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Representative Charles Rangel, the Draft, and Community Service Pedagogy
Ain’t going to study war no more.—John W. Work, 1940
Nothing to kill or die for… John Lennon
Even though no military draft presently exists, a federal law remains on the books that require males to check in and sign up with the Selective Services of the Armed Forces when they reach 18 years of age. Representative Charles Rangel of New York has expressed strong interest in actually reinstating the draft. According to an article in the November 20, 2006 issue of the St. Petersburg Times, Rangel “sees his idea as a way to deter politicians from launching wars and to bolster U.S. troop levels insufficient to cover potential future action in Iran, North Korea, and Iraq.” Rangel’s argument makes sense if America is genuine in its war efforts on terrorism and its solid drive to pave the roads of the world with its idealized brand of democracy. However, “polls have shown repeatedly that about seven in 10 Americans oppose reinstatement of the draft, and officials say they do not expect to restart conscription” (Times). This statistic clearly indicates America’s lack of commitment and willingness to subject its youth to the trials and dangers of warfare. In other words, more than half the American population oppose at least resist military fighting.
Rangel’s plan is more of a compelling strategy to bring attention to the present “all-volunteer military [that] disproportionately puts the burden of war on minorities and lower-income families” (Times). The African American congressman is an outspoken and highly respected northeastern democrat who is a veteran of the Korean War. On CBS’s Face the Nation that aired on November 19, 2006, Rangel said, “There’s no question in my mind that this president and this administration would never have invaded Iraq, especially on the flimsy evidence that was presented to the Congress, if indeed we had a draft and members of Congress and the administration thought their kids from their communities would be placed in harm’s way.” Proposal for conscription, nonetheless, is a long shot and even outgoing Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld recognizes its improbable return (Times).
Laura Julier, Associate Professor of American Thought and Language at Michigan Stare University, in an essay describes a college course outline in community-service pedagogy that “while students read, critically analyzed, and responded in class to issues raised by American literary and historical texts, they would simultaneously work with various community nonprofit and social service agencies” (132). The service learning projects would then result in what one of Julier’s colleagues refers to as “real world writing.” This approach toward teaching and learning composition writing reflects the educational philosophy of John Dewey, who “viewed community as an integral part of educational experiences, because what is learned in the school must be taken and utilized beyond its bounds, both for the advancement of the student and the betterment of future societies” (133). Congressman Rangel’s conception of “having a draft would not necessarily mean everyone called to duty would have to serve” (Times). Quite naturally and expectedly, many parents oppose sending off their offspring to kill or be killed. Some religions, such as the Society of Friends, commonly known as the Quakers, adamantly disapprove of war. Rangel expects and hopes “young people (would) commit themselves to a couple years in service to this great republic, whether it’s our seaports, our airports, in schools, in hospitals” (Face the Nation).
During the FDR Administration, many artists and writers across the nation were actively employed in their professional, cultural fields through the Work Program Administration with extreme success. At the same period of time, local parks, public buildings, bridges and highways were improved and beautified through the efforts of the Civilian Conservation Corp. Under Rangel’s proposal, “educational benefits” would be guaranteed to all individuals after the completion of their two-year community service with designs and methods similarly used in the WPA and CCC social programs of the past. Such a favorable, and perhaps patriotic community-service program could easily be combined with a corresponding composition class where civilian-service workers actively engage in relevant, challenging, and simulating readings and follow-up discussions with an emphasis on writing reflectively and maintaining daily journals with thoughts, opinions, and feelings that get shared. What Rangel suggests constitutes a much more practical, feasible, and democratic course in addressing and adopting the principles and aspirations of community-service pedagogy. Rangel’s plan for a draft can be modified and adapted to a learning service pedagogy that will employ, support, and direct American youth not only in regard to acquiring skills for survival, but to help them discover meaning and purpose to their young lives. In the light of a lifetime, two years is not much to request, to sacrifice, or to contribute in hope of obtaining personal satisfaction and enduring happiness.
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Keep the faith, baby! Keep the faith!
–the late New York Representative Adam Clayton Powell
You’ve come a long way, Baby!
—slogan for Virginia Slims cigarettes
Segregation continues to survive and perhaps favorably in some instances. Males and females still use separate public restrooms, yet is there actually a law on the books that prohibits a woman from entering a men’s room? Would a man be arrested or heavily fined for doing business number two in stall number three inside a ladies’ room? Certainly I have never seen a cautionary sign regarding inappropriate gender entry on public bathrooms equivalent to the ones for No Smoking, No Loitering, or No Parking on This Side of the Street, although I have witnessed plenty of photographs and documentaries of the American past in which restrooms were boldly segregated according to racial differences. (Think of the costly logic in that simple minded idea. Folks back then had to truck off to the downtown hardware store and purchase enough copper piping and porcelain fixtures to create four restroom facilities instead of than simply two. I suppose money was not an issue in relationship to supporting and maintaining prejudices.)
As a little league catcher and average batter, I remember the so called happy days of paid toilets when institutions of higher learning such as Yale, Harvard, Princeton, and Rutgers Universities were restricted to men and men only. I remember being bussed to public elementary school in a time when boys were expected to put on dress shirts, dress slacks, and leather shoes and girls were the sugar and spice that strolled along the parameters of recess playground in dresses and jumpers. I remember commuter businessmen and car salesmen who sported dark conservative suits and bright white shirts free of ring around the collar due to their wives’ expertise in laundry matters. I remember titles like milkman, bread-man, mailman, fireman, policeman, taxman, and garbage man. And if someone ailing with a headache or a toothache needed to visit the local doctor or dentist, there was no doubt that the receptionist would be a hospitable soft spoken female, but the professional whose medical attention the patient was seeking would not be.
