Topic: Bull....

Question: What is the recent history of Bull…. In Academe?

Answer: “The study of bullshit, what I will call taurascatics, has been making a splash of late. It was Harry Frankfurt who tossed the stone: his essay “On Bullshit” came out in Raritan in 1986, hit the New York Times best-seller list as a book in 1995, and has been adopted, adapted, and criticized across the academy since. The ripples spread from philosophy to sociology, psychology, economics, public policy, and even to college composition. Philip Eubanks and John “Schaffer considered the implications of Frankfurt’s text for academic prose and for the field  of composition specifically… while Peter Smagorinsky and his coauthors more recently examined the student term paper subtype.”

Comment: This article is an example of what happens when an interesting topic is interpreted  by the bull….of academe. I not only lost my way in trying to follow the labyrinth of the author’s academic bull…, but soon gave up. Sorry, maybe someone else is intelligent enough ant interested enough to make sense of the author’s attempt to define the various types of bull…. using academic bull…. RayS (and I am well aware that I probably slip into the same type of language myself in writing comments in this blog).

Title: “Rhetoric and Bull….” J Fredal. College English (January 2011), 243-259.

Topic: Activism and Writing and Speaking

Question: How can students learn to use their writing and speaking skills on behalf of labor justice in the corporate world?

Answer: The article begins with an anecdote about a labor issue, the closing of a windows factory because Bank of America—AFTER its bailout by the U.S. people—would not loan its owners the required money to keep from bankruptcy. Three days later, after a sit-down strike, the workers won their legally entitled benefits under law. Students learn how to fight an unjust labor event using soapbox arguments, sloganeering, muckraking exposé and other not-very-well respected forms of persuasion.

Comment: It is generally assumed that propagandizing is by its nature evil. This article suggests it is a tool for both positive and negative purposes. And students learn to analyze and use these tools of popular persuasion. RayS.

Title: “ ‘We’re Here, and We’re Not Going Anywhere’: Why Working-Class Rhetorical Traditions Still Matter.” N Welch. College English (January 2011), 221-242.

Topic: Mapping, a Metaphor for Analysis

Question: How can the concept of maps help to analyze and interpret arguments and essays?

Answer: Drawing on the language of maps as a metaphor for analyzing and interpreting arguments and essays, including the students’ own essays. Students map out the start, the various twists and turns the argument or essay takes and arrives at the end of the trip.

Comment: Sounds like an interesting way to help students visualize the structure of the argument or essay, including their own. RayS.

Title: “Navigating Everyday Literacies: Mapping as Deep Frame in Teaching Argument.” N Barta-Smith and D DiMarco. Teaching English in the Two-Year College (September 2009), 68-83.

Topic: Student Self-Evaluation of Writing

Question: How accurate are students’ evaluations of their own writing?

Answer: The authors discovered that students were quite accurate in their self-assessment of their writing, both strengths and needs. Below is a portion of this self-assessment.

Directions: Consider the many challenges in completing writing assignments. Please look at each possible challenge below and check one box to the left.

If you find it to be a consistent and big problem for you, check the “1” box If you sometimes find it to be a problem, check the middle box If you rarely or never have the problem, then check box number “3.”

1 2 3 run-on sentences (i.e. tying sentences together with lots of commas)

1 2 3 misusing apostrophes (i.e. it’s vs. its, the cat’s vs. the cats)

1 2 3 frequently confused words (their/there/they’re, accept/except, etc.)

1 2 3 sentence fragments or incomplete sentences

1 2 3 misuse of the semi-colon; and colon because I don’t really understand how to use them

1 2 3 spelling errors

1 2 3 procrastinating on getting started on a major assignment

1 2 3 researching and finding good sources for papers

1 2 3 evaluating sources for reliability, accuracy, authority, timeliness and bias

1 2 3 smoothly integrating research and other information into my paper (for example, paraphrasing chunks of information, integrating quotations, etc.)

1 2 3 making the paper flow in a logical, well-organized fashion

1 2 3 generating the first page of writing

1 2 3 editing my paper for the correct grammar and spelling

1 2 3 other writing challenge (please specify): ……………………………………………

Any comments about your writing challenges?

Comment: The authors think we should listen to our students and their assessments of their abilities in writing. The implication is that they know what they know and know what they don’t know. Interesting. RayS.

Title: “Taking the High Road to Transfer: Building Bridges Between English and Psychology.” D Fallon, et al. Teaching English in the Two-Year College (September 2009), 41-55.

Topic: Collaborative Writing

Question: Why don’t Teachers of first-year composition teach collaborative writing?

Answer: “But assigning collaborative written papers in an introductory college writing course is still rare. Researchers cited several reasons: our cultural values emphasize individualism, competitiveness, hierarchy, not group thought, cooperation, or negotiation…. Most readings used in introductory courses feature the works of individual authors; and students ought to practice writing as ‘loners,’ that is, ‘you and your pencil in a closed room.’ …. Some critics even argue that writing collaboratively denies students the ‘mystery of individual creation’ …and the opportunity to reflect deeply on a subject of personal interest. Lastly, many teachers sense that students fear receiving grades based on part on others’ work.”

Comment: A famous example of collaborative writing was JFK’s book Profiles in Courage and his inaugural address written with the collaboration of Ted Sorenson, followed by the expected criticism that Sorenson wrote both and not Kennedy.

What does collaborative writing really mean? Some participants provide ideas. Some provide research. Some provide criticism of drafts, but, in general, the writing is the product of a single person. Writing by committee has been frequently ridiculed. And in my own daughter’s experience, she felt that she was not an equal partner in the collaborative writing in her first-year composition course and did not believe she deserved a grade equal to the person who took the responsibility for the writing.

An interesting study—and one I have never seen—would be to determine how journal articles are written collaboratively. RayS.

Title: “Assessing Collaborative Writing in Non-traditional and Traditional First-Year College Writing Courses.” IG Daemmrich. Teaching English in the Two-Year College (December 2010), 161-175.