Been reading Bean.
So far the two most interesting or helpful things I've read are:
1) 60% of students prefer more structured, less open-ended assignments, whereas professors preferred (in their student days) more free-thinking assignments. Personally, I prefer a very structured, highly directed assignment, because if I get a better idea, I've mostly been allowed to go with it. I think it's really important to recognize that most of our students do NOT think the way we did as undergraduates. Just because "we" liked a particular assignment does not necessarily mean that it will work for our students. It was helpful to me that Bean articulated this clearly, because its easy to forget that we are not the norm. I'm going to try to keep this in mind when I teach.
2) The particular kind of writing that we will be teaching is valued by our particular culture, but is NOT valued by the majority of the world. I thought this was especially interesting. I think it's a problem. Problems are good, according to Bean, so I guess I should be less concerned. But I found the section (forgot my book at home--sorry for lack of specific references) on "diversity" very interesting, both because it gave me some insight on where Bean stands, but also because of the big paragraph quote about how people who are not part of the dominant culture value different kinds of writing, which may stand in direct opposition to standard American academic writing. That was really interesting. As an embryonic folklorist, I think this is something which is essential to consider. Culturally influenced writing styles, values, etc, are of great importance to groups of people. So how do we respect and value that and not try to bash people into boxes that are the wrong shape?
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So what is the problem with teaching students how to write academic essay? Is the problem that the time and energy expended learning this type of discourse not worth the payoff because these skills are not valued by our culture? Are we teaching skills that students will need to be successful in college or in life? I think that learning to write the academic essay teaches a number of skills that our culture values—problem-solving skills, critical thinking skills, etc. Perhaps, it is relevant to students' lives after college.
Your second point, Claire, reminds me of a passage in Fahnestock and Secor that gave me pause: "But after an attention-grabbing opening, the article addressed to a wide audience usually settles comfortably into the inevitable ontological pattern: What is it? What caused it? Is it good or bad? What should be done about it?" (61). I'll be blunt -- this is nonsense. There is no such thing as an "inevitable ontological pattern" of argument. There are, however, certain conventions that have been used and re-used within certain cultures -- and then, over time, mistaken for "inevitable ontological patterns." I think it is important to keep this in mind as we teach, so that we don't come off as rhetorical pontiffs. The values of Western rhetoric are not universal, nor are they inevitable. If one looks around across cultures, the expectations vary considerably. That's not to say we should discount the Western tradition -- it's as valid as any other. But let's not forget our own cultural conditioning in favor of neat, philosophical absolutes.
I, too, was struck by that 60% figure. As a freshman, I never stuck religiously to the assignments, preferring instead to take the assignment as a suggestion, a point from which to jump in order to do what I wanted. The assignments that told us specifically what text to work from frustrated me because inevitably, I had nothing to say about that text.
My first semester as a literature major, I had real trouble with assignments in my Shakespeare class. I think that the instructor was intending to provide us with thought-provoking, open-ended questions, but I was confused because I didn't know the answers and couldn't see the questions as so open that multiple answers could at once be "right." I had the hardest time delving deeply into the questions.
Eventually, it took another class with another professor and different writing prompts for me to get it. He just wasn't doing it for me.
I wonder if there is a way to satisfy both types of students with the same assignment. I've had instructors that have given multiple options, the last of which being selected by the student. I don't know if freshmen can handle that, though. Then again, maybe I'm underestimating them.
I think I'm having a hard time getting my mind out of postcolonial theory, and so I'm tending to want to reject privileging one kind of value over another kind of value. I entirely agree that it is essential to teach students critical thinking and analytical skills, and they're going to have to learn to write a coherent sentance if they want their writing to carry any weight. These skills are necessary. The thing that bugs me is that we privilege a type of writing in the US that is not necessarily valued in the rest of the world. So, are we doing a cultural disservice by enforcing this point of view? I have no idea, but was struck by the quote from Fox on page 43 where she articulates these concerns much better than I.
I share some of the same concerns, but it seems that, in order to teach anything, one must present it as true/useful/valid. Otherwise it will be ignored. That's not to say that we shouldn't mention cultural differences -- I think that could actually be fruitful. But I think it is false to argue that, because cultural differences exist, no single type of writing should be emphasized. And since it's hard enough to teach a single method of writing in one semester, I think it would be nearly impossible to do something like Cross-Cultural Rhetoric 1000. Maybe I'm wrong about that, but it seems like time limitations require the "privileging" of something. And I know very little about Russian or Indonesian or Japanese conventions of argument -- certainly not enough to teach any of them. So, for me at least, it comes down to practical limitations. I'll teach some version of Western rhetoric to the best of my ability, while, at the same time, trying to make it clear that there are other models -- and that there is no such thing as an "inevitable ontological pattern" to be found.
I think mentioning cultural differences about what types of writing are priviledged--or even making the subject the centerpiece of one day's lesson plan--is definitely worth considering. On my syllabus I have a day already committed early in the semester to talking about what "standard English" is, how that's an arbitrary--not objective--approximation, how it came about, what values are "concealed" within its assumptions, etc. and also how it's still important for students to *learn* that approximation in order for them to be able to enter certain discourses (i.e. get a jobby-job). Just because what we think of as "standard" *American* English has changed over the past two plus centuries, and that it "evolved" from one dialect of American English, that it comes from one dialect of British English associated with the poltically and economically powerful, etc., doesn't mean it's of any less value to be able to perform. In postcolonial (or at least critical) terms, one can appropriate the language--indeed, as many postcolonial writers have done--and use it strategically--use the master's tools to take apart the master's house (with all due respect to Audre Lorde).
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