New Terms

Process 2
Social 2
Contextual
Discourse
Flexibility
Inclusion
Argument
Community
Ideology
Literacy

Map of composition

We feel that community is already represented in our map. Initially, the white and sky blue elephant are a secluded community, but with the arrival of the periwinkle elephant the notion of community has to change (which is represented by the largest circle) because the terms are disrupted/complicated by the arrival of a new elephant and thus the community needs to change to incorporate difference.

Our map represents the insider/outsider aspect of the community. As indicated by the key words—hierarchy, agency, and discourse—the white and sky blue elephant are members of the insider community and initially, the periwinkle elephant is a member of the outsider group but he also becomes the exigence for this community to make room for each other and redefine their understanding of their world. Also, our elephants are making meaning about community because they confronted by difference and thus, have to remake their notions of community.

Map of composition

From: AnnaMaria, Spencer, Angie and Katie

Community and our Map:

Community is rooted in an insider and outsider relationship and that
dynamic can create or limit agency. Most elements are sandwiched
between context and Production. Production is necessary to invent the
community.

Insiderness is a produced position. Identity and subject position are
produced by community.

Our 6 keywords move between production and context, but all the terms
are subsumed by community.

Individual names are representatives of different interests of a
community. Post Colonialism says something about the replication of
communities.

Stacy, Stephen, and Kat Map the World (of Comp)

The map forms two main conceptual loops that overlap at the point of ideology and discourse. The top loop, including agency, identity, subject position, and rhetorical sovereignty, concerns identities. The lower loop of community, multiplicity, discourse, literacy, and error, concerns communities. In addition, the proximity of each Post-it indicates close relationship between the terms; for example, community is close to rhetorical sovereignty because the two concepts are closely related in that rhetorical sovereignty is located within a community. The loops, in other words, do not constitute the only relationships among the terms.

Speaking of Assessment

Head of SAT Program Defends Reality TV Question

Last week's news that the latest essay question on the SAT focused on reality television has set off quite a bit of media commentary and comedy. The Huffington Post, for example, suggested that the College Board might shift the focus of the SAT entirely, with questions requiring aspiring college students to calculate the circumference of a Kim Kardashian body part, or to "compare and contrast the social impact of Kanye West's interruption of the VMA's with his tweet on abortion."

The College Board is not making any apologies, however, and is stressing that the essay questions it asks are judged not on content knowledge, but on the ability to explore an issue and make an argument. Laurence Bunin, senior vice president of the College Board, wrote an essay on the controversy for The Daily Beast, saying that all of the "breathless commentary" was irrelevant.

"The central task of the SAT essay -- any SAT essay -- is to take one side of an issue and develop an argument to support that position. Questions raised about the so-called reality-show prompt miss this basic point entirely and confuse the literal topic with the task of writing the essay. Everything a student needs to write a successful essay is included in the prompt itself; one need not have spent any time watching a 'reality' television program to write a strong essay," Bunin wrote. "If the topic had been about balancing the risk of climbing a mountain with the reward of reaching the summit, for example, you could write that essay without ever having done so. It’s about the balance, not the mountain climbing. Students tell us that they can relate to popular-culture references. Using such references is not only appropriate, but potentially even more engaging for students."

Role of Assessment

What's the role of assessment in any theory of composition?

Key Terms

Katie, Anna Maria, Spencer

SET ONE

Other
Con/DisCensus
Identity
Agency
Postcolonial
Genre
Resistance
Subject Position
Community
Difference

SET TWO

(Stacy, Stephen, Kat)

1. discourse
2. identity
3. subject position
4. rhetorical sovereignty
5. agency
6. error
7. community
8. multiplicity
9. literacy
10. ideology

SET THREE

a. Identification
b. Representation
c. Agency
d. Discourse
e. Difference
f. Hierarchy
g. Exigence
h. Subject
i. Margins /Marginal(ized)
j. Context

Logan, Emani, Leigh, and Jen

the key terms from Marian, Larkin, & me:
metaphor
metanomy
interruption
subjectivity
cross-talk
identity
contact/combat zones
authority
consensus
compliance

Logan and Emani's Collaboration Station

Kenneth Bruffee, in his piece on Collaborative Learning, seeks to enlighten the reader about the benefits of collaborative learning by giving us a better understanding of how the term originated, and what types of issues are relevant to the topic. He briefly discussed Abercrombie's contribution to collaborative learning through the medical field, something we wish to discuss a bit later on in the reflection. The main notion was that collaboration works because it affects the very way to think. For example, the "internal conversation" we have with ourselves when we think is inherently social. As such, it brings with it the strengths of social discourse as well as the limitations--if the conversation is narrow in scope, so will the thinking. Collaboration and consensus seeks to democratize education (546) by using concepts like abnormal discourse as a practical rhetoric to weed out old and outdated knowledge or ways of knowing (557). The question we posed is whether or not our current conference model works as a means of democratizing education, because when we meet with our students and discuss ideas, papers, or other aspects of class, we go from authoritative figures to peers.

