Author Archives: Sara

And then there was the sweating…

One thing I have really appreciated about this class is the fact that so many of you are teachers—and experienced teachers at that. In class discussions, whether we’re dissecting literary theory, analyzing a poem, or lamenting the state of the educational system, I’ve personally benefited from hearing the perspective of people who work or have worked in the classroom.

As Ginny, Jennifer, Renee, and others have pointed out, teaching kids and presenting to your peers are two very different things. Most everyone who has posted has commented on the anxiety provoked by this presentation. My experience was no different. I was so nervous, my hands were shaking…not being able to turn off the projector only heightened my anxiety…and then there was the sweating…

I am typically not a nervous person. Public speaking has never bothered me. At work and as a volunteer, I’ve led trainings in which I’ve trained other trainers. So why so nervous now?

My nervousness was caused in part by the main issues others have identified: the artificiality of the presentation (not quite teaching, not quite presenting) and presenting a lesson plan to a group of peers who could no doubt teach my lesson better than me.

In addition to these issues, however, I also experienced a lot of general anxiety about the basic nature of the assignment—not the logistics of the presentation, but the actual creation of the lesson plan. As I’ve pointed out many times in various posts and in class, I’ve never taught children. I’ve never prepared a lesson plan. I’ve never taken a single class from the education school. In fact, this class is the first class I’ve taken that even discussed pedagogy. Even with all we discussed this semester, I still felt unprepared to create my own lesson plan—unqualified even.

I suppose it sounds like I’m complaining: “Woe is me, I have no experience and this assignment isn’t FAIR!!!” To be honest, there is a part of me that feels that way. At the same time, I learned a lot from this assignment. It may not have shown during my presentation, but I put a lot of time and research into the structure of my lesson. I had a plan for how I would present, but once I was up there, I felt so out of place, that I only glossed over activities that I put a lot of thought into planning. The dissection of the fairytale, especially, fell flat during my presentation. I think this is something kids would get into, if only because it validates their pres-existing knowledge. Additionally, several activities (the prewrite, for instance) depended on people NOT having read Marquez’s story already.

Despite these snags, I actually really liked the lesson plan I wrote up. If I were to present again, I would have handed out copies of my lesson plan so that everyone could better follow my thought-process. I also would have spent more time adjusting my presentation to work in this classroom (a class full of peers, rather than students). I felt kind of silly walking through activities designed for children in front of a class full of graduate students…I think this feeling was apparent from the way I rushed through many of my planned activities.

In short, there’s a first time for everything. I consider this a learning experience.

Comments on Graff, Part 2

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.

And the award for “least sexy description of sex” goes to Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick…

Ok, ok. So this post title has little to do with the actual contents of my post. That being said, I had to point out the passage (p.143, paragraph 2) because in terms of unnecessarily obfuscated academic writing, Sedgwick really gives Frederic “The dialectic of desire is thus…something like a negation of a negation” Jameson a run for his money. Just reading the excerpts from Sedgwick’s Epistemology of the Closet brought me back to some of the denser texts I “read” during the course of my undergraduate education.

I think at some point, most high achieving students have tried to mimic this “style,” and to varying degrees of success. They do it for several overlapping reasons: they think they have to, teachers expect it, and they want to sound “smart.” As I admitted last week, I have certainly turned in my fair share of papers steeped in words like “problematize,” “orientate,” and perhaps most embarassingly, “phenomenological.” It took me most of my college education to figure out that throwing around such words does not in fact make you sound “smart.” It just makes you sound like a show-off, and a boring one at that.

Graff’s assessment of the inaccessibility of academic writing is spot-on. He does a superb job of articulating the “so what” portion of his main thesis. The first several chapters of Clueless in Academe demonstrate in varied ways how disconnection within academia and needlessly arcane texts work to both alienate students and further confine academics to their ivory tower. My issue with Graff’s assessment is not in his articulation of the problem. As with with most academic writing, troubles crop up during the “now what?” portion of the work.

