An FYC for the people, of the people, by the people?

As we read through these articles bolstering student participation, student adaptation (on the part of the professor), and student negotiation, I begin to realize that the type of democratic negotiating system that Shor stands behind is very similar to how my classes have worked over the last 10 years of my higher learning. It is not explicit to Shor’s 4 points (rewrites, After-class group, protests, and the A-B-C Proposal plan) but they’ve seemingly included a few of these elements, namely rewrites and the ABC plan. From the beginning of the class we know that we have our syllabus and that these are the requirements of the class, the contract of our enrollment in that class. You always aim for the “A” and many teachers have had distinctions on what you as a student should do in order to obtain that “A” but those guidelines were never negotiable. Negotiating as a teacher with a student, in my own mind, would devalue my professional input to their degree of work but would also let the student feel more connected to the instruction they were receiving.

If we think about education as a commodity, my students should be able to get the most “bang for their buck” and leave the class feeling as though they’ve gained something in their English life that can translate into the rest of their collegiate career. This would mean that as a professor, I would almost have to negotiate with the students, allow them the rewrites, and allow for the protestation of grades. It would be difficult to hold an ACG because of time restrictions or participation but the other parts of Shor’s ideas seem completely doable in an FYC course. Having this type of course would also lend itself to the ebbs and flows that inevitably mold a university semester by allowing for students to have an autonomy and control of their grade that would free up many problems students might face in relation to their grade down the line because essentially, they have chosen their grades from the beginning and set out on the path to an “A” by completing the steps laid out for them in the beginning.

The rewrites in the class are beneficial for the student who will come in not being an expert (of course!) on SWE and over the course of the semester have the opportunity to see their work transform from their own dialect into SWE. To have this kind of transformation, I think we would have to take into consideration what Zhan-Lu is pushing for and that is an acceptance and a further inclusion of multiculturalism in the classroom and the University. Ownership of the course by the professor and an acceptance of their student’s own language will vastly improve the feel, outcome, and aura of a FYC course and allow the students a safe environment to grow in their writing. The toughest part will be to break (gently) those students from their pre-conceived notions about having an error free assignment. The language comes first; the mechanics will follow when they can find their own voice, their ownership, and their way in University life, and academia.

Shor, Ira. “Critical Pedagogy Is Too Big to Fail.” Journal of Basic Writing 28.2 (2009): 6-27. Print.

Lu, Min-Zhan. "Professing Multiculturalism The Politics of Style in the Contact Zone." Cross-Talk in Comp Theory. Ed. Victor Villanueva, Kristin L. Arola. Urbana : National Council of Teachers of English, 2011. 467-483. Print. 

Yancey!

Most of my life, I’ve had an appetite for reading but not so much with writing. I’m not a “creative” type so I’ve always turned away from expressing myself in a written manner. On the odd occasion I would journal, especially online at the turn of the 21^st century (MySpace, anybody??), when putting things on the internet for all to see was still relatively quiet and not as hugely popular but I gave up on that quickly because I wasn’t able to fully process my thoughts, feelings, etc., in writing. Guess what? I’m still not a creative writer who enjoys writing. I enjoy analyzing. However, when I do write, I can succinctly pinpoint my arguments, prove them with textual evidence and compose a paper worthy of any Professor. But how can I do this? According to the reading by Yancey, “Attempting the Impossible,” we write to convey understanding not to develop knowledge on a subject, quoting from Applebee and Langer, “’Give the constraints imposed by high-stakes tests, writing as a way to study, learn, and go beyond—as a way to construct knowledge or generate new networks of understandings…is rare’” (326). I am a Native Texan. I have gone through the school system in Texas, and I work in the school system in Texas. I have always been taught that writing is a way to convey your understanding and unfortunately it is taking me a little while to overcome this falsehood. Writing is an art, that some people do just naturally come by but for others, they cannot form the thoughts in to a coherent, organized paper, and THAT IS OKAY! It takes a bit of work. Yancey has advocated for this, Redd advocated for this (last week) and the idea by Breuch in her article about “Post-Process” has no place in my compositional pedagogy ideology. Her thoughts on writing being something that cannot be taught goes against what I am more inclined to believe by Yancey because she says, “It is important, in a Vygotskian way, that the assignment asks students to revisit an experience of their own choosing so as to make meaning of it for others” (326). To put her into context she is describing 4 advantages for beginning a FYC Course with a narrative style paper, and this allows the students to 1) connect to prior knowledge, 2) challenges their school-based learning (which is the hardest part of growing up, am I right?) 3) validation of their experiences through validation of their writing about those experiences and 4) helping students to see new ways of approach and organizing material. This process will help connect the students not only to their paper but they’ll have something to look back on to judge their progress against, they’ll have the affirmation that what they are saying makes sense, or at least how they can eventually make it make sense, and gives them the opportunity to build a process unique to their writing style and way of learning. We are not factory made, regulated human-bots. Every person is different, every writer is different.

And then I thought...

Pedagogy is a strange word. It takes a bit of practice and repetition before you really get the flow of it and can move into words like Pedagogical and what not but what's most important about Pedagogy is the definition. It is the practice of education. Education is something that we all have some dealings in, either regretfully or gleefully. What really draws me into Pedagogy is the connection I have with learning. I immensely enjoy teaching and seeing the connections students make to the information being presented, how it relates to their life, and how they've improved it over the course of their education. Writing in its educational practice should always include topics that a student relates to or feels “at home” with. When a student has a passionate connection that extends beyond the border of school (whether physical or figurative) you really see the student start to take pride in what they’re writing and really develop their skills. Ownership of one’s writing and in extension, beliefs is one of life’s basic fundamentals. But how do we gain this pride? How do we figure out the ownership? I struggle with this and other questions but have found a road that may lead me to my answer!

Teresa Redd states in her article “’Talkin bout Fire Don’t Boil the Pot’: Putting Theory into practice in a First-Year writing Course at an HBCU” how English 101 “cannot limit itself to academic purposes for writing.” She then goes on to say, that the CCCC warns “’to restrict students’ engagement with writing to only academic contexts and forms is to risk narrowing what we as a nation can remember, understand, and create.’” There it is. There is the first step for students taking ownership of their writing. I never disliked writing but I never thought I excelled at it or that I had this ability to coherently shape and mold my inner thoughts in to an argument, an analysis, a paper. It all begins though with just simply writing. As human beings, we will never do something with a fervor and passion unless we are passionate about the topic of choice. Her words in this article resonate with my educational and pedagogical ideas that we first must establish the students’ ability to write, and be COMFORTABLE in writing by allowing them to find a topic that resonates and write, write, write. Right?

Redd also mentions theorists suggesting our thoughts are incoherent in our own head but can be put into formed thoughts, opinions, and reflections because of our ability to write. This idea of writing to put out ideas works the opposite way as well, in that often times our brains remember what we have written (that is, new information) more easily than simply reading or listening. Writing relies on that passion, that spark that we try to kick start in our students and that passion for writing starts by showing them how to take ownership of their writing. The road is paved with crumpled balls of paper, an overflowing trash can here and there but ends with thoughts organized, shared, and appreciated.

No title. (Except that is a title....)

This is the beginning of the end. I feel the pedagogical walls closing in on me and I can't escape all of these buzzwords like "close reading" and "rigor." As students we took advantage of what we were supposed to learn, what we were learning, and then of course what we actually learned. I never embraced education until I became responsible for the facilitating of 200+ students' knowledge. Would you want to live with an uneducated public if you can help it?

Frankly, this blog is a required part of my Master's Degree but the idea of blogging has always been appealing because of the outlet that it provides.