Mike Rose's look at five implied issues about writing in the University raises some interesting questions about how we teach FYC classes as well as composition in general. The idea that writing should be judged based on the presence of errors in order to be quantified, the idea that writing is a skill and not necessarily a discipline, remediation with the students that don't have that skill, and that illiteracy is the ever constant threat looming over the field. Of particular interest to us was under the remediation tab, that basically showed teachers as diagnosticians who have to diagnose our student's problems and then attempt to apply remedies throughout. Again, our conferences seem to serve this purpose as well, giving teachers the chance to get one-on-one time to "diagnose" students, and then we "remedy" their ailments with our comments and discourse. If that is one of our roles, it's much easier to try to diagnose our students individually than attempt to diagnose a whole class and give one overgeneralized balm for all their collective ailments.

Bartholomae's view of knowledge based around discourse communities has enormous ramifications for the teaching of composition, not simply in FYC classes. He shows how most writers, in order to start writing, have to envision themselves as veritable "insiders". The writer has to place themselves in the mindset of someone inside of some grand and established discourse, but also have the agency to speak about that discourse and in some cases against it. Where will students get this privilege? Most of the work we have students do is not as if they are contributing to any body knowledge, but rather summaries or reports or test-taking. Students can feel some sort of agency when they place themselves into the communities they are being asked to articulate. This community orientation is the very essence of collaborative learning, lending credibility to the fact that our entire field, not simply FYC classes, can benefit from this type of social learning because it actually gives the student writer a better understanding of the "insider" world we're asking them to write about. Bartholomae then goes on to demystify and expel misconceptions about the conventions teachers can use to get students into academic discourse in engaging ways.

Trimbur brings up some of the criticisms levied on individuals like Bruffee and seeks to show how consensus can be a great tool in the classroom. One large criticism was that consensus can lead to a totalitarian and dangerous practice that will stifle individual creativity, voice, and thought. The other was that the type of social constructionist pedagogy that Bruffee espouses can overlook key things like how knowledge is distributed and about hierarchical relations of power. Trimbur shows how the fear of “group-think” is more like a fear of agency from the students who engage in consensus. Consensus isn’t necessarily about agreement, Trimbur argues, as it is about ideological differences. The homogenous responses that the critics seem to think collaboration will bring about is in fact a healthy discourse where differences are revealed, authority is identified, and change can actually be planned and executed. We certainly believe, however, in the notion that it is the teacher who can make decisions regarding collaboration in classrooms that can prevent it from becoming what the critics fear. For example, we noticed students in our classrooms that have clear dominance in collaborative discussions, often along specific gender lines, that might have the potential to influence other students and discourage their opinions. We think that giving the students parameters in their collaboration, asking them to consider specific topics, can bring out the differences in the student opinions that will then illuminate ways to shift hierarchical power rather than perpetuate it.
Harris shows how community can really be about occupying different spaces, because we don’t write like isolated individuals (749). We are trying to get students to try on different hats, to get them to reposition themselves in relation to several different and sometimes conflicting discourses to push critical reflection on those discourse communities. I (Emani) taught the community strand last term and noticed another of Harris’ tenets; students can identify more readily with a local or specific community that attempting to get them to think about large, overarching, or generalized communities. When I asked students to discuss where they think their generation fit in relation to more popular generations (like the Baby Boomers), they drew a blank. When they were asked to analyze the communities they came from, the neighborhoods, boroughs, and cultures that they identify with, they were able to grasp more nuanced understandings of those discourse communities. The idea is that collaboration can build community in a more complex way that when individuals attempt to connect to larger communities they can only briefly identify with.
Logan and I both felt that collaboration can serve different purposes within composition theory in general. We identify that difference is a natural part of collaboration, and that the discourse on these differences will help us to negotiate change. We have already seen how differences emerged in composition, and how their acknowledgement in academic discourse led to better understandings of power, and ultimately better ways of teaching composition to a larger number of audiences. We also believe that more collaboration without composition itself, not just with other fields or disciplines, can benefit composition much in the same way Bruffee outlined Abercrombie’s collaboration in the “hard” sciences. Most, if not all, research in the scientific communities is done collaboratively, often with a team meant to fill different roles. The collaboration lends credibility to the results. Composition, and indeed much of the humanities, often work individually, and then bring their work against a committee of peers in the field. Perhaps collaboration from the very start can yield the same kind of credible results in our field that is already the norm in much of the sciences.

Jen & Larkin: Community and Collaboration in Comp

What is the role of collaboration/community in composition theory and in the classroom?

