Response 5 3/9/08

Connors presents a very clear cut and interesting connection between changes in society and changes in college curriculum. We have seen much of this in some of the earlier articles, however "College Composition and Communication" deals a lot more with the social aspects, particularly the elitist attitudes about language that are even more prevalent today. I discovered through reading that this snobbery about language began with using Western, rough English vs. Eastern, sophisticated English. Now the proper language argument has expanded to include: AAVE, Spanglish, regional dialects, etc. Connors explains "At some point after 1840, the level of common language stopped failing and began to rise as Americans became aware of and concerned about their speaking and writing habits" (62). This awareness was coming from a change in social patterns and a shift in the way English was being taught. The trends went from having students write well to having them write proper sentences "What good, they asked, did knowledge of tropes or amplification do a student who could not spell or punctuate?" (65). This all boils down to two main issues we still fight today, one being the attachment to Standard English and the inflexibility to change or accept anything else and two the essence of time, it is easier for teachers to grade "mechanically" for mechanics, it requires less time and less thought which is why teachers still grade this way. What is the solution? In education and college level English classes future teachers need to receive instructions on validating and incorporating student's native dialects into their writing. This way they can teach them that it's fine to use their dialect with friends, in poetry, songs, narrative pieces but when it comes to a job interview or an essay for a standardized test or college entrance exam, Standard English must prevail, due to social expectations. Also, I think that schools should utilize both the computer programs that help to grade papers and to train students how to grade.

*I hate grammar! Being an English teacher, many others of my subject consider this blasphemous! However, I must explain my rationale. I was very fortunate to be placed into a middle school English and Social Studies program where the focus was to learn how to express one's self through reading, creative writing, and projects. I excelled at this until the last nine weeks of my eighth grade year, when my English teacher decided to cram in all the grammar we were supposed to be learning all three years into an academic quarter. I felt betrayed and worse, lost! I innately knew grammar as Hartwell discusses "Grammar 1 is eminently usable knowledge-the way we make our life though language-but it is not accessible knowledge; in a profound sense, we do not know that we have it." (212). I persevered through the nine weeks and through another semester in high school until I could finally get back to the literature ad writing aspect I love. It was not until I began learning Spanish that I could finally put all of the grammatical pieces together in my own native tongue.

*As Hartwell points out over and over again in his article, writing is too complex to break down into such rigid sets of rules. "Most students reading their writing aloud, will correct in essence all errors of spelling, grammar, and, by intonation, punctuation, but usually without noticing that what they read departs from what they wrote" (223). I find this to be very accurate. The trouble is forming the habit in students to read their work aloud, I find they want to skim for surface grammatical errors before reading aloud. This only extends the revision process because when not read aloud, many of their errors are missed. However, students have been so brainwashed that "good" writing consists solely of "good" grammar it is really difficult to retrain their thinking and habits. Through this piece it is shown over and over that grammar is not an effective way to teach good writing, however I think it is still taught due to the factors in the first article, time that teacher's have and lack of the appropriate knowledge.

*Elbow's stream of consciousness journey to define what is true academic discourse is excellent! His blend of staying true to academia while incorporating student voice and experience is what writing should be about! He deftly maneuvers between the balances of the subjective and the objective "The very act of acknowledging one's situatedness and personal stake invites, and is itself a movement toward, enlargement of view-not that it's a guarantee. Conversely, if someone pretends to be disinterested and objective, she invites smallness of view because she doesn't locate her inter st in a larger picture; she tempts herself into believing that her view is the larger picture"(142). This reminded me of the commonly taught literary analysis, dry, narrow, and all too often devoid of voice or feeling. Yet this type of composition is the most commonly taught in high schools and colleges in beginning classes. Why? Because this mode is easy to teach, it has a strict, mechanical formula that can be plugged into any English classroom. It is after all easier to teach a student no voice than to give them one.

*I could not agree more with Sommer's "Responding to Student Writing" her points on types of commentary, expectations, and communication are insightful. What really hit home for me was her comment that " The teacher holds a license for vagueness while the student is commanded to be specific" (153) the examples of teacher editing only helped strengthen that point. I realized that I am guilty of this very vagueness when it comes to reading student's writing. I also know that the more papers I grade, the more vague I become. If I am grading a set of fifty papers, my comments on the first ten will be much more specific than the last ten. Even if I take a break. This is why I try every year to assign better and more interesting topics that the students and I can both connect with. What lacked in this article were concrete examples of what teachers should do instead. In the last page, Sommers offers some generic ideas such as editing a text as a class, considering multiple options for change, etc. What would have helped would be to use the same student examples but include positive, explicit comments. Also to offer specific strategies of using her instructional techniques, possibly even an example class dialogue. All too often, we as teachers are told what needs to be changed but we are not told how to make the change or given any examples, rendering the call useless and unused.

*Two huge issues in these articles that were discussed were time and attention to editing. What was not really addressed at all was how to fix them. Leaving me wanting more and wondering where the answers lie.