Response to Readings for 11 Feb 08

“Writing Into the 21st Century: An Overview of Research on Writing, 1999 to 2004” by Juzwik, Curcic, Wolbers, Moxley, Dimling, and Shankland

Juzwik et al survey the studies published on writing 15 years after Durst conducted a similar study on writing research. The authors look at “what” was studied in the writing research (e.g. the research problems, age groups, etc) as well as “how” it was studied (RAD quantified, interpretive analysis, etc) during the years 1999-2004. The article was very clearly articulated, as was the results of their research. I particularly liked the quantifiable nature of their analysis. I tend to prefer interpretive means of analysis for my own work, so seeing someone work from hard data is enlightening.

The one drawback I could see in their methodology would be the fact that they only used computer-searchable databases for artifacts and did not attempt to locate any books on writing research. They do acknowledge this weakness in the footnotes, so I guess they covered themselves, but I wonder how much information they may have missed by not looking at other avenues. Anyway, their article certainly outlines their efforts very well, and I like the way they carve out a niche for their work by providing an explanation as to who might benefit from their piece (e.g. educators, researchers, and politicians). This is another area in which I often fall short because I have an awful tendency to assume everyone is interested in a topic I’m covering. (Yes, I’ve had a rude awakening during my graduate study.) By far the best feature of Juzwik et al’s piece is that it gives future researchers several select areas, such as writing assessments or language diversity for P-12, to explore in greater detail.

“Made Not Only in Words: Composition in a New Key” by Yancey

Primarily addressing other educators, Yancey advocates the study of composition and rhetoric beyond the first-year course. In doing so, she compares the current changes in writing literacy and technologies to the 19th century changes in reading literacy. Yancey makes a strong case for the inclusion of different genres, rhetorical canons, and activity theories in composition. I couldn’t help but feel that Juzwik et al. would be disappointed somewhat in Yancey’s article because her piece once again echoes their research since it mainly discusses writing development in post-secondary education. However, I enjoyed Yancey’s outlook on the value of composition and rhetoric studies beyond the confined space of the freshman composition course. She has a valid point that many young people are writing a great deal on their own time for their own purposes and the sheer enjoyment of it. For example, I can’t believe the amount of time my students, friends, etc spend on blogs, social networking sites, and text messages. I agree with Yancey that changing our role as composition teachers from gatekeepers to gateway (306) – or as I think of it, changing our role from control to conduit – might help us better develop writers and increase the chance that more students might finish college.

Overall to me, Yancey seems to want us to think in terms of “process” theory, but not in the form that we’ve always used the term. I believe Yancey would like us to think of the writers as being the process, not the writing itself. As such, the writers must have time to work through their development as they encounter different media and genres of invention, arrangement, etc. Her arguments make me wonder how we could manage such a feat. Could we develop a 4-year undergraduate program in which students start writing a project in their freshman year and continue to develop it throughout their undergraduate education? This would be a huge endeavor, but it might allow us to help writers evolve in the time they need. As an aside, although I liked Yancey’s piece, I do have to say that the layout of her piece was distracting at times. I realize she included all of the images and side bars as a way of practicing what she was preaching (the idea that multiple genres could enhance writing), but I think you can overdo a good thing, too. Still, what’s not to like about someone who strongly argues for the value of my MA track? Speaking of Yancey, she would probably be quite put out by some of the statements made by Lowe and Williams in their piece about blogs.

“Moving to the Public: Weblogs in the Writing Classroom” by Lowe and Williams

The authors advocate for the use of blogs in writing classrooms as a way to better bring student writing into the public realm. Lowe and Williams offer several personal examples of teaching experience wherein students became more interested and enthusiastic about their own writing and the writing of others as they interfaced on blogs. Lowe and Williams mention that “teachers can focus on writing for the web without getting into graphical design and visual rhetoric” (3), so apparently they don’t follow Yancey’s line of thought about multi-genred formats for writing. This is a shame because if Lowe and Williams really want to bring student writing into the “real” world, focusing on issues such as visual imagery and non-language sign systems is important.

What bothered me even more than the discounting of other genres, however, is that Lowe and Williams didn’t truly support their own main agenda. They go on and on about the value of writing beyond the “privacy” of the classroom, but each of their bullet points in the piece only deals with students’ posts of their academic writing and their responses on the same to peers. Where is the so-called public “social interaction” (2) from average citizens outside the academic setting? Do the authors have examples of a time when a stranger on the Internet actually engaged in the writing of students? If not, then what the students are doing in classes with Lowe and Williams is exchanging ideas and thoughts about their writing, and they can do just as well using “private” discussion boards in Webcampus, etc.

I know from my own experience teaching the hybrid business writing course that many students who are shy in class will participate more in Webcampus discussions. At the same time, I don’t see a need to transfer that participation to a wider audience. Don’t get me wrong, I understand that Lowe and Williams don’t suggest we go strictly with blogs, but I also think they discount too much the potential drawbacks of putting student writing on a public forum. I tend to agree more with Nick (one of the people who posted comments to the article) who recommends that public blogging be a choice of the student. Finally, I found Williams’s response to Nick -- “But how is this [blogging] different than requiring students to write/keep personal-writing-type journals in their composition classes?” (12) – to be rather short-sighted because, for one thing, required journals in composition classes are not put out in the public for everyone to read. Okay, I’m finished with Lowe and Williams at this point.

“The Place of World Englishes in Composition: Pluralization Continued” by Canagarajah

Canagarajah argues for acceptance of World Englishes (WE) in academic writing because he feels students would be able to more effectively express themselves through their own version of English. Canagarajah introduces the term “code meshing” to represent his concept of respecting Students’ Right to Their Own Language (SRTOL). I was really happy to see that the author admitted at the end of his piece that he “was unsure how to practice what I preach” (613) because I got that very impression as I was reading the article. The author seemed to be talking about the use of various versions of English in the process of writing at first, but then he appeared to switch to a discussion about using foreign words in the context of English writing. I’m not sure if Canagarajah is advocating something akin to what we call “Spanglish” when a writer mixes Spanish words into English writing, or if he is arguing for something similar to mixing British phrasing into American English, etc.

I do have to say Canagarajah has some ambitious goals for student writing, but I am completely unsure how I feel about his ideas. On the one hand, I like the notion that students might be more expressive in their writing if they were allowed to draft in a mixture of Standard Written English (SWE) and WE. I’m all for helping students develop their skills, and I like the idea of thinking of English speakers as expert and novice – of course, who would be the authority to make that decision? On the other hand, though, I have to wonder what our real intent is for students’ writing in this country. Do we want students simply to be comfortable and prolific? If so, then I guess there wouldn’t be a problem with allowing code meshing across the board. Or, do we want students to learn to adapt their writing to different rhetorical audiences? If this is our purpose, I’d have to agree with Peter Elbow’s theory that we allow students to draft in WE and then transform their writing to meet the criteria of SWE.

The real issue for me about Canagarajah’s article, though, was that no matter how the author tried to get away from it, he always circled back to the problem of code switching and the very issue he had with Elbow’s way of doing things. For example, in his discussion of a Malaysian student’s use of “can able to,” Canagarajah ends up stating “After more thought, the writer resorted to using “may be able to” in deference of SWE usage” (610). So, even in his definition, aren’t student writers still using codes to follow Elbow’s method of drafting in one way and revising in another? One final thought about this piece – wouldn’t it have been interesting and more pointed if Canagarajah had practiced what he was advising by code meshing Sri Lankan English into SWE with no flags attached in this piece?