Annotated Bibliography

My paper hopes to show that reflection betters writing. More than that, however, it hopes to show that reflection is best attained through dialogism and reflexivity--theorectical concepts pulled directly from Bakhtin and Freire and discussed by the articles below both in theory and in practice. I have included my six annotated sources and other sources I hope to consult prior to writing the final paper which may or may not be used.

Annotated Bibilography

Bakhtin, M.M. “The Discourse of the Novel.” The Dialogic Imagination. Austin: The University of Texas Press, 1981. Alongside Freire, Bakhtin makes up the other half of my theory. His discussion of language and langauge acquisition will be necessary to the issue I wish to research, how language is acquired and, understanding that, how best to enable better writing in the classroom. Much of the outside research I will bring in will be other composition teachers discussing Bakhtin in the writing classroom and how he is useful or dangerous. The focus of my paper is not a cultural studies ideology, but rather that dialogism--as defined by Bakhtin--is necessary to better create reflection which will in turn create better writing. It will also promote thinking about thinking, a tool students must cultivate to be more versatile writers/thinkers.

Farmer, Frank. "Dialogue and Critique: Bakhtin and the Cultural Studies Writing Classroom." College Composition and Communication 49.2 May. 1998: 186-207 This article discusses the effectiveness of Bakhtin in the writing classroom that employs the cultural studies ideology. He points out how such ideologies can't help but include Freire once writing becomes involved and he looks unflinchingly at ways in which some teachers fail in their goals to make the students better people. It offers a critique of such ideology while also reexamining Bakhtin and ways that he may be appropriated, knowledgeable of his failings, to improve dialogue and, therefore, writing in the classroom. As I discuss how the theories of Bakhtin can be used by the writing teacher to create a more dialogic classroom and, in turn, better enable reflection, I will use Farmer to illustrate ways Bakhtin is helpful and should be avoided. Furthermore, Farmer offers a look at student writing and his own responses which ground his theoretical discussion in the concrete, a move I too hope to make through Yancey as I discuss how to apply the theory discussed and why it improves writing.

Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum International, 2000. I plan to argue that a Bakhtinian approach best enables the learning of language and, therefore, improvement of writing. When Bakhtin is appropriated into the writing classroom the result bears significant resemblance to the theories expounded by Paulo Freire. For that reason I will use his book to especially discuss language acquisition and how such a cultural studies approach affects thought and writing skills. Furthermore Freire also argues for thought and writing as being inseparable and this also is discussed by Bakhtin. Freire, along with Bakhtin is invaluable in the underlining ideology of my argument--this idea of thought and language, how they intersect, and how we as writing teachers and best elicit better writing from our students.

Halasek, Kay. "Starting the Dialogue: What Can We Do About Bakhtin's Ambivalence Toward Rhetoric?" Rhetoric Society Quarterly 22.4 Autumn. 1992: 1-9. Halasek's discussion is important to my research specifically because she discusses dialogical rhetorical theory and how that informs the reading practices and understanding of readers. This is necessary because part of researching students' use of language and how to better their use of that language (through writing) is discovering ways to help them think about their thinking or to reflect. Halasek theorizes about one such way, Bakhtin, and discusses some of the problems posed by studying Bakhtin. I wish to consider this article because it is as important, I believe, to be critical of the theory one uses as it is to understand it. Halasek illuminates how Bakhtin offers insights into "structures of discourse" and why can't afford to ignore them.

Kumamoto, Chikako. "Bakhtin's Others and Writing as Bearing Witness to the Eloquent 'I'." College Composition and Communication 54.1 Sep. 2002: 66-87. Kumamoto makes many of the theoretical moves in this article that I hope myself to argue. By researching the project called the "eloquent 'I'", Kumamoto applies Bakhtin to the classroom in an effort to allow reflexive thought that offers the student authority as well as the ability to reaccess language from the position of user instead of other. This is interesting for my own research as what I am striving to prove, ultimately, is that it is only by giving students this ability to think about their thinking that they can begin to access language consciously and knowledgably. Furthermore, reflexivity is accomplished through reflection--hence Yancey. Kumamoto is offering another way to accomplish the same goal, then; by examining the techniques employed in this experiment I hope to garner some practical and theoretical knowledge to better educate my own teaching pedagogy.

Yancy, Kathleen Blake. Reflection in the Writing Classroom. Utah: Utah State University Press, 1998. While Bakhtin and Freire make up the ideological part of my argument, it is through Yancey that I will argue the best technique. I believe that one of the best ways to apply such and ideology as the Bakhtinian/Cultural studies model is through the use of reflection in the classroom. It is through asking, encouraging, and even forcing the students to reflect that their writing will improve, which is always the end goal. Bakhtin and Freire offer ideas and pleas for the importance of language, and Farmer discusses ways in which cultural studies approaches can become elitist or patronizing, but Yancey offers an argument and evidence for reflection as the best technique to improve writing and thought, without alienating the students. Through reflection it is they who do the work of thinking about their thinking and considering what impact their writing carries. This is key in avoiding the elitism that Farmer discusses and avoiding the trap of some teachers which is "I know what you know better than you do." It doesn't matter, after all, what the teacher knows; it only matters what the student knows s/he knows and his/her ability to express that through writing. Yancey, therefore, makes up the crutch of my research as I use her in an attempt to demonstrate how to apply the ideology/pedagogy garnered from Bakhtin and Freire to the writing classroom.


Other Sources

Bartholomae, David and Anthony Petrosky. Facts, Artifacts, and Counterfacts. Upton Montclair: Boyton/Cook Publishers, Inc., 1986.

Berthoff, Ann. The Making of Meaning. Upper Montclair: Boynton/Cook Publishers, Inc., 1981.

Ewald, Helen Rothschild. "Waiting for Answerability: Bakhtin and Composition Studies." College Composition and Communication 44.3 Oct. 1993: 331-348.

Lu, Min-Zhan. “From Silence to Words: Writing as Struggle.” College English. 49.4 (1987): 437-448.