Bruffee: As is evident by this week’s readings, these scholars envision different approaches for effective collaboration in the classroom and acceptable ideas of community. According to Bruffee, collaborative learning should be a key component in a composition classroom and that more teachers should incorporate this pedagogical tool into their classrooms. He defines collaborative learning “as a way of engaging students more deeply with the text” and describes it as a “pedagogical tool that ‘works’ in teaching composition” (545). Although he “offers no recipes,” Bruffee mentions peer tutoring (peer criticism/peer evaluation and classroom group work) as options for teachers who are hesitant to experiment with this approach in the classroom (547). Collaboration changes the social context in which the students learn (548) which in turn stimulates conversation which then produces “a community of knowledgeable peers” (553). Bruffee contends, “Mastery of a knowledge community’s normal discourse is the basic qualification for acceptance into that community” (552). Collaborative learning allegedly democratizes education (546) and provides an “alternative to traditional classroom teaching” (547) that students can participate in.

Trimbur: For Trimbur, Bruffee’s definition of collaborative learning is somewhat idealistic. Trimbur responds to Bruffee’s notion of collaborative learning by attempting to redefine one of his key terms: consensus. Trimbur recounts, “The aim of collaborative learning […] is to reach consensus through an expanding conversation” (733). Here he addresses two criticisms: critics voice their fear of conformity, saying that accepting consensus in this way “stifles individual voice and creativity, suppresses difference, and enforces conformity.” The second criticism challenges Bruffee’s notion because of how it overlooks “the wider social forces that structure the production of knowledge” (734). Trimbur refutes the first criticism calling it “baseless.” He says, “Consensus does not necessarily violate the individual but instead can enable individuals to empower each other through social activity” (735). Therefore, he aims to redefine consensus as “a process of identifying differences and locating differences in relation to each other” (741).

Harris: Both Bruffee and Trimbur offer approaches of how collaboration might function as pedagogical tool in the composition classroom. In terms of community, there is an underlying assumption that collaboration creates a kind of community. Harris claims that “the idea of community” is “somewhat central to our work” (748), and as a result, should be analyzed critically in terms of its usage, application, and adoption by teachers. According to Harris, “We write not as isolated individuals but as members of communities whose beliefs, concerns, and practices both instigate and constrain, at least in part, the sorts of things we can say. Our aims and intentions in writing are thus not merely personal, idiosyncratic, but reflective of the communities to which we belong” (749). This statement supports his belief that suggests that students should not attempt to master a particular discourse, but, instead, they should become confident in their roles as users of many discourses (754). For Harris, “One is always simultaneously a part of several discourses, several communities, is always already committed to a number of conflicting beliefs and practices” (755). Here, Harris reinforces the idea that we should resist the vague and sentimental notion of community and treat the implications of being a participant in a community more seriously.
Bartholome: The idea of community as something to belong to or to penetrate through learning seems to present communities as stable and “existing” in their own right. Bartholome insists that this is not the case at all and that community is an imagined space that gets (re)created through its rituals: specifically, that the University as a discourse gets invented every time a student writes for the University. He writes that “Every time a student sits down to write for us, he has to invent the university for the occasion – invent the university, that is, or a branch of it, like history or anthropology or economics or English. The student has to learn to speak our language, to speak as we do, to try on the peculiar ways of knowing, selecting, evaluating, reporting, concluding, and arguing that define the discourse of our community” (605). When a student writes, he “dramatizes his experience in a ‘setting’” so that he can place himself into the imagined space (607); the space in which he has the authority and ability to write for the discourse. Familiarity with (some) of the discourse is important, however, since “it is difficult to imagine… how writers can have a purpose [in writing] before they are located in a discourse, since it is the discourse with its projects and agendas that determines what writers can and will do” (609). The discourse community, then, needs to be invented in order to give purpose to the writing and when students write for the academy this is what they are doing: simultaneously inventing the text and the purpose for the text through writing. (What is so interesting, as Bartholome points out, is how the errors students make reveal this (re)creation and invention of the community).

Rose: An important idea to draw from Rose’s contribution to our readings is the idea that the writing community extends beyond the visible boundaries of the classroom, the peer group, and the teacher. Composition is shaped and understood in much wider and perhaps more determining frames: academic, social and political. While it is all well and good to understand how students write for the classroom and their peer group and invent the University, it is equally important for the composition teacher to know that composition is taking place in the context of what academics, parents, and politicians think composition is. Political and institutional considerations shape what we think writing is, what we think writing is for, and what we think “good” writing looks like, while age-old assumptions about writing (from this larger community) keep teachers reading and evaluating in the same modes even while they talk about struggling against them (590). What counts even as “literacy” is based on the constantly evolving views of these wider group. To really understand what composition is, where it has been and where it is going, then, we have to understand that writing develops not just in the writer or his context or his academic discourse, but also in the body of academic and political policy that defines what writing is.

