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. 

In response to Brittney's, "Revision, Re-Vision"

         The problem with peer critiquing or revising in general is what constitutes good or bad revision I think. There is most definitely a difference between the two. For example, in my undergrad studies I had a professor who would let us revise any one paper that we wrote throughout the semester. We get one revision and one only. If you turn in a paper that has little or negligible revision, she retained the right to fail your paper no matter the grade. If you turned in a revision and it actually lowered your grade, you had to stick with it.

        While being a very harsh way to deal with revision, it really made the person think about what they were doing when trying to up a B to an A or a C to a B. She rarely, at least in my experience with talking to her about the policy, got back revisions that were frivolous or non-existent and in the process was probably creating better writers. I think when determining how students should revise and peer critique we have to consider telling them that there is such a thing as bad revision. Some students can catch other students' bad revisions and help them, but a lot of the time it takes the guiding hand of an experienced writer to help them see where and why they need to revise.

An Idea in Invention

Invention as a Process

        Is invention inherent in all of our writing? The answer is yes. We all in some way shape or form "shape" our utterances. When we write we have the time to process and think about what goes on the page. A very prominent theory or argument is that writing in itself is secondary to speech because of how utterance works. For example, when an orator speaks, he only has enough time to construct what he believes or knows off the top of his head. Some argue that this is primary utterance. The secondary utterance comes when we sit and we write. It does not matter what the writing entails. All that matters is that we have the time to contemplate and shape what we say. Writing does not come naturally, I will argue, to the human being. It is something that is crafted and learned. Can anyone be a writer? In a sense, yes. Can anyone be what would be classified as a "good" writer? That's debatable. I think I fall on the side that writing is a secondary utterance. I do not think that invention and our own process of writing comes as naturally as speaking to one another in conversation. The implications this has for composition and pedagogy is knowing that the invention process for different people comes at different levels. Some students learn visually as a process for writing, others learn by doing. These articulations in the differences of the invention and writing process enforces the idea that writing is secondary to speaking. How as instructors do we standardize that process for students? It is virtually impossible, but we can cater to those who learn differently in the classroom to some extent. Scott was saying in class he gave students who wanted to take different routes the opportunity to do so. This promotes growth and confidence in students that I think is vital in bolstering the shaping of their own secondary utterances.

Audience

Audience Balance

        As we talked about on Tuesday, I'd like to take a look back at what audience means to me and how I think it affects my field. As a TCR Master's student I'm told all the time that what I write and who I write to are tangible things. However, in the past few weeks I've had to reconcile my differences with audience as opposed to the standard view of TCR. Ong talks about the fictionalized audience that is created whenever a writer writes. He is specifically targeting those who write creatively, however, it definitely ties in to TCR. We think, as TCR people, that we are always writing to the real people who read our manuals, sites, etc. But do we know them personally? Can we accurately predict all of those people who will use our documents? The answer is no. We can, to some extent, gather date on who we are going to be writing to, but we cannot pinpoint our audience as a whole. This idea that we have to invoke and also address our audience is the key in making our field more accessible and more practical than it already is. Without striking a balance between the tangible and invoked we, as instructors and scholars, cannot actively participate in a discourse in or out of the classroom. To some extent, we all have to come to terms with the fact that we will have to generalize our audience to some extent and hope that our point comes across in the writing that we wish to make.

The Great Kairos Situation

Kairos and Composition

        In class over the past week we talked about many rhetorical roots that fit in to the rhetoric of our field and the field of composition. I feel though, that we kind of glossed over the entirety of kairos completely. We did a group project about kairos, but I'm not sure that everyone was 100% sure what a "kairotic" situation exactly was. In essence, kairos is the appropriate time to deliver some sort of rhetoric. Now, some people would confuse this with chronos, except chronos deals more with the passage of time rather than the appropriateness of time as kairos does. A big example is Obama's famous "Hope" speech he gave before he was first elected in 2008. If you read the transcript for his speech and hear his delivery he touches on a lot of things that were "appropriate" for the time. One of these things were the minority groups of the time and how they are the legacy that holds a family afloat in the future concerning the unemployment rate. He had done this on purpose to make a rhetorical situation relevant and personable to the audience in which he was aiming to get votes from. It was also kairotic in history because he was the first black man to even run for president, let alone win it. So his speech took on an MLK-esque quality in delivery and format because that was what was appropriate for the time.

