In Response : Amanda's Derrida Post

        Something that struck me in reading the post was the idea that paper was a "luxury" for the poor thereby inverting the hierarchy of class I'm assuming. It's interesting because in Selfe's article she talks about how the computer stratifies the hierarchy and keeps it in places, socially at least. With the proliferation and comparable cheapness of computer technology these days, it would seem that the computer would replace the paper over time. However, that isn't the case. In fact, the invention of the computer further distances the poor from the well off and paper is becoming obsolete in the process further disenfranchising this "luxury" the poor may have had. Writing a book nowadays, without some sort of electronic counterpart, does not bode well for the author. If the poor are to raise themselves up out of despair by writing on paper, then boy they may be shit out of luck.
        Also, the idea of the temporality of paper and the internet is interesting as well. I think I would classify what we have with the internet as more ephemeral than temporal. It's something that really can't be pinned down in time. There are fads and trends that fluctuate that seem more dynamic and fluid than that which paper would afford us. Of course, there were fads and trends when technology wasn't as advanced as it was today, but the network of information and connectedness makes the idea of trends easier to start and more quick to end. They say whatever you post on the internet lasts forever. Somewhere in the archives of time and internet things exist for all to see. However, I firmly believe there is a place where things on the net go to die. There is only so much space on the internet to hold information. So, all in all, there are distinct differences between what paper does and what the internet does. I think that as paper is going wayward that the social classes will become further and further distanced to the point where someone will have to say or do something about it.

In Response: Blaine's McLuhan Post

        As a huge film nerd myself I can see where Blaine is coming from. However, the idea that there are different types of participation in medias is a huge deal. Blaine talks about how McLuhan does not address how film does not engage the audience often times. I think this is a falsity. The idea of the cinema is to engage an audience member directly whether or not they think they are processing things like themes or cinematography, they are. Ever notice how a movie theater is set up? A dark room with a giant lit screen in the front. The whole idea is to isolate you and fully engage you in the media. The idea about Hollywood having formulaic genres is interesting. What movies grab you? The ones that stick to the formulas? Or the ones that take those formulas and twist them around and complicate them? Here we are back at social values tied to media again. If you think about how movies are produced and released then it's easy to see how genre in the film industry and media industry in general have come in to play. They are all underpinned by economic, political, and social values. There are some filmmakers who defy these and make low budget films to their own liking regardless of what an overarching "studio" would have them do. On top of all of this we have the MPAA regulate what movies are. I think that just because a genre is formulaic to some extent that moviegoers don't necessarily turn off their brains. Instead, the genre is just so familiar that they don't know that they are processing it in a critical lens.

In Response: Michelle's Brandt Post

        One of the things that Michelle touched on that came up in the Selfe article is the idea of class. Not only was there a shift in people moving from rural bases to suburban ones, but that shift incurred a class shift as well. The middle class was expanding in a huge way and with that expansion came the proliferation of technology. Taking that in to account came the growing expectation to be able to read and write effectively to get work. Technology and writing have been intertwined since writing was invented. Writing in itself is even a technology invented by humans to communicate to one another. However, I get away from my point. My point is that the social status of Genna's great grandson lead him along a path where reading and writing were important and vital. He is being categorized by the social implications of writing and by participating in these new technologies is learning how to become a productive member of a certain social class. All of these readings tie back to some sort of way that writing and technology help to further stratify social classes in some way. Very interesting thread to note.

Selfe : Technology and Literacy: A Story about the Perils of Not Paying Attention

Technology, Class, Race, and Gender

        Cynthia Selfe is one badass lady. In her article, "Technology and Literacy: A Story about the Perils of Not Paying Attention", Selfe outlines some serious issues involving technology and its ideological goals. Selfe points to the political and economic underpinnings of large scale technology imperatives, specifically the Clinton-Gore administrations huge push for technological "literacy". However, Selfe exposes that in order for the large scale program to work the US needed to take advantage of emerging markets overseas in order to fund it and expand it. The economic influenced the technological here and promoted at the same time the administration politically. This type of correlation points out the gaps in technological literacy in terms of social ideals. Specifically, we can see through the lens that Selfe uses that technology isn't bridging any gaps between the rich and the poor in terms of a "universal technical literacy", in fact, it actually serves as another way in which the dominant class, race, and gender maintain stability. 

         If we, as instructors, don't turn a critical eye towards technology and its rapid proliferation in the past decade or so, we lose it completely. Once we lose it, as Selfe points out, it becomes even more dangerous. Losing sight of technology and its social and pedagogical implications puts it in to the oppressive category and will be utilized to keep things like class, race, and gender in its place. Selfe takes a point to examine the idea of access in terms of technological literacy. If we look critically at who has access to certain technology it can be clearly defined that certain poorer classes and minorities have a huge disadvantage when it comes to even coming in contact with technology most of us take for granted. An example of this from my current semester in graduate school seems to be in order here. I have been in classes this semester that the syllabi have been structured around the preconceived notion that I have access to some sort of computer roughly 90% of the time. I don't own a printer, because I cannot afford it, and there are many other options I have access to technology wise to remedy that situation. However, these types of social stratifications within technology actually work to exclude me in the classroom. This doesn't discourage me, but it does cause me to bring up these facts in the classroom and luckily I'm among faculty that are critical and open to different ideas and methods for delivery of information. 