To be fair, I’ve only read half of this book. Perhaps his practical solutions to these problems appear in chapters 8 through 14. I’m only working with what I’ve read so far; but frankly, nothing I’ve read so far has even remotely convinced me that a grand restructuring of academia is either a good idea, or even possible. In fact, the very idea of “the gist business” (138) appalls me. That isn’t to say that academics shouldn’t do a better job of communicating their ideas to their students and non-scholars. Of course they should. But reducing academic discourse to reductive summarization seems to me a step backwards, rather than a step forward.

The other issue I take with Graff’s proposed solutions to “curricular disconnection” relates to his call for a more comparative curriculum. In Graff’s ideal world, scholars would still argue, but respectfully. Teacher swapping would help students form links between competing ideologies and create synergistic “learning communities” (79-80). Having attended a university where certain members of the same department could barely contain their mutual detest for one other (never mind their ambivalence towards students), I just don’t see how this Graff’s dream-world would have any chance of becoming a reality—at least not without a massive restructuring in the tenure system in most large universities.

I hate to be a cynic, and I hate to even describe universities as “businesses,” but let’s not kid ourselves. If universities are in the “business” of anything, it’s luring academic superstars, securing research grants, funding sports programs, squeezing their students dry, and pumping wealthy alumni for cash–and not necessarily in that order. Graff’s suggestions are certainly uplifting, but they assume that professors have the time, power, and incentive to redefine the structure of the academic world.

Links Between Bloom, Glenn, Greene, Elbow, and Lovitt

As I digested this week’s readings, I noticed a common thread running through each chapter of When Writing Teachers Teach Literature: the writing. I’m not trying to be facetious here. It was immediately apparent from the first paragraph of each chapter that these professors taught writing. Their essays were some of the most lucid and engaging readings we’ve tackled this semester. Even Glenn’s journal-style essay held my interest and engaged me in a way that Scholes (even at his most coherent) did not.

Apart from style, the chapters also had another element in element. Each addresses the difficulties of engaging students. How to draw them in, how to hold their interest, how to get them to care (in some way) about the assigned material. But, as many of us know, it is not always enough to engage students. Students may enjoy or connect with a text and still flounder when it comes to an activity that requires original thought. From a teacher’s perspective, the other “half” of engaging students, is providing them with the tools or some method to respond to the text analytically.

But how to strike this balance? Though the teachers featured in When Writing Teachers Teach Literature vary in their approaches, they all grapple with this basic question. IMHO, the best summation this problem is articulated by Brenda M. Greene in her essay “Reinventing the Literary Work.” She wonders “how to help [students] connect with a text and yet create enough distance from it to discuss the text analytically” (178).

Because these texts are linked by this basic question, I often found myself flipping back and forth between essays as I read. For instance, Glenn’s discussion of her student Dan’s refusal to change his basic “controlling idea” (is “thesis” a bad word these days?) struck me as an example of what might happen when a student is engaged in a text, but not removed enough to apply analytical tools and craft a “valid” response to the material at hand. If a student did not really care about the text, would he not simply rework his essay to reflect his teacher’s comments?

Likewise, Lovitt’s frustration with the “missed” potential of student journals struck me as the flipside of the coin. Students, especially dedicated students, often have a hard time recording their personal reactions, questions, and revelations in journal entries. They don’t fully engage with the text—instead they read for theme or “hidden meanings” (230). Such lackluster journal entries convinced Lovitt that students simply viewed the journal entries as nothing more than “another onerous academic observation” (230).

Lovitt, Glenn, Greene, et al each offer their own solutions to this problem of balance in literary study. Because they are writing teachers, they use writing assignments to get students engaged and thinking critically.

The most appealing approach, from my perspective (as a student and an eventual teacher), would undoubtedly be Greene’s (and Bloom’s) emphasis on creative writing or “reseeing” literary texts. Because criticism and analysis can be daunting, creative writing assignments in which the writer captures the voice of a “silenced” character provide an opportunity to analyze and critique without the pressure of producing a “typical” essay. Such assignments give new (and arguably real) meaning to Scholes’s semantic-laden phrase “text against the text.”

Sara

This One’s for Holland-Dozier-Holland…

You’re going to have to indulge me for a moment. I promise this post is relevant…

The lyrics below were written by Stephen Merritt, the impetuous darling of the indie-geek songwriting scene and frontman for the Magnetic Fields. Since the mid-90s, Merritt has rightfully earned a reputation for his hyper-literate love songs. As I read Scholes’s comments on deconstructionist criticism, I got out my ipod and pulled up “Ferdinand de Saussure.”