Collaboration: Angie, Kat, & Annamaria

According to Bruffee, collaborative learning is “a way of engaging students more deeply with the text” (p. 545). This deep engagement occurs through a process of socialization between students that often leads to a consensus. This view of learning is very Dewian as it repositions the authority of the teacher; no longer is the teacher the God of the classroom. Instead the teacher is one who creates a situation for dialogue, while students work with peers to have a conversation in the discourse of the classroom or community where they respond to the situation created by the teacher. Students learn through the experience of conversation instead of merely listening and imitating.

In the composition classroom collaborative learning typically takes place through peer review of each other’s works. As Bruffee points out, the ultimate goal of peer review is not to proofread or find errors; instead it is about how to strengthen a conversation with a wider community through discussion about what worked well and what possibilities for change exist within a written work. However, this is not the only possibility for collaboration within the composition classroom. Collaboration is not only about review. It is also about creation. In collaborative writing, peers can work together to create a product, just as we are doing here. When this happens the identity of the individual merges to create the voice of a group. More so, Brufee’s social constructionist bent highly suggests that the students’ language used “to reach consensus acquires greater authority [and] great social weight” (Trimbur 733). Thus, students are transformed as knowledge agents, truth seekers, and socialists.

Trimbur further notes that there is a strong criticism or opposition to a collaborative teaching practice that “stifles individual voice and creativity, suppresses differences, and enforces conformity” (733). For this reason teachers must be careful to create situations that encourage learning and exploration of ideas instead of situations that promote exclusion and marginalization. Bruffee states that peer groups are automatically “a community of status equals,” which seems to be a serious glossing-over of the range and variation of students’ backgrounds, experiences, levels of preparation and ability, and even interest in the course or topic at hand (551). In any group of individuals, even in the business and professional contexts, there exists some amount of difference among the members. It is not uncommon to see failed attempts of collaborative learning where students operate on a “majority rules” system in order to get an assignment done as quickly as possible. When this occurs, the voice of the outsider is not heard and students fail to learn about and from conflicting view points. This creates a very narrow conversation instead of a layered and multi-dimensional conversation. From Trimbur’s point of view, knowledge, power, and status all come in conflict when we try collaborative writing or discourse. We seem, according to him, to move away from consensus into discensus, which is healthy for it allows the students to measure rather than make the students “identify the structures of power that inhibit communication among readers” (745). So, in a “utopian desire” for power, status, and knowledge all to receive an equal playing field, consensus is in collaborative work “a means for transforming it” (743).

For Harris, his first step for his readers is to understand Bartholomae and Bizzell’s belief to demystify intention: that no writer really works within a vacuum, but must discourse with a larger community to have a purpose or intention for communicating (749). This to us strikes in opposition to Trimbur’s and Bruffee’s perceptions of the community of writers within a collaborative learning environment. Juxtaposed further is the notion in Harris’ opening where he sides with both Bartholomae and Bizzell that we “write [...] but as members of communities [diverse] whose beliefs, concerns, and practices both instigate and constrain” (749) and are reflections of the communities we write in (749). Harris sets up his argument like the others, by presenting the opposing field’s armament: “discursive utopias,” and “normal discourse.” (749). Aside from intention, which stands as a necessary evil for students to produce within a community, Harris believes that Williams’s definition of community sufficiently starts the dialogue going in a direction to support his assertion: a set of relationships already established or “an alternative set of relationships” (749). But Harris warns us against the catch-all mentality to use this term for much more than it is. However, for Bartholomae, the university community is at once dynamic and competing as one unit or it is a mixture of many different disciplines each with its own technical terms and language of discourse that somehow fights with the larger unit, the university (750). Unfortunately, for Harris, Bartholomae looks too generally at the idea of community only as a “stabilizing term” (750) that generalizes like other theorists seem to do about the nature of collaborative discourse. Instead of Bartholomae’s conception of moving among separate, but hazily demarcated, discourse communities, Harris suggests framing writing instruction in terms of “adding to or complicating [students’] use of language” (754).

It’s interesting to note that all of these articles were written in the 1980s, after the publication of the reports on the National Study of Writing, a study of high school writing instruction begun in 1979 (see Applebee, A.N., Lehr, F., & Auten, A. (1981). Learning to Write in the Secondary School: How and Where. The English Journal, 70 (5), 78-82). The report includes suggestions for improvement in writing instruction, including having students write "to fulfill natural communicative functions" (82). The interest on collaborative learning in composition seems linked to the 1970s literacy crisis and the resulting focus on the teaching of reading and writing. Bruffee notes that teachers are “unsure about how to use collaborative learning” (546), echoing the uncertainty about classrooms implementation of collaborative and cross-curricular writing expressed by most teachers responding to the NSW national survey. It is clear that collaborative learning is not going anywhere, as it has been with us for over two decades. It will be interesting to see the new directions that it takes with the collaborative tools of Web 2.0 becoming more and more common in classrooms, especially in the K12 strata. If past is prologue, perhaps we will see even more integration of collaborative learning, this time in an online environment, in first-year-composition courses.