The United States was 146 years old before women were granted the right to vote in 1920. Before one of my personal heroes, Thurgood Marshall was appointed a seat on the bench of the United States Supreme Court by President Lyndon B. Johnson, the judicial branch of government had been exclusively reserved for white males, very much like a private gentlemen’s club. (I understand that many critical decisions, business, political, or athletic, are conducted in men’s rooms alongside wall hung urinals.) Finally, on July 7, 1981, President Ronald Regan nominated Sandra Day O’Connor as Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. This is the same era that brought us other noteworthy individuals such as Shirley Chisholm from New York who became the first African American female congressional representative. The country also enjoyed and benefited from the wisdom and dedicated efforts of Millicent Fenwick, a pipe-smoking moderate Republican from New Jersey who Gary Trudeau affectionately depicted in his syndicated comic strip as Lacey Davenport. Fenwick would be followed by “fellow’ Republican Christine Todd Whitman who was elected as New Jersey’ first female governor. Yes, I can recall many changes, albeit at a snail pace, in American history. Before there were representatives bearing gender free titles, there were indeed congressman, many of them.
A year from today, most Americans will recall the November 8, 2006 elections when the Democrats “unofficially” assumed control of both the House and the Senate. Americans will vividly remember the next day after the elections when Donald H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense, resigned with approval and applause from members on both sides of the political aisle. And for many generations to follow, Americans will remember the name of Nancy Pelosi who on Thursday, November 16th, became the nation’s first woman House speaker. Today little girls in elementary schools from coast to coast across purple mountain majesties and fruited plains can believe somewhere in their hearts and guts that they too, stand a chance of growing up to be president one day. America is our mirror. An optimist lives in a positive world; a pessimist lives somewhere else.
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Mutnick, Deborah. ‘‘On the Academic Margins: Basic Writing Pedagogy." A Guide to Composition Pedagogies. Ed. Gary Tate, Amy Rupiper, and Kurt Schick. New York: Oxford UP, 2001. 183-202.
What could I possibly say to these students or write in the margins of their papers that would help them?—Deborah Mutnick
Education is a process of transformation through conflict and struggle.—Min-Zhan Lu
The fact that no teachers were consulted in the decision-making process drove home to faculty that the every day work of teaching is shaped by institutional and political forces rather than by student needs.—Deborah Mutnick
Although I do not hold current statistics in my hands, I have often heard and read in the news, especially as an interested urban public school teacher, that there are more Black males in prison than there are in college. I am reminded of Malcolm X, who Deborah Mutnick would most likely categorize as an outsider in her essay, who became self-educated in prison, beginning with the memorization of the entire alphabetical list of entry words and definitions appearing in the dictionary he possessed in a jail cell. Incredibly bright, insightful, articulate and eloquent, Malcolm X, for who a school teacher conveyed to him it was unimaginable for a Black child to aspire to become a lawyer, never received an official college degree yet he was invited to major forums such as Harvard University to speak. Even though David Bartholomae ‘‘accounts for privilege in terms of knowledge rather than race, class, gender, or other social structures," he conveniently dismisses the process in how that knowledge becomes available and obtained. Surely the haves in America have more access to the power inherent in knowledge and relevant information than the have nots. According to Mina Shaughnessy, ‘‘the literacy crisis of her day was in response" to the academic needs of the affluent rather than the socioeconomically disadvantaged (184). This last example illustrates the authority of whose voice is first recognized and receives immediate attention like the proverbial squeaky wheel.
Americans tend to boast or even insist that everyone in this country is equal, but this belief represents more of a romanticized attitude than factual living history. And even the simplistic idea that every individual has the same or equal opportunity for achievement as any other individual continues to promote fanciful thinking. Students who attend private secondary schools with rigorous curriculums, advanced placement courses, and meaningful and supportive extracurricular activities have much more of an advantage of enrolling and succeeding in highly ranked and prestigious universities than students from impoverished and neglected school districts. An affluent and privileged background assures scholarly preparation and provides academic confidence for those students who have no financial doubt or part-time worry that they will indeed be attending college. Consequently, the metaphorical starting lines vary amongst college students and I must agree with Patricia Bizzell and Mike Rose who refuse to accept ‘‘basic writers as cognitively deficient" (189). Such a negative view resembles more of treating a clinical condition rather than seriously approaching an educational need.
If compositionists consider writing as a process, than incoming Freshman College students will not be perceived in cookie cutter fashion as all existing and starting on the same page. All groups of students, especially in large universities, are relatively diverse requiring a variety of individualistic writing needs. Naturally all students possess varying degrees of strengths and weaknesses; needless to say, "basic writers are indeed educable" (185). If basic writing in this country "signifies struggles for inclusion, diversity, and equal opportunity," then basic writing students need to be positioned and viewed fairly in an integral process of becoming better writers, albeit academic ones, instead of becoming figuratively and literally marginalized or abandoned in the academic jungle. Shaughnessy confronts directly the real issue in stating that it is "not how many people society is willing to salvage, but how much this society is willing to pay to salvage itself" (185). In a perfect world, universities would genuinely welcome the diversity of students and not even think "to abolish basic writing" programs (183).
Freshman College composition classes tend to be taught by adjuncts and graduate students. Many would agree with Shaughnessy and Andrea Lunsford in her 1970 study at Ohio State University that "teachers need to better trained" (188-189). The poet, Victor Hernandez Cruz is a former student of Herb Kohl, a well known educator and writer from the late sixties and early seventies whose best seller 36 Children, describes a first year sixth grade teacher’s struggles and triumphs in a Harlem public school. Cruz writes, "before teachers can impose a reality on students, teachers must first confirm the reality of the student." Americans like to think of America as a classless society where anyone can grow up to be president. However, "to be successful in college, basic writers must eventually choose academic culture and its more socially powerful discourse over their own cultural beliefs" (189). Peter Rondinone believes "that students may have to resist or even abandon friends and family in order to acquire literary skills" (190). Others such as Keith Gilyard disagree; nonetheless, the environmental demands of college pose a threatening and intimidating change for many non-traditional students. Freshmen College composition students deserve teachers with the intelligent compassion of Cruz and Kohl, the determined awareness of Bizzell and Rose, and the faith in the assumption of Bartholomae and Petrosky who value "the academy [as] an ideologically neutral zone that fosters critical thinking and self-criticism, rather than a key site for the reproduction of the dominant culture, and that literacy is indeed a ticket to upward social mobility" (191).
