            Poetry writing can be a particularly useful tool for teaching on every student’s level at the same time.  By using a picture as a jumping-off point, the teacher provides a topic for those students who wouldn’t otherwise know where to start, which I have seen to be a real problem in my own experience.  Even children who have much to say orally often think they “don’t have anything to write about.”  This past summer, I supervised the newspaper elective at the camp where I was a counselor.  It was rare for a camper to decide for him- or herself what to write about for the camp newspaper, and I constantly had to make the seemingly obvious suggestions, “You can write about your favorite things to do at camp, your friends, the trip last week, the kickball game you were talking about before…” Using Smutny’s suggestion helps get the brainstorming phase going, and if a child has creative gifts, he or she can take it far.

            I also like the fact that Smutny specifies free verse poetry.  While rhyming is fun, it doesn’t fulfill the objective of the project- to let students apply their vocabularies.  Misty may be the perfect word to describe a picture of London, but if a child must write a rhyming poem and can’t think of a rhyme, he or she loses the opportunity to practice using the word.  Writing free verse poetry also brings to light a simple truth of which children may not be aware: poetry does not have to rhyme.  The students could get the same exercise in vocabulary application simply by writing descriptive phrases.  This way, however, they can feel that the sentence fragments they produce form something with an impressive name- a poem.

            The “fractured fairy tales” idea sounds like a lot of fun (so much so that I forgive Smutny for stealing directly from Rocky and Bullwinkle).  Through writing and discussing slightly altered fairy tales, students get a chance to analyze literature.  By examining the effects of changes on a story, they can see what factors of the story are important, and which leave the story’s outcome the same.  Having Cinderella wear gold slippers instead of glass may seem interesting to some children, but it wouldn’t have any effect on the story.  Putting straps on the slippers so they can’t fall off, however, would have a much more noticeable affect on the ending, and on poor Cinderella.

            I particularly like the idea of having students take the points of view of people involved in biographies and/or history.  My own experience illustrates that even reading historical fiction helps children to empathize with people from other eras.  In elementary school, I enjoyed reading the American Girls book series, which relates history through the experiences of nine- and ten-year-old girls.  The stories of Felicity helped me to understand the Revolutionary War era, Kirsten explained nineteenth-century immigration, Addie taught me about slavery, and Samantha about the Victorian time period. All of them made me into a well-rounded little student of American history.  As sometimes happens with fictional characters, I got along particularly well with Molly of the World War II years.  I was proud that wearing braids made me resemble this friend of mine.  Even more valuably, Molly’s life sparked conversations with my grandmother about her 1940s childhood, and thus I learned that the conventions I read about were realities just a few generations earlier.  For students to be able to write such stories, they should read them first, and hopefully experience some of the same effects I did.   I imagine that writing historical fiction, though, would have an even more profound effect.  It’s easy to become attached to and empathize with a character one creates oneself, and to care about a character is to care about the setting and situations of his or her life.

            I haven’t focused solely on the benefit of these strategies can provide for gifted children because I feel that they can be just as helpful to others.  Being denied the use of one’s creativity in the classroom can be stifling and discouraging for people at all intelligence levels.  When I realized in high school that my English classes valued no student writing other than essays, I felt like my creativity was worthless.  This feeling must be as or more potent for creative young children with teachers whose English lessons focus exclusively on grammar and reading skills.  Projects such as those assigned by Smutny are necessary to assuage it.

            As a writing tutor, I hope I can make writing more fun and meaningful for my tutees by helping them to find their creative voices.  The current educational system, though, makes me nervous.  I feel that less traditional ways of expressing oneself and learning are valid, and Smutny agrees with me, but what if professors don’t?  -Shoshana Flax, September 19, 2002

Bock, Marjorie and Susan De La Paz.  “Stop and Dare: A Persuasive Writing

            Strategy.”  Intervention in School and Clinic 36 (2001): 234-244. 