       In class, we were told to respond appropriately to a certain situation involving our first year composition course. While I think this was a good exercise for those who understand the use of kairos in rhetorical situations, I don't know if everyone got it. How does this apply to composition as a whole? Kinneavy had some great ideas on how we could incorporate, or how we should incorporate, kairos in to first year programs. I think Kinneavy's idea is in line with my own in this situation. He says that we should incorporate the appropriateness in to the curriculum. So say, an engineer is in the course. Why not have this engineer do writing assignments that include his field? At that point in time it is probably the most kairotic thing he/she could be doing without realization. This would also help with other departments wishing to splinter the composition programs because they think they can do it better. It's not that they can do it better, it's that they are trying to implement a kairos in to their program that they think is not present in current composition programs. If the field of composition can develop assignments that are general, yet kairos specific at the same time, I think that all of this splintering would slow down and eventually stop. Is it 100% possible or probable? I don't know. However, kairos plays a huge part in our field and any field that requires a certain appropriateness for success.

Classrooms as Contact Zones

Contact Zones

        Bizzell talks extensively about the idea of creating and navigating "contact zones" in the world, and in the classroom environment in general. This idea is super interesting to me so I feel like I want to spend some time with it to kind of work it out. A contact zone is a place where cultures clash and grapple usually in asymmetrical power situations. Is a classroom an asymmetrical power situation? I would say yes. Here, in English or any other discipline, we have a large amount of diverse people. Especially in a freshman composition course, this diversification is much larger because it is required by all the disciplines at this point in time. I believe that this creates contact zones and gives us, as instructors and graders, a chance to grapple with all of these different cultures and viewpoints. In a freshman composition course you'll always have those engineers who do not see the need for such writing. It's here where a contact zone is made. This engineer has been enculturated in to a space where he/she thinks that writing is not important. This is where the instructor for freshman composition has a chance to take advantage of the obvious contact zone that is made between them and their student. It's a place where we can learn how they work and help them understand our culture and vice versa. This idea of a contact zone is a huge deal to me. I think that it is most certainly the way to look at teaching any course and improve the pedagogy, and the interest, of the freshman composition course.

Theories of Process

Process Theory

        When looking over the writings of Berlin, Faigley, and Fulkerson I came across the process theory. Mainly in Faigley's article, but the principles he brings to the front apply across the board. In essence, the competing theories approach the teaching of composition from different angles and how they are classified is decided on which parts of the process they focus on. For Faigley, he tries to work out the writing process using these parts as an "organic" whole. I would have to agree with Faigley in the sense that the writing process is organic. It comes from within the writer and the process itself is unique to the individual. The process theories that try to classify the theory in to some "standard" process are wholly unusable. The teachers who stress the format and the process tend to push away the student more than invite them in to the process itself. It becomes an action of tapping in to one's own self and composing rather than following some strict process to produce "good writing" every single time. 

        The other thing Faigley notes is that when people look at the process they tend to look at it as historically "static". Faigley, and myself, believe that the process of writing is "dynamic". There are too many social, economic, and historical factors that change the process of writing radically from one generation to the next. Can on process be prevalent in one generation and gone in the next? Possibly. However, it may still live on through others who've adopted it because it works for them and they've put their own spin on it. Composing good writing does not come from some strict writing template. There is no "right" or "wrong" process to composing a document or essay. It is finding that inner writer, that "organicness", that makes a piece of "good writing".

The Silence of Women in Academia

Silencing Feminine Voices

        This blog post is a bit late, but I've been pondering on the subject of feminization for a while now. Now that we're moving off of that subject this post may not be very interesting, but I thought I'd give it a go anyways. After reading what we read last week, my view on females in the academic world has changed radically. I had no idea the extent that men will go to secure their "place" in the academic world and to "protect" it from being feminized. After reading Bloom, it just struck me that I've never encountered such a force against me in my entire life. It's always been something different like money, time, or logistics. Never have I had a group of women who had it out for their field, and for me in the process, try to stop my progression.