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Pleasant words are as a honeycomb, sweet to the soul, and health to the bones. —Proverbs 16:24
The man that wandereth out of the way of understanding shall remain in the congregation of the dead. —Proverbs 21:16
Recently in the mail I received a postcard advertisement for Harley Davidson motorcycles. On the addressed and stamped side, the card indicated the location of the nearest Pinellas County dealer and showroom. The picture side of the card was done in dark sepia tones, almost in silhouette, with a thirty something male leaning toward and admiring a Harley Davidson bike with painted fenders. In the upper right hand corner was an orange seal similar in style to medieval heraldry with the HD wings and logo. Encased in the bottom of the shield was “Romans 12:2.” What Biblical reference was this particular Florida businessman associating with America’s greatest homemade motorcycle? If given a choice, I am certain any historically religious figure would prefer operating or at least riding on the seat of a Harley.
Unfortunately, there was no holy book on the shelves in my corner house South St. Pete until yesterday. An elderly couple was having a garage sale which was not in a garage, but along their cement driveway. I bought a small rustic bookcase, autographed photographs of Natalie Wood, Harry Belafonte, and Jackie Cooper, and several original copies of a World War I era magazine titled Literary Digest. On the same table as the periodicals and celebrity pictures, was a thick leather bound Holy Bible that Mrs. Robert Fields of Cumberland, Kentucky presented and inscribed to her husband on September 9, 1951. When I inquired of its price, the woman in charge of the sale indicated it was free to whoever truly desired it. She said it was not in her interest or character to sell an object as sacred as a Bible. The condition of the book is well worn and to avid readers would be considered well–loved. As an agnostic with a literary obsession, I hope was worthy of taking the precious gift. I did not hesitate to think about it.
I walked the book home and carried it on top of all my other secular purchases. Just a birthday kid eating the icing on his cake last, I saved the search for the Harley Davidson reference to Romans 12:2 until I crawled under the bed covers. Through a handy thumb guide appearing between the leaves of the 1500 plus pages, I discovered The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans tucked between The Acts of the Apostles and The First Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians. When I finally reached Chapter 12, Verse 2 in Romans on page 1303, I was truly comforted and encouraged by its brief message. You might feel the same way, too, during your own Harley Davidson word search. If there’s no Holy Book in the house, just look for that garage sale where the sweet elderly woman literally considers holy books priceless. As for motorcycles and letting the good times roll, amen, Harley!
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McLeod, Susan. “The Pedagogy of Writing Across the Curriculum.” A
Guide to Composition Pedagogies. Eds. Gary Tate, Amy Rupiper, Kurt Schick. New York: Oxford UP, 2001. 149-164.
Why can’t you people teach these students how to write —A College History Teacher
I believe that in all too many instances, at least in college, the student writes the wrong thing, for the wrong reason, to the wrong person, who evaluates it on the wrong basis. —W. Earl Britton, 1965
Technical reports are not read front to back, but readers skip around to find the most important and relevant information. —S.M.
In her essay, “Pedagogy of Writing Across the Curriculum,” Susan McLeod indicates that WAC represents “a model of active student engagement with the material and with the genres of the discipline through writing, not just in English classes but in all classes across the university” (150). McLeod describes a situation in which a friend who taught history criticized her English Department for not preparing freshmen students to write academically. In a well intended effort to encourage students to “find their authentic voices,” McLeod discovered that different disciplines of study require different discourse conventions.
There are two primary aspects to writing across the curriculum: “writing to learn” and “writing to communicate.” The former is “writer based” and the latter is “reader based.” The most common tool in “writing to learn” is the journal which teachers usually read and informally assess without grades. Journals allows student to become reflective and informs teachers as to what students know or need to know as well as what they might fail to understand. In “writing to learn,” students can also engage in “quick write” or “focused freewrite” where they anonymously respond on paper. The teacher then collects the responses and evaluates the students learning progress. These writing practices can be easily applied and adapted to all disciplines of study, especially after a lengthy group lecture.
In “writing to communicate,” McLeod states that “it focuses on writing to an audience outside the self in order to inform that audience, and the writing is therefore revised, crafted, and polished” (153). Young students, who tend to be self-contained, lack an appreciation for the audience at large. McLeod recognizes the need for faculty from various departments to attend workshops that address the need for “helping students learn the discourse of the discipline” (154). She wisely observes that “the person who has the disciplinary knowledge base and writes the discourse as a mother tongue is the person who can best serve as mentor in this professional-apprentice relationship” (155). Although McLeod discloses that “faculty tend to teach as they were taught,” which predominantly amounts to lecturing, she concedes that most teachers are interested in having students improve in their writing skills and abilities. She agrees with and stresses models of learning environments that convince “teachers to view their classrooms as social systems.” McLeod further optimistically writes, “Once teachers in the disciplines begin to see the teacher/student relationship as one of professional/apprentice, and once they also begin to view their classrooms as social systems that model the methods and the discourse of their particular discipline, it is not a large step for them to see that it makes sense for apprentices to follow the same process that the experts do when writing papers” (158). As a consequence, the writing community extends beyond the freshmen composition classes and more faculty members accept responsibility for student’s writing processes which certainly do not end even when they receive a formal degree.
McLeod does not conceive of the essence of Writing Across the Curriculum as disappearing or becoming obsolete, although its title or wording might become absorbed in other names. One example includes a recent textbook where the word “writing” is conspicuously absent in its 1998 title: Electronic Communication Across the Curriculum (Reiss, Selfe, and Young). McLeod naturally concludes that “as long as there are teachers focusing on writing to learn and writing to communicate in the disciplines, WAC will continue to be part of the landscape of higher education” (162). What is particularly noteworthy of McLeod’s essay is that it invites teachers outside of the English Department to participate in the development of the students’ writing process. Instead of blaming and complaining of an existing festering problem, instructors can acquire insight and understanding through faculty workshops and contribute pedagogical solutions within their own classes of students.
