Good questions in this thread. I wonder if we could add another word into this discussion: "owned writing". This would seem to me to get at the distinction Russ was making in his post between his conveying information and a construct asking his students to convey information. The real difference is that Russ "owned" the communication and had real goals for it. Similarly, students in a classroom can own a paper, get excited about making an argument that is really theirs, and so the paper becomes "real." Other students will not own the assignment -- even in the very same course -- so their work lacks the "authenticity." Sadly, that real text will not always be "better" than the inauthentic one in the usual scheme of assessment. So to pick up Philippa's question, no I don't think they're all real because sometimes we ask our students to "imagine" something, and they don't. Hence, the writing act that accompanies their unimagined position will not be authentic.
If my idea has merit, then my next question is what can we do in the classroom to increase the likelihood that students will "own" the writing situation, whether imagined or "real"?
Rob Irish
Philippa Spoel wrote:
> Hi Russ, Roger, et al,
>
> I wasn't (unfortunately) at Inkshed last week, but this discussion of "real" or "authentic" writing situations is definitely something that interests me. Personally, I prefer not to think of some situations as more "real" than others. The classroom context and the roles of students and teachers in this context are as "real" any other situation. I think it's important to remember that, by the very nature of the classroom / educational context, students are always students and teachers are always teachers. So if we design assignments that more or less resemble or enact practices that are close to or somehow connected with workplace contexts which these sutdents may one day enter as workers / employees (not as students), nonetheless in the context of our courses, the work that the students perform is "really" an assignment that, ultimately, will be assessed by us as teachers / gatekeepers of the educational system. Much as there are times when I would like to, I can't abdica!
> !
> te this professional identity / responsibility.
>
> I guess my point is that this distinction between "real" and somehow "nonreal" writing doesn't make sense to me; all writing is "real", isn't it? - even the situation that you describe, Russ, of asking students to "imagine the situation". In this case, you would be asking them (as a "real" teacher) to perform a "real" assignment in their "real" identities as students . Admittedly, the assignment would probably be very difficult for them to undertake because how could they "imagine" the situation effectively, but to me that's not the same as saying that the writing they produce is not "real". The problem for me is not that this assignment wouldn't produce "real" writing, but rather that it might be asking them to do something that would be very difficult for them based on their background knowledge (and hence the writing produced might not effectively meet your assessment criteria). I'm more comfortable with the concept of practice (rather than pretense) as a central teach!
> !
> ing / learning method - what is it that we want students to "practice" (as preparation for their lives when they are no longer students, when they find themselves in other rhetorical situations) and how can we best design assignments to foster meaningful and challenging but not impossible practice? There are of course very important connections to explore and foster between classroom contexts and other contexts, but for me the most important reality to keep in mind is that any writing that students perform in the context of a course is, of course, primarily motivated by and addressed to this context. Although assignments may resemble (even to the point of providing a "real" service to some external organization) the kinds of professional writing / communication that students may perform later or in other parts of their lives as employees, still, when they are assigned as part of a course, they are "really" assignments.
>
> What do you think, Russ, Roger, others - do any of these rather garbled thoughts address the questions that concern you?
>
> Philippa
>
> Philippa Spoel
> Department of English
> Laurentian University
> Sudbury, Ontario
> Canada P3E 2C6
> tel: 705-675-1151
> fax: 705-675-4870
> [log in to unmask]
>
> >>> [log in to unmask] 05/16/02 07:58PM >>>
> At the Inkshed Working Conference 19 on PEI last week (more
> information about it, its sessions, the inksheds from the conference,
> and pictures, is available on the Inkshed Web site), one of the
> discussions on Sunday morning was focused on Roger Grave's document
> on the reading table and on my review of _Worlds Apart_ in the fall
> Inkshed Newsletter. After the conference Roger wrote to the
> participants, saying, in part,
>
> > I'd like to talk more about an issue that came up on Sunday am in
> > the response / discussion about what makes a writing task "real,"
> > what counts as a real or "authentic" rhetorical situation. The
> > service learning classes [described in Roger's Inkshed paper] do
> > that, but Russ made the point that any class, at least
> > theoretically, is capable of this. What conditions mark these
> > occasions? Consequences of the writing act? Perception on the
> > part of tne writer?
>
> This is an issue that I'd like to have the help of Inkshedders in
> thinking about. I'd like to begin by putting a slightly different
> spin on what Roger cites me as saying: my main contention is not that
> we _can_ make situations "real" in class, but rather that classes, as
> conventionally constructed, make it extremely difficult and unlikely
> to happen, even though it is possible.
>
> Here's a simple minded example: what I'm writing, right now, as I
> compose this, is _real_, in that my central motive is to use this
> writing to convey an idea to readers whom I want to understand it and
> whom I want to respond to it(Bakhtin says they're the same thing,
> eh?). If I constructed a scenario in class in which I asked a
> student to imagine this situation and write the email, turning it in
> as an assignment, it would _not_ be real. (And we need to remember
> that that kind of simulation rarely happens in class.)
>
> So there's my dichotomy. What makes one real and one not, and what
> are the important differences in terms of language learning? What
> conditions, to use Roger's terminology, mark an occasion when writing
> is "real" or "authentic"?
>
> Is that the issue you were raising, Roger?
>
> -- Russ
>
> St. Thomas University
> http://www.stu.ca/~hunt
>
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--
**************************************
Dr. Robert Irish, Director
Language Across the Curriculum
Applied Science and Engineering
University of Toronto SF B670
416.978.6708
http://www.ecf.utoronto.ca/~writing
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