When
Bartholome is wishing for a culture that can recognize and celebrate papers
that are "disordered and disorderly" instead of perfunctorily
lavishing praise on writing that is "too good," too polished, I could
not help but think of the ways in which this culture is taught to students
early on. I do not refer to just high school or middle school, but even before
when the basic lessons of writing are introduced, such as the indomitable five
paragraph essay structure (which is attacked most severely in Fulkerson's piece), or when students are first taught to seek
"reliable" sources. My question then is: what are ways that the
foundation for another way of thinking abut writing can be laid while still
maintaining a scaffolding technique that allows students to learn some of the introductory
conventions of writing? Should some of these basic conventions in writing still be
taught at all? Are they helpful when first confronting longer forms of writing? Should they be embellished? Completely dismantled?
I
will make my next question shorter: I was surprised to find how many of Tobin's
descriptions and methods (many of them quoted from other sources) could work
for both a classroom and tutoring environment. What aspects that he mentioned
do you think would work best in both places of writing instruction?
Hullo Shaw! Answering your first question--I really liked that point Bartholomae made. You note that the culture counter to his vision is taught early on. I think that the introductory techniques brought into an elementary/middle school classroom (five-paragraph essay, always the classic) do have their place, because I do believe it is helpful for a student to start with some sense of structure. For example, the five-paragraph essay teaches the student the importance of considering organization for the reader's sake, having a flow of logic in the argument, not beginning and ending paragraphs arbitrarily, etc. The problem, in my opinion, is that the scaffolding remains after the building has been erected. It was only in my AP Language class in high school, in 10th grade, that I first discovered that five-paragraph essays were something to be avoided; and many students do not find this out until far later. Maybe secondary school educators could start encouraging students to write with more freedom earlier. Besides, those high school, SAT-esque prompts are often so painful; they certainly don't inspire the student with much excitement about writing anything. Greater freedom earlier on--to explore and even do research on topics that the students themselves find stimulating--could have a positive impact in so many ways...
ReplyDeleteAlso, there are probably lots of great ideas for how to introduce a different way of thinking about writing alongside the scaffolding technique. I was really interested in learning more about the literature on process pedagogy for kindergarteners that Tobin mentioned.