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The spoken word cannot be revised. —NS
I don’t use the word rewriting because I only write one draft and the changes that I make are made on top of the draft. The changes that I make are usually just marking out words and putting different ones in. —A Student Writer
My cardinal rule in revising is never fall in love with what I have written in a first of second draft. An idea, sentence, or even a phrase that looks catchy, I don’t trust. —An Experienced Writer
In her 1980 essay, “Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers,” Nancy Sommers claims that “research on revision has been notably absent.” Sommers discusses how various models of the writing process have been traditionally based on “linear conceptions.” Furthermore, the writing “process represented in the linear model is based on the irreversibility of speech” (76). In one example, Gordon Rohman essentially views revision as the “repetition of writing” and in another, James Britton considers revision as “simply the further growth of what is already there” (76).
Sommers conducted a case study between student writers that consisted of twenty freshmen students and twenty experienced writers. She discovered that most of the students “did not use the terms revision or rewriting,” words that belonged in the domain of teachers. (78) Instead students used the following words and phrases to describe the process of rewriting: “scratch out and do over again, reviewing, redoing, marking out, slashing and throwing out” (78). Sommers learned that the college freshmen perceive “the revision process as a rewording activity” in that “lexical changes are the major revision activities of the students because economy is their goal” (78). The student writers believed that the “redundancy of speech” could be eliminated “because writing, unlike speech, can be reread” (79). Through extensive interviews, Sommers acknowledges that student writers “are aware of lexical repetition, but not conceptual repetition” (79).
The inexperienced writers in the Sommers’ case study lacked the ability to value revision as a critical and necessary part of the writing process. Sommers cites two reasons that keep student writers disinterested in revision: 1) students know what they want to say through their writing and see “little reason” for revising, and 2) they continue to repeat or practice what they have been taught in school (80). Student writers tend to focus on low order skills and often fail to possess “strategies for handling the whole essay” (80).
The experienced writers in Sommers’ case study were comfortable in using the composition words “rewriting” and “revising.” Some of the writers expressed that they “rewrite as they write.” Based on Sommers’s results, “experienced writers describe their primary objective when revising as finding the form or shape of their argument” (81). Sommers indicates that experienced writers not only identify themselves as a “part of the process of discovering meaning altogether,” but that they genuinely demonstrate “a concern for their readership” (82). Through their process, experienced writers maintain a “holistic perspective” and accept “revision as a recursive process” rather than a linear construct. “It is this complicated relationship between the parts and the whole in the work of experienced writers which destroys the linear model; writing cannot develop like a line because each addition or deletion is a reordering of the whole” (83).
One experienced writer remarked, “It is always difficult to know at what point to abandon a piece of writing. I like this idea that a piece of writing is never finished, just abandoned” (81). College freshmen tend to be ego-centric lack basic understanding in relationship to writing for an audience. Students need to be encouraged to reclaim their writing process especially regarding the phase of revision which runs parallel to an individuals’ own growth and learning development. More emphasis needs to be placed on the writing process than merely the writing product itself. In other words, the process is the actual product because unlike the latter which yellows with age, the former remains within the writer’s attitude throughout life and inevitably and effectively matures with practice.
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Paton, Fiona. “Approaches to Productive Peer Review.”
I make no claims to originality. —Fiona Paton
As Fiona Paton states in her own words regarding her essay, “this is the sort of introduction to peer review that I would like to have had when I began to teach composition” (290). Before the beginning of a new semester, it is worth the time and effort of any self-examining composition teacher to read and reflect upon Paton’s essay. Paton divides her approach into three parts that begins with “Introducing Peer Review” and requires “establish[ing] a positive but realistic attitude” with students” (291). The following is a list of benefits that peer review provides for writers as identified by Paton:
—develops an awareness of writing as process of drafting and revising
—offers practice in reworking finished discourse
—develops a more concrete sense of audience
—provides training in critical analysis
—exposes students to a variety of forms and techniques
—helps develop a sense of what works and what doesn’t
—fosters important interpersonal skills (291)
Paton calls the next part “Setting Up Peer Review” and suggests that composition teachers “provide a printed handout that students can refer to later” (293). In the case of composition teachers at USF in Tampa, the handout would be equivalent to the FYC Assessment form. Paton insists that, “response sheets with questions or prompts are a good way of focusing students while helping them internalize principles” being taught (294). I agree with Paton that students be required to bring “a typed and completed draft representing the student’s best effort to that point” to peer review (292). And I believe teachers should circulate between peer review groups in order to encourage freshman students to consciously remain on task.
Paton offers a variety of advice on organizing groups and has “found that groups of three work best for peer review” (295). Although the activity can be time consuming, she provides sources that support the reading of papers aloud for it “helps students develop an ear for rhythm and fluency while increasing their sense of control over and responsibility for their writing” (296). Writers need to hear how their words sound through a different and more objective voice than own. Paton’s strong practice of forcing students who are absent from a peer review session to conduct the activity on their own outside of class encourages them to accept more responsibility for attending class.
“Maintaining Peer Review is the third part to Paton’s approach and “requires consistent effort from the instructor and the students throughout the semester” (297). Paton espouses flexibility and describes the student response sheet as a work in progress. She recommends that teachers “create different response sheets for each assignment” ….and to “ask students to formulate their own questions so that their own perspectives become part of the learning experience” (297). I plan to implement to use Paton’s idea to have students “keep a brief log of each session” so that they remain active and attentive participants (297). Furthermore, Paton realizes the need for what she refers to as “reconvening,” a culminating step to peer review. “Reconvening brings students together in the same groups when the papers are returned so that comments can be shared and compared” (298). Even though Paton’s essay is clear and self-explanatory, she outlines her paper once again at the end in “Guidelines for Peer Review Workshops.”