       This type of thing I hope will stop or become less prevalent in the new generation and wave of graduate students coming out today. However, the question still bangs around in my mind. Will the stereotypes and split between genders ever be resolvable? Will either side come together to try to stop these seemingly obvious injustices? I'm not 100% converted to feminism, however, I think that the opportunity should be equal to all who try and succeed at putting themselves in the academic world.

In My Defense of Feminization

Feminization in the discipline

        First off, I'd like to address the apparent conflict I may have had with my view on feminism. I made the stance that I do support equality across the spectrum, but I did not like the militant feminist regime. I was met with the response, "I think there are more people who say that then there are actually militant feminists" or something to that effect. I got to thinking about our discussion about essentialism and how we attribute or ascribe certain values to things in our culture. I am guilty of that in my stance against militant feminism. I think that I took a small sample of feminists and applied it to the movement as a whole, which was not my intention.

       With that being said, I'd like to defend the "feminization" of the field as a whole. If Composition was being compared to say, Engineering, which would be considered more "masculine"? This idea of essentialism, what makes something exclusively masculine or feminine, permeates every field in education in general. In my previous example most would be inclined to say that the Composition course is more "feminine". Why? Is it because Composition is supposed to invoke more "creativity" which is considered a more feminine trait? I think my point here is that even though it permeates our disciplines it also helps to enrich it. This idea that something is strictly feminine or masculine is outdated and ridiculous. We have here a binary, which in actuality is not a binary at all. The apparent femininity or masculinity of a field is not essentialist because there is not an "essential" man or an "essential" woman. In today's society we have stay at home dads and women in the workplace providing for families. These sorts of essentialist views just do not work in today's society. In fact, the view of the field of Composition being "feminized" actually gives the field more of a place to stand out and combat other fields that are seen as more "masculine". As a field seen through this "feminized" lens we can use it to our advantage to break down other fields in to what they'd consider their "essentialist" parts and expose the possibility that every discipline is "feminized" or "masculine" in different ways. Engineers would hate this, hell, any Science or Math based discipline would hate this. What I say though is that we seize this view and use it to our advantage to advance the discipline and walk in stride next to others using this as a pillar in our arguments. 

Regarding Freshman Composition

What is Freshman Composition?

        We were given an idea in class this week that I've been pondering for a few days now and finally have the time and proper thought to post. What is Freshman Composition? Now, everyone has a different view of how it should be classified and how it should be taught. Based on the readings that we've had in the past month and my own personal thoughts on the process I'll try to publish my thoughts here as organized ramblings.

        First, I think that lumping in Composition with Literature and the broader spectrum of English is a necessary evil. Composition is more about teaching and learning to write, yes, but at the same time a good solid base in reading literature or any kind of writing is necessary to spark the Composition fire inside of a student who is willing to learn. There have been many discussions on the practice/theory split, which in my opinion is not a split at all, and how it affects the field as it is today. I think there should be a healthy balance between the practice and the theory of Composition in the classroom because one cannot really exist without the other. You cannot have a practice without some sort of grounding in theory and theory cannot operate on its own independent of practice. Can a teacher favor one over the other? Sure. However, no teacher goes in to a classroom with no knowledge, however small it may be, of theory. 

        Second, I do not believe that Composition is a "service" course. It should not be regarded as the grunt work of English or any discipline. The reason that it is instituted and required by every major is because it is a core component to any human to be able to express themselves freely. In order to be a functioning voice in a society the ability to write and communicate efficiently and clearly is an absolute must. All of the engineers who think that they will never need these writing skills, even basic ones, are flailing in the professional market because they cannot write a simple email to their boss without sounding juvenile or flat. In a world that is increasingly turning to words and media to help communication these skills are more important than ever. Technology does not stop because people cannot use it effectively. The ones who embrace the new forms of communication, which are increasingly textual, become successful and the others wonder what is hampering their trajectory. The Composition course is a vital part of becoming a well rounded person and contributing to society as a whole.

        Overall, these two major points stick out in my mind as a reason for the Composition course to stay around and to stay attached to English as a whole. I think that it is becoming apparent that the field is needed more than ever within our society with blossoming technology and I think that if Composition were to disappear we may end up like the vision of the world in Mike Judge's Idiocracy.