 

            This article is about an approach to teaching students how to write an effective persuasive essay that the authors developed called STOP and DARE.  Each letter in the words stop and dare stands for a different step that each student should take when writing a persuasive essay.  Stop stands for suspend judgment, take a side, organize ideas and plan more as you write.  Dare stands for “develop your topic sentence, add supporting ideas, reject arguments for the other side and end with a conclusion” (Bock).  The authors created this process because they “wanted to teach students […] an approach to writing that emphasized both reflection and planning” (Bock).  Students are assessed on their progress in writing based on their mastery of the STOP and DARE skills.  The authors suggest evaluation by means of a “short written or oral test to assess whether they know from memory the strategy steps,” a comparison of “student work before and after teaching the strategy” and a determination of “whether students use the strategy independently” (Bock).  The authors give suggestions in the article for how teachers can implement this strategy into their curriculum and use it effectively. 

            This is a very structured process that is an attempt to teach students how to write effectively.  As a writing tutor, I can definitely draw upon some of these tools and this process to show someone one method for writing this type of essay, but I know that I will not lay it out to them in these very definitive steps as the “right way” to create “good writing.”  These two authors make the assumption that every student who is writing this type of essay will do better with this type of very structured prewriting, and as many other researchers have concluded, this is not the case.  While their ideas can be used as useful strategies and tools to teach developing student writers, those students should not be evaluated on whether or not they can memorize the distinct steps of the process. 

            These authors include in their directions to teachers the need to involve the students in the learning of this writing process.  They suggest that teachers show examples of good and poor essays and then have the students discuss which is which.  They also suggest that teachers meet individually with students to discuss their progress and unique writing problems.  These are both very good recommendations on the part of the authors because they make the structure a little less static and allow for some individual thought and ability to be utilized while writing. --Vicki Moorman, September 21, 2002

 

Mphahlele, Es’kia. “Educating The Imagination.”  College English. v. 55. Number 2. February 1993.

          This article is an edited version of an address Mphahlele gave at the November 1990 NCTE con­vention in Atlanta.  In this article Mphahlele emphasizes the importance of the imagination, and its power to reach past the ugly realities of racism, debilitating education, and the breakdown of South African culture, literature, and cultural history due to apartheid.  Based on his own child­hood, education, and travel worldwide, Mphahlele discusses his innate connection with imagina­tion, how it is fed by his life’s experiences, and how it enables him to gain perspective on the hardships he endured and the hardships that exist continually worldwide, but especially in South Africa.

         I didn’t expect to read about racism and a child growing up in the savannah of South Africa and his early education via nature and his own absorbing imagination.  I expected an article about classrooms, children in suburban settings, and teachers.  What this article means to me is that imagination translates into survival.  Imagination is the reason we are attracted to learning and education in the first place.  Song, poetry, writing; putting the imagination to work- this is what interests children be they seven years old from Read Grave’s “An Examination of the Writing Processes of Seven-Year-Old-Children, or leaving adolescence like Elizabeth Schambelan strug­gling with persona in “Defining a Persona Within the Boundaries of Academic Discourse”, or Mphahlele “guzzling chunks of printed matter ripe, raw, and rotten” (182).  I connect Mphahlele’s power and scope of the imagination to a quote from Lester Faigley’s article “Competing Theories of Process: A Critique and a Proposal”: “If the teaching of writing is to reach disciplinary status, it will be achieved through recognition that writing processes are, as Stanley Fish says of linguistic knowledge, ‘contextual rather than abstract, local rather than general, dynamic rather then invari­ant’” (Faigley 50).  Imagination is the impetus for creative craft which draws from the context of a person’s experiences, and their localized perceptions.  Imagination draws from its own dynamic growth and appetite to inspire the mind.--C. Talley English 9.22.02

Anthony, Monica L. "Caught Between Skin Color and Dialect: A Non-Essentialist View of Black English." Working with Student Writers: Essays on Tutoring and Teaching. Eds. Leonard A. Podis & JoAnne M. Podis. New York, NY: Peter Lang Publishing Co, 1999. 271-283.