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There are some punctuations that are interesting and there are some that are not. --Gertrude Stein
Life is too important to take seriously. --Oscar Wilde
There are some punctuations that are interesting and there are some that are not.0Lately, I have been listening to the USF radio station that carries and broadcasts the NPR news. Last week, the NPR news reporter informed me that my home state of New Jersey officially acknowledged marriage between couples of the same gender. I have always been taught, and consequently, believe that all Americans possess the same individual rights. It was never spelled out in my mind to the best of my recollection as the rights of families, but rather the rights of separate individuals. Some individuals make personal decisions to enter relationships that do not produce children, and many loving, caring, and competent couples adopt or foster needy children.
I am reminded of my mentor of 31 years who often said, “We can pick our friends, but we can’t pick out family.” He believed the idea of family actually extended beyond biological borders. I, too, believe that we are not only our brother’s and sister’s keeper, but that no bold and clear demarcation exists between them and us. We are, indeed, our brothers and sisters. I am pleased that my home state, the Garden State, the pivotal state for a poetic, collective voice, is conscious, compassionate, and committed enough to protecting the rights of individual citizens. What two consenting adults do in the confines of their own bedroom is none of anyone’s business.
During the same broadcast, the NPR news reporter informed me that the President was visiting out in the Midwest for the weekend in order to vigorously campaign for fellow Republicans who are trailing behind in poll numbers. During his travels, the President stopped long enough to nationally inform the country that his opinion lacks the imagination and sensitivity to conceive of marriage between two people of the same gender. He still believes that a man plus a woman equals the law. Obviously, our President is not an advocate for all people, especially those whose landscape of matrimonial love is not gender defined or restricted. More importantly, I find it disturbing as a full taxpayer that a full time privileged President can demonstrate his biases and partiality through taking precious time to support and promote his political party and its confined agenda. Such behavior makes it obviously apparent that our President does not fairly represent or speak for all the people in our country.
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Williams, Joseph M. “Lesson 3: Actions.” Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace. New York: Pearson Education, 2005. 31-50.
I am unlikely to trust a sentence that comes easily. —William Gass
Most of us can identify unclear writing when we read it, unless it’s our own.
—J.M.W.
A sentence seems clear when its important actions are in verbs. —J.M.W.
When freshman college students finally receive a handbook such as Joseph M. Williams’ Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace, it helps remedy what might amount to twelve years of poor, ineffective, and limited instruction in the teaching of writing. One of the most difficult jobs or challenges of teaching composition is making judgments and, consequently, attaching grades to assignments. Williams reminds writers, especially those writers who teach others to write, the list of words that exist to complement and encourage like: “clear, direct, concise” as well those opposing words that signal problem areas such as: “unclear, indirect, abstract, dense, complex” (32). According to Williams, these types of comments describe more what the reader (teacher) feels than refer to or reveal anything directly in a sentence or a particular passage. Although most if not all teachers tend to keep marginal notes brief in order to not overwhelm writers, such comments require further specific clarification in an end note or during an individual conference. If teachers of writing genuinely perceive the discipline as a process rather than simply a product to be accomplished, then students must begin to value advice and suggestions on a level equivalent with the final grade.
In “Lesson 3,” Williams’ emphasizes and describes two Principles of Clarity that consist of the following: 1) “Make Main Characters Subjects,” and 2) “Make Important Actions Verbs” (33). The author offers several examples and exercises that may at first appear rudimentary and repetitive, but stress an objective and non-threatening look at writing with the intention of strengthening and empowering the reader’s own writing process, and of course, actual writing results. Before composition students engage in peer review sessions, it would probably be beneficial to skim Williams’ focus on examining and clarifying sentences. Williams considers revising a “three-step process: diagnose, analyze, revise” and carefully explains each part in Lesson 3.
Through his methodical and careful approach, Williams’ purpose is direct students to construct ideas and sentences that “are likely to be more concrete, more concise, more logical and clear,” and “tell a more coherent story” (41-42). Writing is a subjective activity and writing teachers are usually more capable and comfortable in contributing advice for everyone except themselves. “It is because we all read into our writing what we want readers to get out of it” (Williams 43). In order to acquire a distance from what they write, students and other writers need to hear what they have composed through another person’s voice. This experience can be humbling, but necessary if writers are seriously seeking “to write clearly” and “not in *** and Jane” sentences that reflect “simplemindedness” (48).
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What is the purpose of a writing course? –Laura Julier
Service learning experiences give students ways to confront and find language for both the differences among people and the common ground that enables them to work together. –Laura Julier
John Dewey is my all time American hero. As a public school teacher for many years in an urban district, I have always tried to consciously apply Dewey’s approach of the “community as an integral part of educational experiences, because what is learned in the school must be taken and utilized beyond its bounds, both for the advancement of the student and the betterment of future societies.” In an elementary school classroom, teachers have more freedom and less restricted time in which to manage their self-contained community of students. However, students attend college for a variety of reasons and an individual student’s agenda or goal is very likely not to coincide or agree with that of his or her freshmen composition teacher. Every freshman student is academically coerced or required to enroll in one or two composition classes during the first year away from home or at least his or her high school. If professors are truly determined to witness young students become their own authority through exercising authority, then simply permit students to select a class based on a preferred pedagogy.
After reading Laura Julier’s “Community-Service Pedagogy,” I am reminded that the proverbial composition class is continuing to represent the forum or panacea to address and remedy all of society’s concerns and issues. Even Julier raises the question in her essay, “What is the purpose of a writing class?” The primary word in that interrogative sentence is “writing” and is not the word “class” synonymous with community? I doubt that a-one size pedagogy fits all freshmen. Maybe composition courses should be offered in a type of pedagogical smorgasbord before students construct schedules for the upcoming semester. Let the poetry student with the internal physician pick a writing teacher who leans on expressive pedagogy. Let students interested in social sciences and social work enroll in writing classes that examine and highlight cultural studies. Political science and pre-law majors might benefit from the composition teacher who navigates through critical pedagogy. And the male student who desires for there to be more gender equality in the world, direct him toward the class framed through feminist pedagogy.