I met Ferdinand de Saussure
On a night like this.
“On love,” he said “I’m not so sure
I even know what it is.
No understanding, no closure,
It is a nemesis.
You can’t use a bulldozer
To study orchids.”

He said:

“So, we don’t know anything
You don’t know anything
I don’t know anything
About love.”
“But we are nothing, (Whoa-oh, whoa-oh)
You are nothing
I am nothing
Without love.”

I’m just a great composer,
And not a violent man.
But I lost my composure,
And I shot Ferdinand,
Crying, “It’s well and kosher,
to say you don’t understand,
but this is for Holland-Dozier-Holland!”

When I first encountered this song during my first year at college, I’d never heard of de Saussure. In an interview, Merritt claimed the song was about the universality of love and a challenge to academics (like de Saussure) that assert we can never truly “know” anything. Love, claimed Merritt, was a universal that could be understood by everyone; it was the only appropriate subject matter for the “perfect” pop song.

We must have a certain degree of cultural knowledge to fully understand the song. First, we must know about Ferdinand de Saussure. Second, we must know that Holland-Dozier-Holland was a songwriting team for Motown during the 1960s. The trio penned some of the era’s greatest pop songs, often on the subject of love [such as, “(Love is like a) Heat wave,” “How Sweet It Is (to be Loved by You),” and “Where did our Love Go?”]. These two bits of knowledge clarify the song’s narrative. In the first verse, de Saussure suggests that writing about love is like using “a bulldozer to study orchids.” In the second verse, the composer shoots de Saussure, with the desperate cry: “this is for Holland-Dozier-Holland!”

So what does all of this have to do with Scholes and textuality? Though I’ve never read de Saussure, I have read Derrida and Foucault. Simply put, reading deconstructionist theory usually makes me feel like the composer in “Ferdinand de Saussure.” I’m as frustrated by the theoretical claim that we can never know anything as I am by the nonsensical nature of the actual words on the page. De Saussure, apparently, is so convoluted that many of his texts require an “expositor” (Culler) to explain to us idiots what in the hell it is that he’s talking about.

My main question regarding deconstructionist theory and criticism is simple: how is this useful to us, as teachers? I understand that Scholes is using a deconstructionist approach to break down assumptions about the structure of literary scholarship. However, he also states that he wants to use critical debates to help students develop their own interpretive skills, specifically their ability to express themselves in writing (15-16). I’m sorry, but what teacher would encourage students to produce ridiculously vague Jamesonian statements such as: “…human sexuality is thus something like a fixed capital” or “The dialectic of desire is thus…something like a negation of a negation”? (Jameson in Scholes, 83). Is anyone else with me here?

I agree with many of Scholes’s points, and I believe it is important for literary educators to have this theoretical background knowledge—if only because it means they’re “keep[ing] up” with their field. However, I do question the basic usefulness of much post-Modern, post-structuralist, and deconstructionist writing. Scholes’s discussion of de Saussure et al immediately brought me back to my undergraduate frustrations. In fact, the following quotation from Derrida’s Speech and Phenomenon prompted me to throw Scholes across the room:

In affirming that perception does not exist, or that what is called perception is not primordial, that somehow everything “begins” by “re-presentation”…and by reintroducing the difference involved in “signs” at the core of what is “primordial”…we are here indicating the prime intention—and the ultimate scope—of the present essay (93).

Excuse me? What? Gee, thanks for clearing that up, Derrida!

I suppose my post can be boiled down to one question: How are we supposed to engage students in critical academic debates (as suggested by Scholes, Graff, and others), when this is what they are going to be faced with?

