Writing as Drama Critiques
Last Tuesday the graduate and adjunct instructors of ENGL 101 met to discuss the success of the new program guidelines and textbook during the fall semester. One of the topics of conversation was Writing as Drama, which was used in about fifty sections in the fall--specifically, the August 2007 edition was used, a 400-page stub that only included three pre-academic genres: letters, parables/fables, and memoirs. Here are the notes I got on WAD from that discussion:
What I really want to do with these is to start a discussion, so I'm going to resist the temptation to defend the textbook--and in any case, the textbook critiqued in a number of these items is now obsolete, or will be, once the January edition comes out. (It has the academic genres, and makes the transition from "fun" to academic writing clearer--though probably still not clear enough.)
What I'd like to do at this stage, then, is to ask questions--or perhaps a series of variations on a single question, namely, what is the teacher's role vis-a-vis a textbook? What power does a textbook have over a teacher, and what power does a teacher have over a textbook?
1. Can a book's tone really undermine a teacher's authority? Can it do so actively? What is the real underlying problem here?
2. Can a rubric really inflate grades? If students read a rubric as entitling them to higher grades, what can the instructor do to resist or rechannel this expectation?
3. If the textbook grabs students' interest and motivates them to be creative, and then they're unwilling to take the extra steps to catch punctuation and grammatical errors, how can the instructor channel that motivation into these areas that the students seem less inclined to go?
4. Is it really true that "the textbook requires a complete transformation of teaching persona and approach"? It's true that any textbook that is not just a carbon copy of previous textbooks is going to put pressure on the instructor to make significant changes in how and what s/he teaches; but is a complete transformation really required? If it's true that "it cannot be easily adapted," which is to say that instructors have to work harder than they want to in order to adapt it to their existing teaching personas and approaches, what sorts of strategies might be developed to make the adaptation process easier?
- The book doesn’t make the transition to academic writing--students don’t make the connection between the fun work and academic requirements.
- Some felt that the book's tone actively undermines the authority of the teacher and the validity of academic writing.
- Students don’t understand the terminology of the two dramas.
- More advanced students seem to thrive, but the lower level students are even more lost than they usually are.
- The book’s chapters are uneven.
- Many don’t like the tone of the book, which one defined as "cool older uncle."
- The book chastises mechanics as a metaphor and sets up a negative relationship if teachers discuss language as mechanics.
- It would be nice to have student papers that aren't discussed in the book.
- The rubric tends to inflate grades, and students feel entitled to better grades.
- Students do seem to like the assignments and enjoy writing, but they think simply being interested or creative is enough.
- The textbook requires a complete transformation of teaching persona and approach; it cannot be easily adapted, or used strategically.
What I really want to do with these is to start a discussion, so I'm going to resist the temptation to defend the textbook--and in any case, the textbook critiqued in a number of these items is now obsolete, or will be, once the January edition comes out. (It has the academic genres, and makes the transition from "fun" to academic writing clearer--though probably still not clear enough.)
What I'd like to do at this stage, then, is to ask questions--or perhaps a series of variations on a single question, namely, what is the teacher's role vis-a-vis a textbook? What power does a textbook have over a teacher, and what power does a teacher have over a textbook?
1. Can a book's tone really undermine a teacher's authority? Can it do so actively? What is the real underlying problem here?
2. Can a rubric really inflate grades? If students read a rubric as entitling them to higher grades, what can the instructor do to resist or rechannel this expectation?
3. If the textbook grabs students' interest and motivates them to be creative, and then they're unwilling to take the extra steps to catch punctuation and grammatical errors, how can the instructor channel that motivation into these areas that the students seem less inclined to go?
4. Is it really true that "the textbook requires a complete transformation of teaching persona and approach"? It's true that any textbook that is not just a carbon copy of previous textbooks is going to put pressure on the instructor to make significant changes in how and what s/he teaches; but is a complete transformation really required? If it's true that "it cannot be easily adapted," which is to say that instructors have to work harder than they want to in order to adapt it to their existing teaching personas and approaches, what sorts of strategies might be developed to make the adaptation process easier?
Labels: Writing as Drama
posted by Doug Robinson at
5:27 PM
3 Comments:
At the end of my first semester using WAD as a 101 text, I asked my students (as a form of response to the text): What is the unnamed purpose or drama of this course?
I'm drawing on their responses in my answers below to the posted questions.
1. Maybe because I'm older, I'm more aware of the "generation gap" (even use of that term dates me). I find that students resent any attempt by anyone over 25 to encroach on their territory, the Land of Youth. Instructors or textbook writers who are too contemporary in their dress, address, or idiom raise that resentment. This is partly due to their need for structure and authority in the classroom-- they want to feel that they are in the hands of people who take things very seriously. My students were evenly divided on this question-- some said the book's tone was (affectedly, they thought) too "fake cool", others said that unstuffy tone was what they liked most about the book.
2. That students were asked to write 3 narratives-- something they think they know how to do well already-- may have raised their grade expectations. Or, perhaps, these 3 papers drew on skills they already had (if the connection the book makes between conversational and writing skills is valid). My grades, in general, were a bit higher than my past 101s. Partly, I think this was due to my own unfamiliarity with the book's concepts. If I were to teach this course again, I'd stress the less familiar aspects of this rhetoric, and I'd emphasize more that a higher level of complex thinking would get a better grade. But, frankly, most students nowadays seem to feel a strong sense of entitlement to a "B"; I don't see this rhetoric as materially affecting that. That's a problem any freshman instructor must wrestle with.
3. I don't know. I've been struggling with this one for years. The method that's worked best for me is to spend a few weeks during the semester intensively teaching correctness, through lecture, practice, quizzes, and then enactment (using their own papers). I stress to them that all this is true only of one dialect of English, "standard" English, and does not apply to their daily speech or other forms of writing. Many of them tell me they have not been taught correctness formally since the 8th grade. We can't make up for years of neglect in a few weeks. What to do, what to do.
Question 4: Transformations
I'd like to question the premise of this question. It seems to be, "I've developed an effective teaching persona and approach to 101, and now you want me to change all that just to use this text."
Lordy. I've got to say right off that changing teaching personas and approaches is something I've done EVERY semester I've taught. Does anyone really desire a nice, comfy rut to spend the next 20 or 30 years in as a teacher? Isn't the worthwhile life one in which we delight in being adaptable and infinitely creative in our social commerce? Frankly, if anyone thinks they can develop one persona to flop into for their whole career, teaching is too challenging for them.
No, I take that back. I've worked in (so far) 9 different careers in my life, in widely divergent circumstances and settings. ALL of them valued and rewarded (even required) adaptability to change. You've got to be ready to jump, for the rest of your life.
Besides, no teacher ever should let a text solely determine the nature of their course. We always have the right to choose what parts of the text we use, and combine them with our own ideas, so that every course starts out with a "text" that's the instructor's re-interpretation of the textbook. I re-interpreted WAD quite a bit this semester, changing the order of chapters, making up exercises it didn't contain, altering those it did-- which is what we always do with every text.
As far as "adaptation to existing teaching strategies" goes, I'd say, don't. Don't remake every new thing you encounter so it fits your old self. Make a new self.
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