In no way am I rejecting Julier’s idea or suggestion of an “appropriate pedagogical complement to educating for civic virtue and democratic citizenship.” The right to a public education is not stated in the United Stares Constitution; however, I do believe it is the task of public schools to encourage students to become socially aware and knowledgeable so as to eventually participate in society as informed, concerned, and active citizens. Although I predominantly support Julier’s general argument for the community-service pedagogy, I still consider it too ambitious and perhaps too involved of an approach for students engaging in their first semester of college. It needs to be a choice whether or not a student wants to enroll in a service learning writing class. In addition, freshmen students might lack the necessary confidence, understanding, and initiative in order to attain the maximum learning from a service learning class. When Julier writes, “there must be some way to see reciprocity and balance between those serving and those served, an effort to avoid the tendency toward condescension, patronizing, or self serving tenor that so often accompanies ‘charity’ work,” she implies that students’ abilities and attitudes ought to be assessed and adequately prepared before they are assigned community service.
There are issues equally as important if not more so than “plagiarism or discussions of logical fallacies” on college campuses, but students need to be equipped with field practice tools combined with a background and perspective on what they can anticipate as well as aspire to gain from such an experience. Group discussions are a must and journals along with disposal cameras will be distributed to everyone in advance. Service learning experiences should also reflect and match students pursued disciplines of study. For example, education majors would become affiliated with community schools and pre-schools whereas pre-med and general science majors would be positioned within hospitals or laboratories that focus on medical research. A composition course centered on a community-service pedagogy is not ideal for a freshman student’s first semester. Students who opt for a serve learning composition class should be enticed with additional college credit.
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As one of my colleagues says, anyone who’s paying attention today is a feminist. —S.C.J.
The payoff comes in recognizing that as we teach our students how to shape their words, we’re working together to reshape our world. —S.C.J.
In the 2004 edition of the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, “feminism” is defined as 1) the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes, and 2) organized activity on behalf of women’s rights and interest.” The word “feminist” itself, an individual who most likely accepts an active role in supporting topics related to feminism, does not even appear in the dictionary as a separate entry word. In her essay, “Feminist Pedagogy,” Susan C. Jarratt writes “because of the current, widely shared negative attitudes about feminism in the United States, it’s good to have some advance notice about what to expect from students and to develop strategies for encountering the resistance so many offer even to the very word itself” (125). Consequently, as a freshman composition teacher, I am curious and interested in knowing the extent of my students’ attitudes regarding feminism. In Jarratt’s teaching experience, she indicates that “the most common response [her] students make when the issue of feminism comes up is that all the inequities of the past were remedied sometime earlier and that anyone still talking about feminism is an embittered, power-hungry woman who wants to ‘bash’ men” (125). She inserts Rush Limbaugh’s “ubiquitous coinage of ‘feminazi’” to illustrate the animosity expressed toward feminists.
In order to objectively assess my students’ personal views, I distributed blank index cards and asked them not to write their names, but leave the cards anonymous. In addition, I purposely did not want students to voice any comments which would inevitably affect other students’ opinions or their willingness to honestly and thoughtfully respond. Then, students were asked to identify their gender by writing either ‘male’ or ‘female’. Today in class there were thirteen (13) females and seven (7) males. The students were next asked to simply write “yes” or “no” to the following question: Are you a feminist? Here are the results:
Answered Yes: 3 males; 7 females; 10 total
Answered No: 4 males; 6 females; 10 total
Finally, students were asked to define the word “feminist” in their own words. The ten individuals who claimed to be a “feminist” generally wrote as their definition someone who “believes that both sexes are equal and deserve equal opportunities.” One freshman female wrote that a feminist is “someone who believes that women can do anything that men can do (except standup in the restroom).” Another freshman female described a feminist as “a person that supports women’s rights and success and believes that women are equal to all men and maybe even greater.” However, one freshman male who claimed to be a feminist wrote, “something about girls; being like a girl or something. Emotional…I think.”
Although the language varied in the responses of the ten students who claimed to not be feminists, what is similar in their comments is related to tone or attitude. I have listed them individually so the reader can determine her or his own judgment and conclusion.
Students Reponses:
—Someone that is feminine? (male)
—I think that someone is feminine. (m)
—A person who believes how all women should act. (m)
—Someone who fights for women’s right. (m)
—A feminist is a woman who believes that women should rule the world. Women
should take the place of every man who is in power. They take women’s rights
to the extreme. Feminists are almost radicals. (female)
—A person who strongly believes in equal rights for women. (f)
—(no response) (f)
—A feminist is an activist for women’s rights. (f)
—A feminist argues that females are better than males. We could do a “man’s”
job just as good or even better than a man. Women who stand up for women’s
rights. (f)
—A feminist is someone who radically advocates equality when they don’t even
realize their ambitions that can be more powerful without having to be
recognized as weaker and thus needing more benefits. (f)
This information was acquired in an informal manner with as little instruction and preparation as possible. Although I plan to share the results with my students, I might want to first conduct a follow up question in which students are asked to define or support their personal position. It is important to note that the class is divided exactly in half between students who identify themselves as a feminist and those who are not a feminist.
(This activity was inspired by an enthusiastic discussion on the subject of feminist pedagogy in the graduate level course, Practice in Teaching Composition held on Monday, October 23, 2006.)
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Anyone interested in social justice, as so many of us who choose composition as a field are, has a stake in moving society toward more equitable arrangements on every front. —S.C.J.
As one of my colleagues says, anyone who’s paying attention today is a feminist. —S.C.J.
The payoff comes in recognizing that as we teach our students how to shape their words, we’re working together to reshape our world. —S.C.J.