Leigh and Katie

Collaboration and community are important to the composition classroom because they change the context in which students learn, allowing them to experience how conversation works within a discourse community. As these terms have been explored across the readings for this week we begin to see their roles both in the composition classroom as well as the theories of composition that inform these classrooms. The role of collaboration and community in composition theory is two-fold. These terms draw our attention to the role of collaboration and community as contributive to both our disciplinary formation itself as well as the knowledge that is created within these formations of community. In particular, our attention is drawn to the ways in which the knowledge that emerges here is shaped by the discursive practices that at once articulate and authorize this knowledge.

Kenneth Bruffee writes, “We first experience and learn ‘the skill and partnership of conversation’ in the external arena of direct social exchange with other people. Only then do we learn to displace that ‘skill and partnership’ by playing silently ourselves, in imagination, the parts of all the participants in the conversation” (549). In other words, Bruffee suggests that conversation and thought are connected and that thought is a social artifact created through interaction not isolation. As Bruffee asserts, “To think well as individuals we must learn to think well collectively—that is, we must learn to converse well” (550). For classroom teachers, this means fostering the kind of community life that will both establish and maintain conversation that leads to the kinds of thought we value in the academy. Collaborative learning creates a community of status equals in that all our students are peers of a certain variety (all freshmen; all business majors; all graduate students, etc).

While he articulates the role of collaborative learning in classroom practice, Bruffee also makes an argument for how this more complete understanding of collaboration and community should inform our theories of composition. He opens his essay with an observation about the dual approach of collaborative learning. When looking at CCCC and MLA, he observes that collaborative learning is both “a process that constitutes fields or disciplines” as well as a “tool” that “works in the teaching of composition or literature.” In regard to the latter, he observes that many teachers are unsure of how to use collaborative learning in their classrooms. To remedy this, a holistic understanding of collaborative learning needs to become part of our theories of composition. These theories of composition need to reflect understandings of both the foundational ideas behind collaborative pedagogies as well as the history of collaborative learning. Implicit to these discussions of collaborative learning is another term -- community. Joseph Harris finds this term to be one that is at once laden with rhetorical power and lacking meaning. In this way community is both “seductive and powerful” ... or, in other words, dangerous when used too lightheartedly within our theories of composition. Here, Harris suggests that we need to move towards more meaningful definitions of community -- definitions that no longer exploit the seductiveness of this term. This seductiveness is rooted in the use of community as a term synonymous with consensus. Harris goes on to suggest that these new definitions should incorporate a “material view” of community that allows for both consensus and conflict (756).

This understanding of community that incorporates both consensus and conflict has played an increasingly important role in classroom practice. Collaborative learning allows students to consider the role of consensus and difference within our conversations and our writing. Trimbur criticizes Bruffee’s notion of normal and abnormal discourses as complements of each other. For Trimbur, how discourse operates within a discourse community is more reminiscent of Foucault. Difference and conflict represents the power relations that are a reality in any discourse community: the permissions and prohibitions, what and who is included and excluded. Trimbur urges classroom teachers to use consensus and difference that result from conversations to talk with students about marginalized voices that resist and contest various aspects of the conversation. Trimbur complicates what Bruffee offers by saying that it is not enough to foster community and tell students that “writing means learning to participate in the conversation and consensual practices of various discourse communities” (741). In reality, learning to write within a discourse community and learning to converse in a conversation requires understanding that conflict is at the heart of writing situations. And at times, conflict can block conversations altogether.

This nuanced understanding of the presence of conflict in the writing situation plays an important role as an emphasis on collaboration and community in the classroom can enable students to learn how to converse within various discourses. Bartholomae proposes that every time a student writes, he or she has to invent the university. Students, working with each other within a classroom community and the larger community of their various disciplines, learn to mimic the language(s) of the academy by seeking to establish a balance between their own voices and thoughts and the conventions and history of the discipline. He writes, “The student had to appropriate (or be appropriated by) a specialized discourse, and he has to do this as though he were easily and comfortably one with his audience, as though he were a member of the academy” (606). In fact, Bartholomae offers a possible solution for classroom teachers that address the problems of basic writers. If teachers determine the community’s conventions, then he or she could seek to demystify them in our classroom by writing them out and teaching them to our students. Thus, our students would have a clearer and better way to participate within their discourse communities when we ask them “to argue, describe, or define” (615). Harris concurs with Bartholomae and adds that having this conversation with students moves towards the understanding that “our aims and intentions in writing are thus not merely personal, idiosyncratic, but reflective of the communities to which we belong” (749).