-Sara

Reflecting on My Reflections

Reading through my blog posts, I came to a not-so-startling conclusion: I like to talk about myself. A lot. I’ll summarize it for you as succinctly as possible:

  • In my first post, I wrote about the anxiety I felt as I confronted new terminology and theory. In a classroom full of experienced teachers, I found myself struggling with both the material and my relative lack of experience.
  • In my second post, I recounted my childhood experience with summary cards in a post that could be subtitled “How one summer trained me to be a “good” student and taught me to dread reading.” In this post I also suggested that Linkon’s VKP research could help teachers break schoolish behavior and restore the fun and exploratory aspects of reading.
  • By my third post, I was feeling comfortable enough with the material to make a critical argument re: Crosman’s interpretive theory (and haranguing of poor old E.D. Hirsch). The argument, however, was grounded in my personal outrage at Crosman’s tone and questionable logic.
  • With my fourth post, I again returned to comfortable “me” territory in a discussion of Blau’s overarching point that literary study, at its best, can impart practical critical reasoning skills that will serve them well across academic subjects and in their future everyday and professional lives. I grounded the discussion in my own inability to answer the question that plagues many studiers of English: “Why don’t you study something useful?”

So what do these posts say about me (other than the possibility that I am some kind of narcissistic freak)? Three main things, I think.

First, I’ve gained confidence in my own ability to interpret and analyze the assigned readings. Most telling was the shift in tone that occurs gradually over the course of my posts. Post 1 is teeming with qualifiers (e.g. “I have limited knowledge of pedagogical theory.”) The second post contains fewer qualifying comments, as does the third. By the fourth post, I (by my own estimation) comment confidently on the perceived frou-frou nature of literary study. As asserted by Salvatori and Donahue, the very process of writing about the readings increased both my comprehension and analytical capacity.

Second (building on the first point), as my comfort level with the material has increased, I’ve been better able to grapple with the “meat” of the assigned readings. The first two posts were largely reflective of my own struggles, and only brush the surface of the readings. The last two posts more directly address the theoretical underpinnings of the two readings in question (Crosman and Blau).

Third, despite my apparent comfort in talking about myself, writing in the first-person is something that is new to me. In fact, the lion’s share of my academic first-person writing was composed this summer in a writing class organized around a mini-autobiography and personal essay. I am still learning how to interpret and analyze in the first person.

The “story” of my posts, therefore (by my interpretation), is a story of evolution and increased comfort with new material. It is also a story about navigating the process of first-person writing for non-autobiographical purposes. I am curious to see how both of these narratives unfold over the course of the semester.

“Why don’t you study something useful?”

I have always loved words. Even before I knew how to read, I was enthralled with books, handwritten notes, and other objects that contained those foreign markings. I used to flip through books, front-to-back, back-to-front, and upside down, just imagining what the words meant. By third grade, I had told my mom that English—particularly spelling and reading—were my favorite subjects. Science was O.K. Math was tolerable. But reading and spelling involved words, and words I loved.

As I left high school for college, I discovered new subjects and interests. I switched majors many times and eventually ended up with the good ol’ practical government major with a concentration in sociology—otherwise known as the civil service/pre-law track.

These days, when I mention my undergraduate degree in government and pre-law, most people respond with raised eyebrows and nods of approval. Perhaps it’s just the nature of the DC area, but this choice seems to impress, or at least elicit a positive response. When I mention I am currently pursuing a M.A. in English, more often than not, I get some variation on “Why don’t you study something useful?” All too often, I find myself unable to provide a prompt and witty shutdown. I usually mumble something vaguely intelligible about “civilization’s greatest acheivment” and back out of the conversation.

Perhaps this says more about the people I know than anything real about perceptions of the study of literature; then again, perhaps not. In The Literature Workshop: Teaching Texts and Their Readers, Sheridan Blau points out that the study of English—literature instruction in particular—is under threat at all levels of education. He identifies the school-to-work movement and the politics of reading as two specific sources of this problem in primary and secondary education (58).

A larger problem, however, is the overarching perception that the study of literature is something that is frivolous, or somehow not connected to “real” or “practical” skills. Blau’s carefully reasoned debunking of this misperception is the most impressive and compelling argument I’ve read so far this semester.

Blau identifies the traditional text-based approach to teaching literature as playing a large part in the perpetuation of the idea that literary analysis is light on reasoning or critical thinking skills. According to this model (still in practice in most high schools and many universities), students come to class prepared to “absorb” their teacher’s comments on literature—that is, to hear a lecture about an author or genre, or perhaps to take notes as their teacher analyzes a particular text. As Blau points out, however, this model cheats students and perpetuates a culture of “pseudo-literacy” and “interpretive dependence”:

My role seemed to be to present my students with the fruit of my intellectual labor…The role undertaken by my students, then, was largely not to be persons who performed acts of learning themselves, but to serve as witnesses and recorders of my learning (55).