       This leads me finally in to the idea of a situated literacy. We have to take in to account the local as well as the global when developing technological imperatives for a community. The overarching "big brother" approach that the government tries to employ further narrows our lens for critically thinking about and implementing certain technologies. We have to consider the social dynamics of each individual locale in which technology is to be implemented to give the best possible outcome to the students using said technology. If we do not teach students about the social and critical implications about the technology they use we may end up with similar ethical and moral dilemmas outlined by Katz in terms of the Nazi rhetoric. These types of critical dialogue help and further the technological literacy that our students will have when going in to the world. It allows them to question the ideologies and implications of the technology they use, or won't use, in regards to certain situations. Overall, Selfe has it right when she says we cannot just let technology slide under the radar. We have to grasp it and expose it to create a critical narrative of technology and its effects on our culture as a whole.

Gender as a Social Construct

        One of the things that came up in class on Thursday was the idea of gender as it pertains to the world around us and our understanding of composition. In this idea, there were shades of the theory that gender in itself is a social construct created and regulated by language and other social aspects of our society. One part of society and culture that plays a large part in doing this is the canon in English as a profession. Our canon for literature and theorists, for the most part, are white men. This exclusionary practice pretty much just marginalizes every other race, class etc. that exists, at least in Western culture. How, as instructors of composition, do we expose this one sidedness while at the same time not reinforcing it? It seems almost impossible to do so. However, I think the key here is exposure. If we expose this underlying ideology to students there will be resistance, but that resistance will create a dialog. From this dialog we, as instructors, can marginalize the canon for once and help the students find their own voice. A voice in writing can gain power from the recognition of gender and the inequalities that may stem from that gender. Why would we deny a writer that power? Males get it just by being males, why should females not be able to have that same empowerment from the same point in time? As a culture, Western society has oppressed and marginalized all populations that are not white males for most of the history of time. By ignoring that structure exists, we are reifying it. By trying to push away from it in the direction of supposed "objectivity" we are reifying it. If we expose it and try to complicate it, then we create a dialog, and dialog creates knowledge. In composition this dialog is desperately needed. We need to move away from a totalizing rhetoric and move toward a more dynamic and flexible rhetoric for the instruction of composition. Gender, race, class etc. can play a huge part in creating the fluidity of the instruction of composition and we should not deny that.

Thinking about Teaching Philosophy

     The Composing Process

        Over the past semester I have been thinking about where I would place myself as a Composition teacher or as a teacher in general. It seems I go more along the route of the Expressivist. I do think that writing, in itself, involves an internal process that needs to uncovered, refined, and then put to use in a context that matters. The last part is what informs my style and my approach to teaching the most. There are going to be instances in time when a student will ask me, "Why do I need to learn this?" and the short answer is that everyone uses it whether they realize it or not. What separates the good writers from the bad ones is that the good ones took the time to sit down with themselves and figure out how they write. Learning how their process informs their writing is what separates them from the pack. 

       That being said, I think there is a bit of social constructionist in me too. I do realize that there is a process that informs the writing, but I also realize at the same time there are forces at work within the the community that change and alter that process. In the context of the discourse community a writer is combining their process while adapting it to what the community sees as standard fare when it comes to entering their community. This sort of awareness of the writing and how that shapes a person's writing is also important to take in to account when teaching a course. It's much more difficult to teach a composition course where outside forces will not have any effect on what the writers in the course are writing. They have a discourse community to write to (in most cases), but they haven't cornered their process. How do I, as a teacher, bridge this gap without overloading or confusing the students? Another short answer is, I don't know yet. As time goes on and my style as a teacher changes and my experience grows so shall my philosophy. As it stands now, I believe that I would err on the side of Expressivist.

Writing as Thinking

Writing as Thinking

        Pondering the discussions had last week there were some interesting points and angles at which to attack the writing problem in the freshman composition classroom. However, the one I attached to was the idea that teaching writing is an equivalent to teaching thinking. If we take in to account our primary utterance, speech, and then consider it as opposed to our secondary utterance, writing, it makes sense that writing would equate thinking to some extent. Primary utterances come as a flow, a stream of consciousness is what it's referred to mostly. Now, there is a particular style of writing that tries to emulate the primary utterance of speech (stream of consciousness), but it always comes off as hard to read and stilted to some extent. Reading someone's thoughts as they come out of their mind and are written down is almost always perceived as odd or off-putting. That being said, the teaching of how to organize one's thoughts on a page to deliver to another person should be equated to teaching that person how to think.

        For example, if a student is able to organize his/her thoughts on a page. That act of teaching the organization, the revision, the eventual finding of the voice and style, all of these things lead the student to become a better thinker. A better thinker in the sense that they can read another person's writing more critically than if we have them freewrite their own thoughts. The idea of a freewrite is for a student to get ideas on a page, not necessarily to get those ideas in a good organization or to be criticized by another. I've always seen freewriting as a way to get the student in the writing mood. Let's be honest, there is always a mood related to writing. Teaching composition teaches a student how to critically look at his/her self and then take that critical eye and turn it on other works more readily than if they had never encountered it. Some of the students have an innate or inherent knowledge on this subject already, but most do not. There is the complication on how to apply some type of standard way of teaching writing that applies to all, but that is in my opinion, almost impossible. Every class takes a different approach, but in each approach the student community the instructor is responsible for is taking on a critical thinking approach directly related to writing and the instructor is able to take his/her own critical eye and turn it in on his/her pedagogy. The fostering of the critical eye is how writing and thinking can be used in relation to one another to create a knowledge making environment.