This also applies to the understandings of classroom practice that are reflected in our theories of composition. Here, these readings provide a critical reflection on the nature of knowledge and the authority that is held by/granted to some knowledges and not to others. Approached as a social artifact, knowledge is situated by the discourses that create it. Bartholomae describes knowledge as “situated in the discourse that constitutes ‘knowledge’ in a particular discourse community, rather than as situated in mental “knowledge sites”” (613). Framing knowledges as situated in and drawing authority from a discourse community enables us to resituate collaborative learning as a means of incorporating this element of composition theory into our pedagogies. Collaborative learning enables us to acknowledge in practice the ways in which our knowledge of composition is a matter of public discourse and discussion rather than a matter of expertise and technique (Trimbur 742). It is for this reason, as Mike Rose points out, that we must continually revisit the language that not only represents our knowledge, but is critical in the creation of it. Without doing this we can easily fall in the trap of not adequately reflecting the students and our classrooms and consequently developing theories of composition that remain “social artifacts” of this discourse community and are isolated from material experiences and realities of the classroom (602).

Collaboration and community also prompts us to think about the disciplinary communities from which our theories of composition emerge. Kenneth Bruffee quotes Thomas Kuhn from The Structure of Scientific Revolutions where it is suggested that “to understand scientific thought and knowledge we must understand the nature of scientific communities” (550). “Scientific knowledge changes not as our ‘understanding of the world’ changes. It changes as scientists organize and reorganize relations among themselves.” It is just this kind of “organizing” that we see taking place across these readings; each author developing an understanding of composition that both corresponds with the discourse formation of the discipline and reflects on shared experiences in the classroom. Bartholomae suggests that students, like the scholars in these readings, do the same thing: “he has to invent the university by assembling and mimicking its language while finding some compromise between idiosyncrasy, a personal history, on the one hand, and the requirements of convention, the history of a discipline, on the other” (606). This is a struggle that affects the entire disciplinary community, students and scholars alike.

Collaboration--Spencer/Marian

For Kenneth Brufee collaboration in the composition classroom is primarily a means of allowing students to think better and, therefore, write better. He traces the development and use of the term “collaborative learning” from the 1950’s and M.L.J. Abercrombie who found that British medical students learned “good medical judgment” more quickly when they worked together to diagnose patients to more modern (1980’s) applications of collaboration learning in writing pedagogy and peer tutoring groups, which, he argues often provide students with an opportunity to receive help in a setting that does not merely offer an extension of the composition classroom. Using theorists ranging from Vygostsky to Burke, Brufee proposes a view of language that sees reflective thought as an artifact of human interaction and writing as a reworking of this thought for public transmission. He argues, therefore, that collaboration mimics the way that knowledge is produced by granting students the opportunity to participate in “normal discourse,” or discourse among a group of equals. Because this group is also unschooled in all of the rules and conventions of academic discourse and academic knowledge, it is also more likely to approach problems and ideas differently and to produce new knowledge. Collaboration, he argues, does not provide particularly new concepts, but collaborative learning is new in its systematic application of these concepts. He warns, however, that collaborative learning will not be useful if it is not guided—that without guidance, peer groups of students will likely resort to conformity and anti-intellectualism.

Trimbur addresses to specific criticisms of collaborative learning—the concern that the consensus produced by peer groups is tantamount to groupthink and undermines individual voices and the fear that collaborative learning dismisses difference and inequality. Trimbur proposes that instead of seeing consensus as requiring accommodation and silencing of divergent views, we should see it as an opportunity to identify differences. He argues that we must distinguish between real consensus, which allows all participants equal voice and power, and spurious consensus, which erases some voices in an effort for conformity and efficiency. He suggests that in its best form, collaboration challenges the authoritarian role of the teacher and allows students to create social activity.

Joe Harris produces a critique of the word “community.” He argues that community suggests a positive term that combines likeminded people, stabilizing them behind a shared purpose. In reality, he argues, communities are amorphous and vague with hazy borders and competing beliefs. He suggests that part of our pedagogy should include an examination of the dissonance within and between communities.

Through close readings of student placement essays, David Bartholomae concludes that young writers have complex and often frustrating relationships to academic discourse. Discourse, he argues, “determines what writers can and will do.” The classroom often fails to encourage students to see themselves as colleagues working on academic projects, which exacerbates a feeling of disenfranchisement. For Bartholomae, every discourse community has its own codes and conventions which need to be made much more transparent in our classrooms if our students are going to learn how to write “within and against conventional systems.”