Blau asserts that this model of learning and instruction produces students who are unable to analyze literature with confidence. In more extreme cases, it produces students with no idea of how to actually read and interpret a text. But the troubles do not stop with students. This model produces teachers who are similarly unsure of their own abilities to teach texts they have not previously encountered.

Blau’s main goal with The Literature Workshop is to reverse the role of student and teacher—or at least to fundamentally change the way students and teachers approach literary texts. Students must be invited and encouraged to take part in the interpretive process. Further, teachers and students alike must begin to see reading as method of constructing meaning. They must both abandon the commonly held view that reading is a solitary act and acknowledge the usefulness of collaborative thought and discussion in interpreting meaning.

In short, the study of literature is as intellectually rigorous—and much more practical—than any class designed to teach critical thinking. (Aside: Having taken a gen-ed required critical thinking course, I can personally attest to this point. We spent at least three weeks assessing the logic of statements like “Cottage cheese is delicious and nutritious. Therefore, you should eat cottage cheese.”) To underscore Blau’s thesis, literary study has the capacity to “teach students an intellectual discipline that defines critical thinking in every field and fosters academic success in every subject of study” (57).

There is no greater evidence for this point than The Literature Workshop itself. Whether Blau is discussing a contentious debate over Theodore Roethke’s “My Papa’s Waltz,” authorial intent, background knowledge, or the source of readers’ interpretations, he writes with a methodical clarity of purpose that is all too often lacking in academic writing. It’s a shame that Blau’s book is more often than not preaching to the choir. The entire work could serve not only as a defense of literary study, but also as an cross-discipline example of writing and instruction at its best.

Sara

Ben Jonson’s “On My First Son” Actually About His Third Daughter

As I read through this week’s posts so far, I started to feel a bit like the odd woman out. I did NOT love Crosman’s article. For me, the most troubling aspect of this article was Crosman’s tone and obvious disdain for Hirsch’s perspective. Isn’t it odd that Crosman (so intent on pluralism) penned an article that is at times arrogant, “hipper than thou,” and decidedly firm in its own correctness? Is it just me, or could this article be subtitled “Why E.D. Hirsch is a Giant Fascist”?

Granted, I haven’t read Hirsch’s writings on the topic of interpretation and where meaning lies. And true, Crosman’s discussion of Hirsch’s terminology (for example, “verbal meaning vs. “significance”) reveals an overemphasis on semantics–though not necessarily the “contradiction” claimed by Crosman (151).

The specific section of Crosman’s analysis that most bothered me was his insistence that Hirsch’s perspective was the literary equivalent of Hobbes’s Leviathan. This analogy follows a short passage in which Hirsch comments on the development of modern approaches to interpretation:

When critics deliberately banished the original author, they themselves usurped his place, and this led unerringly to some of our present-day theoretical confusions. Where before there had been but one author, there now arose a multiplicity of them, each carrying as much authority as the next….If a theorist wants to save the idea of validity, he has to save the author as well. (Hirsch 5-6, quoted in Crosman 157).

Now, this passage strikes me as an entirely logical way to approach literature. Sure, Hirsch uses the language of politics—but is that not appropriate to a discussion of interpretive “authority”? More importantly, would any of us argue that the author isn’t an authority on what he or she intended?

Crosman takes Hirsch’s political language and runs with it. In Hirsch’s world, asserts Crosman, “meaning is either singular or absolute, or it does not exist (the author = the king)” (157). This statement is inflammatory not only because it misrepresents Hirsch’s comments, but also because it alludes to a political text that is commonly read as a justification for absolute, ruthless, dictatorial rule.

But Crosman does not stop there. He continues to portray Hirsch and his ilk as the old guard, wary of “ignorant” and “arrogant” usurpers of authority—and not just of the literary kind. According to Crosman, Hirsch longs for a world in which there is only ever one Truth, a world in which “decent [decent!!!] regard for hierarchy and order is maintained and the state is at peace” (158). As a writer concerned with words, meaning, and connotations, Crosman clearly knows what he’s doing here. He might as well have called Hirsch a “square.”

