The articles by Murray, Emig, Perl, and Sommers spoke to my soul. These are my people. The meta-analysis by Hillocks sucked my soul; though, I will discuss its obvious importance and what I feel it adds to the field of composition.
Emig says that "successful learning is...engaged, committed, personal learning. Indeed, impersonal learning may be an anomalous concept, like the very notion of objectivism itself" (12). She also points out that "writing...connects the three major tenses of our experience to make meaning" (13). To that end I have decided for this response to make meaning from our readings, to attempt to learn as much as I can, and to that end I intend to be "engaged, committed" and to demonstrate "personal learning." I feel the best way to promote this personal learning is to discuss the first four essays together instead of in pieces--this demonstrates (I believe) the recursive, learning process I follow while reading them. I will then go on to discuss Hillocks article and how I feel it speaks back to the first four pieces both successfully and not successfully.
I have laid out my intentions as clearly as possible because it has been my experience that when one launches into a dialogue with the text, if the dialogue is obviously personal it is assumed that reflexive thought is not taking place. This was as true for me as a freshman as it is as a graduate student. Murray states that "the student finds his own subject. It is not the job of the teacher to legislate the student's truth" (5) This means that often teachers see students' thoughts--thoughts different from their own--and fail to recognize the "process of discovery through language" (Murray, 4). Instead of respecting the student "for the search for truth in which he is engaged" the teacher attempts to enforce his own truth upon the student (Murray, 5). This happens chiefly, I believe, because "composing does not occur in a straightforward, linear fashion" (Perl, 34). But we as teachers, students, people, have been taught the "appropriate" forms of knowledge and presentation of that knowledge. Such presentation is linear, scientific (unemotional) and stated without question for what has been thought even as it states questions for further thought.
It is frustrating to accept knowledge in an unregulated form because the teacher loses absolute power in such a situation. I believe it is specifically this dialogic, meaning-making environment involving structure and free thought (a variation of what Hillocks calls the environmental mode) that truly offers the students authority. Blogs, free-writing, and peer-review all approximate this authority, but the transfer is not total. The teacher, by judging and evaluating students' thought--not matter how ridiculous--instead of challenging and discussing, still maintains the authority of the position and thus does not create an environment where revision, as Summers would call it, composing as Perl would call it, writing to learn, as Emig would call it, process as Murray would call it, and inquiry, as Hillocks would call it, may actually happen. And because I believe, as Emig does, that writing is learning and learning can happen through writing, I feel this approach is important at all levels of instruction, not simply that of Freshman Composition.
I thought of our class discussion on tone as I began Hillocks article, specifically, the first page when he uses words like "attack" and "vituperative attack" (133) to describe the objections of Emig and Graves. He returns to their "attacks" at the end of the article when he states "the results of this study have important implications for research. First, they belie assertions by Emig (1982) and Graves (1980) that experimental research has no value for classroom teachers and that it has no utility for composition researches" (162). Hillocks here attacks Emig and Graves himself simply with less incendiary language. By saying his work "belies assertions" he is saying that Emig and Graves are wrong. I do not see a problem with his assertion any more than I see a problem with Emig and Graves assertion (I will clarify momentarily) but I do see a problem with the need to hide what we mean behind language (doublespeak) in order to maintain an "even" tone. Attacking, disproving, contradicting--all of these things can be used incorrectly, but I feel that to discount them purely on principle is a mistake. It is through argument--attacking-- that scholars can discuss new knowledge and hash out theories. An attempt to pretend this happens with no emotion is to attempt to remove the "personal from the political" (Rich) and to pretend "personal learning" (Emig) doesn't occur. This is a false attempt that actually fools no one, but does serve to render the discourse lifeless and inert. And it is in this way that studies become, as Graves states being quoted by Hillocks, not "readable [and] of limited value" and can't "help teachers in the classroom" (133).