Mike Rose argues against a remedial system of composition by examining the semantics and trivializing language used in and around the teaching of writing. He argues that the negative language ought to be replaced by more “precise and pedagogically fruitful analysis.” As presently constituted, language activity within Composition studies more often sequesters and quarantines and stigmatizes students rather than opening toward a larger academic community.

OUR G-CHAT:

Marian: okay--so Spencer, what do you think are the implications of these readings for

teaching? One of the things I kept thinking about was the role of conversation in teaching

and how conversation might be more or less useful in peer groups

Spencer: . I like what you said yesterday about complicating the notion of community. The more I think about it, the more facebook and social networking feels like a community that doesn't feel all that united or cohesive.

We have two things going now.

Marian: that's a good point

Spencer: which should we address?

Marian: but the word community is always supposed to be positive

so we can slap it onto things like f.b. and suddenly it's supposed to be cohesive and productive

Spencer: exactly

Marian: when, honestly, it's shaggy at best and a little creepy. I'm wondering if we might need to use another word

Spencer: I agree. Community gets thrown around like it means something. Doesn’t that go to the core of what people really want--to belong?

Marian: to describe a multiplicity of identities that exist within a person or group

Marian: hmmn. . well are these communities started by individuals? I mean, is this ppl saying, "hey I feel disconnected" Or are ppl being thrown together to pacify and control them

(yes. . I sound paranoid. . but I think a sense of solidarity without actual action tends to be common)

Spencer: on one hand society seems to push communities, on the other hand Bartholomae argues that the classroom is all about creating separation and private spaces

Marian: but shouldn't be, right? Isn't that what he advocates for? this acknowledgement of the ways in which academy creates an elite and reduces the group of ppl permitted to speak

Spencer: yes, i think that's a big problem. i think he's saying this is why it's so hard for some students to appropriate academic discourse--and it’s not because they aren't smart

Marian: yes--that there's a barrier of rules. BUT--there's also the idea of "abnormal speech" and how it can complicate and reinvigorate dialogues

Spencer: How so?

Marian: like the person who confuses the chess pro because he hasn't played a lot and makes unconventional moves

Spencer: good point. in some sense you ought to be making unconventional moves in writing. The safest essays for Bartholomae were the weakest.

Marian: right! so, ironically, it's this fear and safety that undermines productivity

Spencer: yes! you're almost penalized for playing it safe. Even the students who just faked it, used big words, complex construction, fared better. They seized that authority

Marian: Trimbur talks about this too. and this is very very true for fiction too. At AWP I went to several panels where the editors said again and again they wanted something fresh and authoritative, "an author in control,” "an original voice."

Spencer: right, right. in a sense, the classroom homogenizes is what you're saying

Marian: BUT--this is exactly what gets first removed from our stories. we think, oh no, i need to do this right! And we forget to simply speak

Spencer: that's true. you get gun shy, you put rules forward and principles forward. In the worst case, and I know both of us have been here, it takes the fun out of writing

Marian: I think that we forget to create spaces in c.w. especially that are hospitable

right!

Spencer: one isn't encouraged to take chances really.

Marian: I spent so much type mapping out published stories in my MFA

exactly but look at something like "Where are You Going, Where Have you been"

the first third is so unconventional. well about a third of the story is a slow description of habitual time, right? her name was Connie.. . she had a habit of __

but this is so true of JCO

I mean, the lady does what she wants. In some ways she's very conventional

Spencer: or the lorrie moore story, you're ugly too, does a similar thing. first half she's on the phone

Marian: but she's also writing stories that only she could write

me: yes

Marian: yes. Lorrie Moore is a great example. so--I"m not saying you don't need to know the discourse. i'm just saying engendering confidence is not a waste of time in the classroom

Spencer: But how do you bestow that authority in classroom?

Marian: oh good question. i think a start is not to tear people's work apart, or to think turning in something "unpublishable" is a crime. I think writing lots of different small pieces is good

letting students play and have fun while taking it seriously. "serious play"

Spencer: because...what you are saying is that this isn't a problem of the composition classroom, this problem of cordoning off authoritative spaces goes all the way up to graduate writing, right?

Marian: oh yes. I think so. I think in some ways it's much worse the more students care. i mean our teachers are like gods to us

Spencer: right

Marian: which is maybe problematic

Spencer: hugely

Marian: but most comp kids don't remember our names by the next semester. BUT-we all applied here to work with these ppl. so if they dismiss our work in class, we're much more likely to try to stop being original

Spencer: well, the problem can swing the other way too: the classroom can get to idealistic, too supportive. everything gets celebrated. And in some ways, I wrote better when I didn’t know any rules or feel any pressure.

Marian: yes. it's really hard to find a balance. Work hard and know the rules but don't lose your voice or the idea that writing is fun

Spencer: and often times the best writing is the writing the teacher wont recognize. the writing that doesn't echo his or her own voice.

