My thoughts this week are a bit more disjointed and scattered than my past posts have been. I have been sick, so this may have something to do with it. On the other hand, I found the last chapters of Clueless in Academe much more of a hodgepodge than the first seven. That being said, I found these chapters much more engaging and practical than those we read last week. (I previously commented that Graff identified problems, and even suggested some solutions, but offered no practical way to implement them). Although these last chapters seemed more of a grab-bag, Graff does suggest some practical approaches to engaging students and bridging the gap between academic and student life.
As Graff points out, students are steeped in their own culture of argumentation. Students argue passionately with their friends about any number of issues (as Graff points out in his anecdotes about sports, nerds, and tough kids). This argument culture starts much earlier, though. As anyone who has ever stood in line behind a four year-old and his mom at the grocery store knows, kids learn how to make claims, counterclaims, and pre-emptive arguments almost as soon as they know how to talk. Young kids (and the students they become) simply don’t recognize that what they’re doing is in any way “academic.”
According to Graff: “schools should be tapping far more than they do into students’ youthful argument cultures, which are not as far removed as they seem from public forms of argument” (155). When I first read this suggestion, I was a bit skeptical. Sure, some students argue passionately and articulately about things that matter to them; however, there are just as many students who “argue” with adjectives, i.e. “that sucks,” or “that’s cool.”
The key, as Graff points out, it isn’t enough to simply teach a unit on popular music and expect students to jump into an academic conversation. (Additionally, if it’s not done right, students might react negatively to teachers “being fake” or “trying to look cool.” Teachers need to give students the vocabulary of argumentation, which they can then apply to classroom conversations about any number of issues. As teachers and educational scholars, we are steeped in academic lingo. We forget that even if students have the skills to articulate their position on an issue, they may not have the right vocabulary. Graff identifies modeling basic argumentative structure and clarifying key terms (such as “claim,” “counter,” “maintain”) as two relatively simple things teachers can do to help imrove students’ argumentative skills.
Another great suggestion comes from Chapters 10, “Outing Criticism.” Although criticism is often confusing (even alienating), Graff makes a great argument for introducing students to it sooner and more frequently. Of course, teachers need to pre-select articles that are written clearly and are not steeped in excessive jargon. Bearing that in mind, if used properly, critical writing could radically alter the way students think about literature. In addition to demystifying the academic world, it could demonstrate that literature is relevant outside of the classroom, expose students to the larger “intellectual conversation,” and provide them with a potential “naysayer” for future essays they may write.
As I finish this post, I am realizing that I have to retract (or at least qualify) some of my earlier comments. I initially said that I felt this half of the book was not as cohesive as the first. While the topics were more varied, there is a common thread running through the last seven chapters: taking students seriously. If we take students seriously, we recognize that their interests are valid. We acknowledge their pre-existing conversational and argumentative skills. This type of validation, from a student perspective, is priceless. It creates a classroom environment in which students feel at ease, and are thus more likely to fully engage and participate in the learning experience.