The argument of Susan C. Jarratt’s essay, "Feminist Pedagogy" directly supports approximately more than half of the national population. Jarratt’s argument becomes more relevant and poignant when citizens remind themselves of the following facts: never has there been a female president or vice president, females still earn proportionately less than male counterparts, women have been enfranchised for only the last 86 years, and an Equal Rights Amendment was shamefully shot down in the last century. If Betty Friedan’s phrase, "the problem that has no name" has any present day bearing, it is perhaps because of the societal threat feminism poses in redefining roles, relationships, and power structures. The value and objective of feminist pedagogy is in "the decentering or sharing of authority, the recognition of students as sources of knowledge, a focus on processes (of writing and teaching) over products" (115). Women have been historically programmed to maintain programs and relationships rather than aggressively or even assertively lead them.
It is reassuring to note that Jarratt did not immediately conclude that women have cornered the market on feminist pedagogy. She believes that "the male teacher who adopts feminist pedagogy strategies can sometimes be more effective than a female teacher because his students won’t be tempted to read his pedagogy as a self-interested choice based on membership in a "special interest" group" (116). Nonetheless, both male and female teachers continually need to examine their daily teaching perceptions and behaviors. Jarratt offers a list of thoughtful questions to provoke consciousness such as, "are there ways of teaching and learning that seem more suitable for one gender or another?" Such information is vividly accessible through teacher observations and videotaping. Not surprisingly, "one of the strengths of feminist pedagogy is it relentless capacity for dialogue and self-critique, and its ability to read and listen rhetorically" (117).
I agree when Jarratt suggests the teaching of writing is a human service profession that addresses developmental as well as academic needs. "Indeed, a teacher’s attitude of caring and nurturing seems very compatible with process writing practices, within which the teacher shifts from the older role of making assignments, waiting for a product, then judging its values, to the position of encouraging, supportive guide" (118-119). I also admire and appreciate Jarratt’s honest awareness regarding her own shortcomings. "[She] was still giving men more speaking time than women and was quicker to interrupt women than men in her [her] composition classes" (121). Teachers must contemplate and review their own possibly selective patterns. Although it is a powerful and rapidly evolving tool of communication, the personal computer remains a basic yet essential tool. Jarrett acknowledges its limitations in relationship to issues of gender. "Early research on gender and electronic communication has shown that they manifest themselves in this medium just as they do in others, sometimes even more virulently" (121).
Rush Limbaugh is an influential conservative radio announcer whose talk show is syndicated nation wide. Jarratt recalls and includes Limbaugh’s "ubiquitous coinage" of "feminazi" that he has and perhaps still broadcasts across the country. What are the thoughts, feelings, and opinions of my students on the subject of feminism? Has feminism become for them "the problem that has no name" or do they simply deny its importance and existence altogether? Jarratt states that "because of the current, widely shared negative attitudes about feminism in the United States, it’s good to have some advance notice about what to expect from students and to develop strategies for encountering the resistance so many offer to the very word itself" (125). Assessing what students know or think they know about the history as well as the current state of feminism seems to be a topic worthy of the Class Discussion site on Blackboard. I plan to raise but not impose it.
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Anyone interested in social justice, as so many of us who choose composition as a field are, has a stake in moving society toward more equitable arrangements on every front. —S.C.J.
As one of my colleagues says, anyone who’s paying attention today is a feminist. —S.C.J.
The payoff comes in recognizing that as we teach our students how to shape their words, we’re working together to reshape our world. —S.C.J.
The argument of Susan C. Jarratt’s essay, "Feminist Pedagogy" directly supports approximately more than half of the national population. Jarratt’s argument becomes more relevant and poignant when citizens remind themselves of the following facts: never has there been a female president or vice president, females still earn proportionately less than male counterparts, women have been enfranchised for only the last 86 years, and an Equal Rights Amendment was shamefully shot down in the last century. If Betty Friedan’s phrase, "the problem that has no name" has any present day bearing, it is perhaps because of the societal threat feminism poses in redefining roles, relationships, and power structures. The value and objective of feminist pedagogy is in "the decentering or sharing of authority, the recognition of students as sources of knowledge, a focus on processes (of writing and teaching) over products" (115). Women have been historically programmed to maintain programs and relationships rather than aggressively or even assertively lead them.
It is reassuring to note that Jarratt did not immediately conclude that women have cornered the market on feminist pedagogy. She believes that "the male teacher who adopts feminist pedagogy strategies can sometimes be more effective than a female teacher because his students won’t be tempted to read his pedagogy as a self-interested choice based on membership in a "special interest" group" (116). Nonetheless, both male and female teachers continually need to examine their daily teaching perceptions and behaviors. Jarratt offers a list of thoughtful questions to provoke consciousness such as, "are there ways of teaching and learning that seem more suitable for one gender or another?" Such information is vividly accessible through teacher observations and videotaping. Not surprisingly, "one of the strengths of feminist pedagogy is it relentless capacity for dialogue and self-critique, and its ability to read and listen rhetorically" (117).
I agree when Jarratt suggests the teaching of writing is a human service profession that addresses developmental as well as academic needs. "Indeed, a teacher’s attitude of caring and nurturing seems very compatible with process writing practices, within which the teacher shifts from the older role of making assignments, waiting for a product, then judging its values, to the position of encouraging, supportive guide" (118-119). I also admire and appreciate Jarratt’s honest awareness regarding her own shortcomings. "[She] was still giving men more speaking time than women and was quicker to interrupt women than men in her [her] composition classes" (121). Teachers must contemplate and review their own possibly selective patterns. Although it is a powerful and rapidly evolving tool of communication, the personal computer remains a basic yet essential tool. Jarrett acknowledges its limitations in relationship to issues of gender. "Early research on gender and electronic communication has shown that they manifest themselves in this medium just as they do in others, sometimes even more virulently" (121).