Marian: oh right

Spencer: what happens when teachers don't see themselves or their values replicated in the student's writing

marian: well, i think it's really important for teachers (us) to read widely and to be open to lots of different aesthetics because the field changes

Spencer: well, so what is the role of collaborative writing in all of this?

marian: i think that what t. yanique said about asking students who they are reading

is a great idea. I think part of it is the peer to peer connection. that the "normal community" that exists between peers is so important and obviously you and I agree about that since we just planned a writing exchange

Spencer: that's true.

marian: the idea that peers in some ways are more invested and also more able to see what you're doing.

Spencer: But we both feel like we can talk about this stuff, I wonder what happens when you leave two students alone who feel like they don't have anything to say

marian: oh that's a good point. And I think i have just 2 things to say

1. and i'm stealing this from a mentee, is that he has students do some fun activities--what do you think about pop culture" activities before they have to share work, so that they get to know each other?

Spencer: like favorite movie?

marian: right--just like a 5 minute chatty session at the beginning of group time I think it's kind of a good idea in some ways though I can see the problem

Spencer: i like it. that's pretty smart

marian: but--his point is that you have to create a friendly open environment that it doesn't just happen and that there are also ways of making this time productive.

The Role of Collaboration/Community

Our group's collaborative process consisted of an email conversation, a combination of contributions, and a wordle wrap-up. Here are the results of our conversation:

Elizabeth: From Bruffee comes the understanding that collaborative learning is going to happen no matter what--it's legitimate and key to the way (he understands) knowledge to be made. So, it makes sense for composition theorists to carefully examine social aspects of writing, and it makes sense for composition instructors to be aware of the theory, so they can avoid the potential pitfalls of uninspired collaborative learning in the classroom. I think the ideas of community and collaboration from this week's readings connect to the last two collections of "Difference" reading--Harris, especially, in his meditations on the word "community" reinforces the notion of grounding educational experience within a local context. One more thing--these readings helped me see the importance of fostering awareness of collaborative practices. Honestly, in the past I've had my students do a lot of collaborative work because being social seems to equal fun for them. Now, I have to think more carefully about how the collaboration is scaffolded, especially considering the power structure within the classroom community in which the collaboration is to take place.

Stephen: Elizabeth took the words right out of my mouth (or off of my keyboard, I guess): the notion of community and collaboration in the composition classroom provides a direct link from our pedagogy and our curriculum to the social nature of composition. What our students are trying to do, at least according to Bartholomae, is situate themselves and their writing with in a community (discourse, academic, disciplinary, etc.) that, in the case of the entering Pitt freshmen, they know nothing about except that it is big and scary and that it probably requires the same kinds of "writing" that their high school teachers asked them to do. Never mind the intimidation factor that has to play into what these students actually wrote; the point is that they know they have to adapt without knowing what it is they are adapting to (i.e., none of the essays B. presented used what could be invariably called a "home language." Which tells us that even the most basic writers are aware of the social nature of writing. And so difference (or dissensus) is the elephant already sniffing at the number two pencils or blue books or whatever they use to write their entrance essays, i.e. it's something that students are capable of dealing with. Which I think is interesting.

Stacy: Great thoughts, both of you. Although collaboration and community clearly have some overlaps in the reading, I do think we want to be careful about conflating them completely. This could just be because I've spent considerable time with discourse community readings for my thesis, whereas the collaboration pieces are new to me. So, for me, the idea of community contributes, as Stephen said, to our understanding of composition as socially situated. I think it adds to that understanding in useful ways, as it allows us to consider how composition is not only situated in and influenced by the culture at large, but also more locally, by the particular demands of a given environment (say, a specific discipline within the academy - echoes of Bazerman here). Bartholomae introduces this idea, which is complicated by Harris. I think Harris makes a particularly good point that community can be a dangerous term because it is a positive with no negative. His suggestions for concretizing the term to allow for both positive and negative aspects is, I think, important to our consideration of community. Trimbur and Harris both discuss the idea of consensus. I felt Trimbur's piece was a bit overly utopian (heterotopian), but I did think his idea of consensus as something that could be used as tool in collaboration rather than a necessary end goal had traction. I remain unsure of how I could institute such an idea in my pedagogy when I necessarily still hold a position of authority in my classroom. Bruffee and Rose both offered insightful considerations of the way that we talk about teaching writing and the way that we actually go about doing it. Rose points out that highly politicized conversations about what writing is and what use it is in the academy have trapped us into a certain way of thinking about and teaching composition. I'm distressed that these conversations still seem so current more than twenty years after the publication of this piece. I don't have much to say about the Bruffee that you two didn't already cover, so I'll leave that, I think.

Writing in Groups: An Interesting Study

http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/carnegie-mellon-researchers-find-crowds-can-write-as-well-as-individuals/29440