 

 This article, written by a graduate student with a passion and skill for writing, focuses on the concept of "black English,"-- in her nine year old niece's words, "English that black people speak"(271)-- in our society, and the problems that arise from our definition and belief in the existence of such an English. The article is more poignent because it is based largely on Anthony's personal experiences as a black American who grew up in a predominantly white suburban neighborhood without ever using this "black English" in her household or in her daily interactions with peers.

In order to fully understand Anthony’s article, we have to understand what is meant by “black English” in the first place. Anthony herself never really defines this term, aside from saying that it is the speech (although it is not confined to verbal language) commonly associated with black Americans, especially those in urban areas. What is most unfortunate about the use of this term is that it implies that “normal” English is white English, and thereby propagates the detrimental notion that normalcy in this country is equated with whiteness. As Anthony quotes to us from a journal entry of her own, “…it is ‘standard’ English. That does not necessarily make it ‘white.’ To call it so only shows [that one] has bought…into the bigoted tenet that ‘standard’ and ‘correct’ are synonymous with ‘white’”(272). This passage begins the first section of Anthony’s paper, entitled “No, S/He Mustn’t!”(a reference to an essay she is responding to), in which she begins her summary of her own experience by saying “even though I was aware of the existence of black English, it never occurred to me that people might expect me to use it”(273). Her first experience with this expectation occurred when she entered college and attended an orientation for minority students, in which she felt so uncomfortable with her “white girl voice”(274) that she began an attempt at making herself seem “more black,”(274), but only ended up appearing more uncomfortable with herself.

Also in this section, Anthony includes some reflection on negative stereotypes and what they mean to her—how difficult it has been to prove to others that “although I am a black woman, I am also an individual and I don’t have to define myself by my race”(275). She then goes on to explain how the notion of black English has extended into this concept that others have held of who she is supposed to be and how she is supposed to sound, citing several examples of occurrences in which people have seemed almost offended that they could not identify her as black when talking to her over the telephone. She then proceeds to a section entitled “Las Tres Amigas,” which focuses on the conversations between herself and two friends, Michelle and Sonya, surrounding the concept of black English.

Michelle is what Anthony defines as a “code-switcher”(277): someone who is able to use different dialects (here “black” and “white” English) in different situations depending on what seems at the time appropriate. Sonya is at the other end of the spectrum from Anthony, using “black English” almost exclusively to the point that she has been asked to participate in speech therapy by her professors. The conversations these three women have surrounding their personal methods of communication become rather intense, as all three seem to believe that they are in the right, and that the other two are assimilating or making poor choices. “Sonya,” Anthony writes, “was constantly accusing me of ‘trying to be white,’ and I kept getting angry and defensive”(278). While Michelle can identify with both girls, she is also made uncomfortable by the pressure she feels from them to choose one dialect or another. Sonya, while she comes off as very proud, is confronting major issues surrounding her way of speaking, and Anthony especially feels that Sonya has made a dangerous choice in choosing not to adapt a more standard English.

The point of the paper that resonates the most with me comes toward the end of this (the final) section, in which Anthony confesses that “[black English] still sounds unrefined to my ears. I can only imagine how it sounds to the average uninformed white American”(281). What is so profound about this statement is that it brings up the real issue here—in this country, in this culture, we are trained to view any dialect by the standard as incorrect, as a sign of ignorance or backwardness. We truly are, as Anthony says, uninformed as to the real situation: people use speech as a part of their personal identification; how we talk to one another is an enormous part of how we present ourselves to the world. And yet, if the world that we are presenting ourselves to is one that is largely uninformed, how are we to clarify ourselves? Should we really even have to?

Anthony’s essay is unique in its thoughtfulness and reflection on these issues, and she clearly has a commitment to understanding and rectifying the problems in our culture with “standard” being identified as “white.” This is something that I feel a great passion for as well, and I feel that papers like this one are enormously important in challenging misunderstandings and exposing the truth.--Katelyn Dix, 9/22/02