Despite Crosman’s insinuations and exaggerations, Hirsch’s perspectives on interpretation struck me as entirely appropriate and well-suited to most poetry written before the 20th century.

By Crosman’s own admission, “the convention that authors make meaning arose from a desire to think of truth as single and univocal” (161). For much of history, this was the main frame through which scholars in all fields perceived the world. Most poems were written with a specific plan, purpose, or with “philosophy” in mind. Would anyone honestly argue that there are multiple valid interpretations to a poem like Jonson’s “On My First Son” or Dryden’s “Song for St. Cecilia’s Day”?

Despite what I’ve written above, I do not completely reject critical theories that locate meaning with the reader. I especially liked Crosman’s point that “authors make meaning…in the sense that we all do—as interpreters, as readers” (162). Likewise, the final stretch of Crosman’s argument against Hirsch (during which he drives home the point that “we make the author’s meaning!”) is very compelling.

In a larger, more philosophical sense, Crosman is also entirely correct that we live in an era in which few people except or believe in one singular truth or authority—in anything, never mind literature.

It makes sense, therefore to read most modern poetry with a pluralistic approach. I’d even venture to say that it should be applied (sparingly) to older texts. That being said, those who overuse such tactics run the risk of missing out on interesting and pertinent historical and biographical factors that can bring a deeper understanding to most texts.

Then again, maybe I’m just a square.

Sara

Breaking Schoolish Behavior

For many students, reading has become a task to complete in preparation for class and or the first step in finding an argument for an assigned paper, not a process of exploration, reflection, or contextualization. (Linkon, “Defining Critical Reading”)

Having little knowledge of the scholarship of teaching literature, I was fascinated by the Visible Knowledge Project (VKP). I knew such scholarship existed, I just had never read the “behind the scenes” perspectives of educators tackling the question of how to help students become more critical and active readers.

As I explored the VKP website and read educator’s posters, one formative experience in my personal literary narrative came to mind. Flashback to the summer of 1993: the summer before sixth grade. I was determined to win my local library’s “Reading Stars” contest. To be more specific, I was determined to beat one “Jane Doe,” a friend with whom I had a particularly competitive relationship. With a cash prize at stake, both of us geared up by loading our bookbags with the newest and most interesting books our library had to offer.

To ensure that we were in fact reading the books we checked out, we had to fill out summary cards in which we identified the genre, the main characters, the basic plot, and central themes of every work we read. Now, I had always loved reading. As a child, I was often scolded for hiding a book in my lap at the dinner table. Perhaps because the majority of my reading occurred outside of school, my main “goal” in reading was “fun.” (Though I doubt I would have looked at reading in terms of goals at all). Not long into this contest, however, I was reading only with the dreaded summary card in mind. In my family, we referred to it as SCOD—the summary card of doom.

I did not win the contest. If you must know, “Jane” won by piling her library bag with children’s books. (Seriously, how hard is it to fill out a SCOD for The Hungry Caterpillar? Right?). Our friendship eventually recovered, but at the time, I was very disappointed. I was angry with her for turning to children’s books, but I was also I was annoyed at myself for not discovering–and taking advantage of–her strategy and making that sweet cash prize mine-all-mine.

Not long into my middle school experience, I learned that the dreaded SCOD that had tormented me all summer long was actually a blessing in disguise. I began to read everything with a SCOD in mind. I had always been a good student, but suddenly, I was pulling A’s left and right. My parents were pleased. My teachers were pleased. I was even asked to create a list of reading strategies to share with my classmates.

But despite all this attention, something was off. I no longer enjoyed reading—at least not in the way I used to. Instead of seeing reading as exploratory, I started reading for a distinct purpose: information. I became a master-skimmer and scanner. I attacked each text with the ruthless efficiency. Further, I began shunning more challenging and non-traditional texts because it was harder to find “the answers.”

This strategy pretty much worked for me through 12th grade. Sure, my readings became a little more nuanced. I identified more complex ideas and offered more interpretations. Still, for the most part, Linkon’s quote (included at the top of my post) was the modus operandi—and not just for me, but for most high-achieving students at my high school. Such “schoolish behavior” is what got us into top colleges. Once there, most of us found that in many cases, these strategies continued to work. In higher-level courses, however, the jig was up. “Where are you in this paper?” asked one especially perceptive professor.

