Wow,
Nothing like a just common cause to rally the troops. This is great! Thanks
to Susan for composing that ever-challenging first draft (ever-challenging
to me, anyway) and to Doreen for providing the link to Anthony's paper (the
text looks great, and I'll be reading it later this evening while working
out on the elliptical machine--it's an acquired skill).
You know, in a way we really should thank the Good Associate Dean for the
impetus and opportunity to respond and get our own story out there. As
uninformed as his piece is, I think it pretty much reflects the general
public (mis)understanding of what writing entails and how one learns to do
it effectively, and so he's not putting any *new* bad ideas out there; he's
just adding to popular misconceptions about writing. And, now we get the
chance to put our own views out there, in the public and university realm.
Graham
----- Original Message -----
From: "Victoria Littman" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, March 18, 2008 5:13 PM
Subject: Re: University Affairs article on writing at universities
> Thanks to all for comments and the text of Anthony's speech. And, thanks
> to Susan for that context and for starting a draft response.
>
> While I agree with many of our collective disagreements with the Dean's UA
> piece, I find it fascinating that we seem to be surprised by the "common
> sense" cliche's about writing pedagogy and "good" and "bad" writing that
> litter the article. In my work at U of T (and before that at OCAD) I
> frequently encounter professors, administrators and students who use these
> "common sense" notions for specific purposes related to institutional
> politics. In fact, some would argue that these "common sense" notions are
> part of the reason that some of us on the CASLL list serve are still
> under represented as tenured faculty. The notion that writing is a
> "skill" that can be easily taught, of course, partly justifies putting our
> positions in the "teaching" versus "research" tract and is partly why our
> research so frequently is erased and our pedagogy ignored. Unpacking this
> type of discourse publicly and as a group may have some potential.
>
> It seems to me that in addition to pointing out the problems with the
> piece, we might want to ask what are the political and budgetary
> implications of re-circulating these old discourses? Also, how and why do
> these tired discourses give the Dean institutional power?
>
> Was it Rob who wrote that we're preaching to the converted? I guess I'm
> wondering how often we encounter this kind of "common sense" nonsense and
> how much energy we put into community education, if you will, to try to
> transform the terms of the public discourse on writing in the academy, and
> our other sites of work.
>
>
> Cheers,
> Victoria
>
> wendy strachan wrote:
>> >From what I read about it, Susan is giving a very fair rendering of what
>> Marche is up to and she's showing the context, actual and theoretical,
>> within which he is working. As I said, his WHIPS reminds me of what
>> Donald
>> Murray recommended and used to do constantly - though I think I said
>> Donald
>> Graves - my senior's memory failing me again!
>> Thanks, Susan for taking this on - I love the idea of a CASLL response.
>>
>> Wendy
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: CASLL/Inkshed [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Susan
>> Drain
>> Sent: Tuesday, March 18, 2008 8:44 AM
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: Re: University Affairs article on writing at universities
>>
>> Two things:
>>
>> 1. Okay, I'm working on a draft. Give me a little time to process the
>> ideas.
>>
>> 2. Rob Irish writes:
>>
>>
>>> "The audience chose this topic for his session, and made a number of
>>> useful
>>>
>> suggestions for modifying it."
>>
>>
>>> Is this writer trying to dodge responsibility by pointing out that
>>> others
>>>
>> are as ill-informed as he is? Such claims cast aspersions on democracy.
>> The note, I suspect, is not so much an attempt to dodge responsibility as
>> to
>> acknowledge collaboration.
>> It might be useful to understand WHIPS a bit more. Write Here in Plain
>> Sight is Sunny Marche's response to his observation that much learning is
>> tacit and better acquired through observation. He notes that much
>> writing
>> takes place privately and that many writers don't get a chance to observe
>> others' writing-in-the-act. Therefore, he claims, most writers don't
>> know
>> what happens when writing happens. (See Note below) It has been
>> suggested
>> to him that writing folks (rhetoricians, compositionists, Inkshedders) do
>> in
>> fact know a great deal about what happens when "writing" happens, and
>> that
>> perhaps he is conflating a number of different processes under the one
>> term.
>> He remains convinced, however, that students will learn something about
>> writing by watching real people writing. So he recruits individuals who
>> are
>> willing to write in public, using computers and projectors, and most of
>> them
>> bring projects that they are already working on whether or not they have
>> actually begun!
>> drafting. He likes to let his audience choose a project for him to do
>> right in front of them, so he might (I don't know, I wasn't there) have
>> said, "One thing I've been thinking about doing is an opinion piece about
>> who cares about teaching writing at universities" -- and that's what the
>> audience voted for. The audience consists of students and grad
>> students,
>> some faculty and community members, and I guess they said their $ 0.02
>> worth.
>> Note: He likes to begin presentations on WHIPS by playing Monty Python's
>> skit on Thomas Hardy writing the first page of one of the Wessex novels,
>> in
>> which a pair of sports commentators describe the action and make "colour
>> commentary."
>> To be fair, the comments he gets from those who attend affirm the value
>> of
>> the project in their eyes. They are reassured that writing is a messy,
>> difficult, non-linear process, and so if nothing else, it demonstrates
>> the
>> foolishness of the idea that a good writer is one whose first draft is
>> her
>> last draft.
>>
>> Cheers
>> Susan
>>
>>
>>
>> Susan Drain, PhD
>> Department of English
>> Mount Saint Vincent University
>> Halifax, NS Canada B3M 2J6
>> 902 457 6220
>> [log in to unmask]
>>
>>
>>
>> This communication, including any attached documentation, is intended
>> only
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>>
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>
>
> --
> Victoria Littman, Ph.D.
> Learning strategist
> Accessibility Services
> University of Toronto
>
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