And Hillocks doesn't offer any theory to speak of to teachers. His research is incredibly important in that it shows what techniques work and which ones do not. How can we, as teachers, learn if not by research such as this? But it offers little to nothing about why they work. And it is this why that fuels and motivates all good theory (I believe). A teacher must know why she teaches what she teaches, why she assigns what she assigns, what her goal is, why a particular inquiry is used, and how to best facilitate meaning-making (Knoblauch and Brannon, Freire, Berthoff). Hillocks draws a fine line between natural and environmental modes of teaching, but does not explore all the ways those two modes intersect. His research shows students need structure and freedom. But it isn't until you look at Emig, Murray, Perl, Sommers, Berlin, Berthoff, and others that you begin to investigate how that dichotomy of structure/freedom can be navigated and reformed into a whole.
In this way Hillocks article is necessary to the continued growth of the field, but is not helpful to young teachers. Like all articles his should be taken in conjunction with more theoretical examinations of composition, but it doesn't offer a route to better teaching on its own. That is, what I believe, Emig and Graves were stating when criticizing such research and what Hillocks fails to realize when he criticizes them in return. And this conversation of criticism, one obvious the other veiled, is indicative of the necessity of us employing the same techniques of listening and respect with each other that we do with our students. I owe those around me the respect inferred when I attempt to understand what they are trying to say as much as I recognize what I believe they are saying. And when I respond to that it does no one any good if I hide my disagreements, nor does it do any good if I do not show an understanding of what I am disagreeing with.
I absolutely agree that I am an "expressionist" as Berlin will define me on page 717, but I absolutely also agree with Hillock that the environmental mode, as he defines it on pages 144-146, is the best approach to teaching. There is more to the environmental mode than described, however, and so in this way I both agree and disagree with Hillocks. It is through this unfettered, personal response that I learn and my own theory of composition is complicated, expanded, and refined.
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4 comments:
Jessica, I enjoyed reading this post. Your comments about the usefulness of Hillock's meta-analysis make me think of how the field itself has treated this particular article. I would say many take a somewhat hypocritcal stance toward this article. It is often held up as "proof" that teaching grammar (as focus) is ineffective, and as "proof" that presentational mode is less effective than more student-centered process and environmental modes. Yet, can we use this article as "proof" if we also dismiss its scientific method/epistemology? I think there is value in this metanalysis. Certainly it is operating at a very high level, and does not give the teacher specific classroom techniques, but those techniques can presumably be found in the specific studies (Hillocks analyzed ~69 studies?) themselves. But Hillocks gives a little direction as to which studies to look to for direction. Also, if one disagrees with the methodolgy, perhaps one can use more naturalistic methods to verify Hillocks conclusion. That's the process of research, by the way. People keep building off each other's ideas, incrementally.
Speaking of reserach, regarding your "defense" of argument as attacking as necessary to scholarship, I would disagree. People like Hillocks and Kinneavy are coming out of an older generation of (male-dominated) sholarship where it was assumed that was what one did. Argument does not have to equal attacking. People can disagree and not attack each other personally (yes, it is hard to not take any criticsm of one's ideas personally). There has been some interesting feminist-based reserach on argument which contrasts gender-based styles of argument and discourse, and comcominant arguments that such feminist style of argument should be taught in the writing classroom (e.g., see Catherine Lamb, "Beyond Argument in Feminist Composition." Many in the field of composition studies have also argued the field is historically feminized ("writing instruction as the woman adjunct in the basement," see Susan Miller) and we should not be attacking each other as happens in other fields. So it absolutely a matter of language and tone, but these choices reflect an different attitude toward knowledge-builidng and argument.
You might not be sold
P.S. Did I mention I had the *lack* of a text editor in Blogger comment tool. That strange word in second big paragraph is supposed to be spelled "Concomitant"
Also, I meant to delete that last line "you might not be sold"...
That's I HATE the lack of a text editor. Arghhhhh....
As a notorious bad speller I tend to read what words are meant to be there instead of what normally is. This makes for interesting literary analysis as well as allowing me to understand your post.
I think I do agree with the idea of not "attacking" each other with Mel Gibson/Braveheart sorts of gusto, but I also think I define attack more broadly than others. A well placed attack (in my mind) might happen with even tone and consideration of the other side, but in an attempt to disprove (if they are wrong) or simply complicate it can be an attack none-the-less. I would like to read some of the feminist theory about argumentation, though. Sounds interesting.
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