I’ve already written entirely too much, but I want to note that Linkon’s Inquiry Project struck me as a well-planned, step-by-step method of breaking students’ schoolish behaviors. It’s ironic that it might take such structure to make students more comfortable with open-endedness; however, the structured approach is key. You can’t just say “suspend your analysis and read with an open mind” to students that have been trained to read like they’re on a “seek-and-destroy” mission. As both Linkon and Bass point out, students of all levels are uncomfortable with uncertainty. There is perhaps nothing so frustrating as a teacher who does not define their expectations.

The inquiry project defines expectations and identifies intermediate steps, but it also alleviates the pressure of finding “the answer” or producing a research paper. The structure of the assignment provides clear guidelines, while allowing room for student-directed research and analysis. Linkon’s discussion of Rikki’s analysis of No-No Boy provided a great example of this process. (I don’t know how many times I abandoned a particular line of research because I couldn’t find enough background articles).

Whew. Sorry for the marathon post…I guess this is kind of a combined literacy narrative/weekly response. I look forward to discussing the VKP in class this Wednesday.

Sara

Processing New Information…with Difficulty

As I sat down to write my weekly response, I found myself at a loss for words. This rarely happens. I’ve always been an easy conversationalist and prolific writer. I am usually one of the most talkative students in any classroom. (So often have I been “that girl”). So, why should a 500-word response piece provoke such anxiety?

It’s not that I’m unused to being a student. Though this is my first class in the TWL program at GMU, I’ve spent the past few years taking undergraduate literature and writing courses, both at NOVA and at GMU, first as an exploration of personal interests, and later in preparation for an M.A. in English.

Nor is this an issue of the graduate/undergraduate divide. I’ve taken graduate-level courses on a variety of subjects—from quantitative political analysis to feminist theory. Don’t get me wrong, these classes were indeed challenging. And yet, somehow, even more objectively “difficult” assignments seemed simpler.

Salvatori and Donahue’s comments on students’ repertoires shed light on my sense of anxiety. Likewise, Bransford’s discussion of novices and experts helped me make better sense of my own educational background and the hesitancy with which I approached this seemingly simple assignment.

The entirety of my high school and undergraduate education prepared me for these higher-level courses. To use the terminology introduced in this week’s readings, in previous settings, my repertoire was such that when confronted with new formulas or concepts, I knew where to fit them in to the “big picture.” I understood how to order and “chunk” new information. Now, I would never claim to be an “expert” in American political science. However, I do have the relevant experience to “recognize meaningful patterns of information” and use this knowledge to demystify new material (Bransford 37). That is, at least in the realm of political science.

Although I work in an educational subfield, I have limited knowledge of pedagogical theory. I find myself, much like the students featured in Salvatori and Donahue’s The Elements (and Pleasures) of Difficulty, surrounded by new terminology, new vocabularies, and new ways of thinking about learning and the learning process. By virtue of proximity to so many experienced educators (at work and in class), I do recognize a name there (Bloom’s!) or a term there (constructivist!). Still, in the context of this new material, I find myself identifying more with the struggling students in Salvatori and Donahue’s work much more than even the “novice” educators discussed (albeit briefly) towards the end Bransford’s “Learners and Learning.”

After mulling this over (and managing 500 words in the process), I find myself much more at ease with this glut of new information. The most elucidating aspect of this week’s readings was, without a doubt, Salvatori and Donahue’s discussion of “Why Difficulty Merits Attention.” Many students (and teachers for that matter) connote ease with intelligence. I’ve certainly done this myself. If you’re “smart,” you “get things” more easily, right? Salvatori and Donahue’s comments on accepting and even cherishing difficulty helped me better address my own anxieties about facing new material.

As a side note: I also enjoyed Bransford’s discussion of experts and teaching. Having attended a large state school for my undergradate degree (Go ‘Hoos!), I’ve had one or two professors who were brilliant academics but just could not communicate ideas to entry-level students, despite earnest efforts from both student and teacher.

Thank God for teaching assistants.

Sara