Rush Limbaugh is an influential conservative radio announcer whose talk show is syndicated nation wide. Jarratt recalls and includes Limbaugh’s "ubiquitous coinage" of "feminazi" that he has and perhaps still broadcasts across the country. What are the thoughts, feelings, and opinions of my students on the subject of feminism? Has feminism become for them "the problem that has no name" or do they simply deny its importance and existence altogether? Jarratt states that "because of the current, widely shared negative attitudes about feminism in the United States, it’s good to have some advance notice about what to expect from students and to develop strategies for encountering the resistance so many offer to the very word itself" (125). Assessing what students know or think they know about the history as well as the current state of feminism seems to be a topic worthy of the Class Discussion site on Blackboard. I plan to raise but not impose it.
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Writing with the door closed, rewrite with the door open. —S.K.
For me writing has always been best when it’s intimate, as sexy as skin on skin. —S.K.
Stephen King uses the abbreviation title "C.V." for the first major section of his book, On Writing. C.V. are the initials for King’s editor, Chuck Verrill. The letters also represent the Latin, curriculum vitae which refer to the author’s "attempt to show how one writer was formed" (4). "C.V." represents a brief yet bold memoir that discusses King’s humble beginnings in Maine, his financially successfully books, and his addiction to alcohol and drugs. At an early age, King was influenced by comic books, horror movies, and gory stories like the one that his mother told of the sailor who jumped from a Portland hotel and "splattered" with "green stuff" when the body hit the street.
King and his older brother, David were raised by a single parent who recognized Stephen’s interest and talent in writing and encouraged him to begin penning his own stories using his own words. His mother bought his first four stories for twenty-five cents apiece. "She said it was good enough to be in a book" (16). According to the author, "Nothing anyone has said to me since has made me feel happier" (16). It was his mother’s expressed wishes that he pursue to college and eventually teach school rather than enlist in the armed services during the Vietnam wartime. And it was his young wife, Tabitha, who rescued the discarded first draft of Carrie out from the wastebasket. She persuaded and helped King to complete the transcript. The couple, naïve to the notion of obtaining an agent, received a $2500 advance from Doubleday, but it was Signet who paid $400,000 for its paperback rights. Tabitha is also credited with confronting her critically acclaimed author husband about his drug and alcohol dependency. "She said that she and the kids loved [him], and for that reason none of them wanted to witness [his] suicide" (91). King has been sober and straight for about twenty years.
King’s experience, knowledge, and suggestions on the subject of writing are clear, non-pretentious, and pragmatic. In the "Second Forward," he indicates that "this is a short book because most books about writing are filled with bullshit." King does recommend that writers read The Elements of Style, particularly Rule 17 that states "Omit needless words." He offers universal hope for all writers. "Large numbers of people have at least some talent as writers and storytellers, and that those talents can be strengthened and sharpened" (4). King affirms that writer’s do not know where their ideas originate, but more importantly, their "job isn’t to find these ideas but to recognize then when they show up" (25). The author has saved an extensive collection of rejection letters and continued writing all the while reminding himself that "when you write a story, you’re telling yourself the story. When you rewrite, your main job is taking out all the things that are not the story" (47). One of my favorite King’s realizations is that "there was also a work-ethic…. that suggested writing poems (or stories, or essays) has as much in common with sweeping the floor as with mythy moments of revelation" (55). In "What Writing Is," a short piece that completes the first section of the book, King emphasizes that writers "must not come lightly to the blank page" (99). On Writing begins with a writer’s brave and open memoir that packs an inspiring punch.
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Writing with the door closed, rewrite with the door open. —S.K.
For me writing has always been best when it’s intimate, as sexy as skin on skin. —S.K.
Stephen King uses the abbreviation title "C.V." for the first major section of his book, On Writing. C.V. are the initials for King’s editor, Chuck Verrill. The letters also represent the Latin, curriculum vitae which refer to the author’s "attempt to show how one writer was formed" (4). "C.V." represents a brief yet bold memoir that discusses King’s humble beginnings in Maine, his financially successfully books, and his addiction to alcohol and drugs. At an early age, King was influenced by comic books, horror movies, and gory stories like the one that his mother told of the sailor who jumped from a Portland hotel and "splattered" with "green stuff" when the body hit the street.
King and his older brother, David were raised by a single parent who recognized Stephen’s interest and talent in writing and encouraged him to begin penning his own stories using his own words. His mother bought his first four stories for twenty-five cents apiece. "She said it was good enough to be in a book" (16). According to the author, "Nothing anyone has said to me since has made me feel happier" (16). It was his mother’s expressed wishes that he pursue to college and eventually teach school rather than enlist in the armed services during the Vietnam wartime. And it was his young wife, Tabitha, who rescued the discarded first draft of Carrie out from the wastebasket. She persuaded and helped King to complete the transcript. The couple, naïve to the notion of obtaining an agent, received a $2500 advance from Doubleday, but it was Signet who paid $400,000 for its paperback rights. Tabitha is also credited with confronting her critically acclaimed author husband about his drug and alcohol dependency. "She said that she and the kids loved [him], and for that reason none of them wanted to witness [his] suicide" (91). King has been sober and straight for about twenty years.
King’s experience, knowledge, and suggestions on the subject of writing are clear, non-pretentious, and pragmatic. In the "Second Forward," he indicates that "this is a short book because most books about writing are filled with bullshit." King does recommend that writers read The Elements of Style, particularly Rule 17 that states "Omit needless words." He offers universal hope for all writers. "Large numbers of people have at least some talent as writers and storytellers, and that those talents can be strengthened and sharpened" (4). King affirms that writer’s do not know where their ideas originate, but more importantly, their "job isn’t to find these ideas but to recognize then when they show up" (25). The author has saved an extensive collection of rejection letters and continued writing all the while reminding himself that "when you write a story, you’re telling yourself the story. When you rewrite, your main job is taking out all the things that are not the story" (47). One of my favorite King’s realizations is that "there was also a work-ethic…. that suggested writing poems (or stories, or essays) has as much in common with sweeping the floor as with mythy moments of revelation" (55). In "What Writing Is," a short piece that completes the first section of the book, King emphasizes that writers "must not come lightly to the blank page" (99). On Writing begins with a writer’s brave and open memoir that packs an inspiring punch.
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