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to democratize education (546) by using concepts like abnormal discourse as a practical rhetoric to weed out old and outdated knowledge or ways of knowing (557).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.
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