English Binaries and Composition

Binaries and Composition

        It seems that the reading for Tuesday incorporates something that is present in all fields of English, binaries. I'm going to pull from some of my other reading in my Foundations for Technical Communication, but the idea remains the same across the board to Composition. Binaries and the power/knowledge system that surrounds most disciplines is at the heart of Composition's own identity. It seems that we have many of them: Theory/Practice, science/humanism, etc. These binaries present a tension in the fields and disciplines that we are reading about and it seems to me that you have to fall on either one side or the other.

        For me, I fall on the side of practice more than I do on the side of theory. While theory seems give rise to ideas, practice is taking those ideas and putting them in to action. Composition, in essence, seems to be a "service" course because of its inherent formulaic nature. However, Composition is merely the application of the theory and pedagogy surrounding writing. The reason that Composition, and TCR to some extent, have been able to garner so much more research funding is because of their applicability to the work force and the contribution to the general "fund" of knowledge that exists in the world. Do I agree that pedagogical implications should be applied to every theory or idea written? No. However, I do believe that in order to become more "fundable" or applicable a pedagogical tie does help. I'm not discounting theory completely as not contributing to the "fund" of knowledge, I'm simply separating it from the practical uses of Composition. It seems that many graduate students have strong feelings towards theses binaries. I just chose one here to express my interest in and I don't think that they can ever be resolved. The fact that we keep these binaries alive helps the perpetuation of our fields and helped Composition become a discipline that is recognized on a national level. Without the binaries, we don't have any way to navigate the power struggles and competition between the disciplines either in science/math, or withing English itself.

Philosophy of Composition: Help or Hurt?

Who teaches Composition?

        In Zorn's article that was sent to the class he brings up a very interesting idea that coincides with what we talked about in class this past week. I've been pondering the whole idea that Composition is taught by lowly TA and Graduate students and we can all see why that is probably not a good idea. However, Zorn says that English Composition courses are suffering and failing because we, as a university, appoint English professors who have lost touch with what Composition is to direct the courses. He says that English professors are too over philosophical and bring too much in to the course that has nothing to do with Composition.

        This idea brings to mind the solution to the problem. I firmly believe that in order for Freshman Comp. to be a valuable field and not be discounted as "service" work we need to bring in people who are passionate about Composition and Writing in a more practical sense. Not just on the academic level, but all levels in which writing is used to prepare students to read, think and write critically. Restricting this fields academic pool to those with PhDs and Graduate students who are otherwise occupied, we need to broaden our fields view. Bringing in instructors and BA holders would greatly increase our fields presence while improving its view from the outside. Obviously, there would need to be criterion added to the hiring process to determine if they are passionate or strong enough of a writer to apply that to the classroom. However, those are the finer details. Until we can broaden our view and hiring pool I think that Freshman Comp. will just continue going in the opposite direction that most English students wished it would go.

Visions of English Dept.

A Vision of the English Department

        An odd thought struck me as someone pointed out that the reason English Departments had been split in to so many different disciplines was because of the nature of English to "gobble up" everything around it. After reading Parker and Berlin, I think I would side more with the Berlin approach to why and how English Departments exist. I don't necessarily disagree with the theory that English has the potential to "gobble up" its surrounding disciplines. However, I do think that English and rhetoric itself governs most, if not all, of the disciplines. Without rhetoric or English there would be a huge pile of knowledge at our fingertips, but no way to organize or to express that knowledge in a way that would contribute to the betterment of humanity. Now, I've obviously pigeonholed English into the English language and rhetoric when, as pointed out in class, it exists in other countries and cultures where it doesn't encompass Literature and Composition, but the actual language itself as a foreign or secondary language. 

        In my vision of what the English department is or what it does, I want to confine it within the realm of English as a liberal arts or rhetoric, not as ESL. That is very narrow, but I believe that the function of many English departments as of today are centered and focused on the teaching of writing and composing to a general mass of students who will ultimately need these skills in the job market. Berlin specifically points to socio-economic tensions affecting the way in which English departments are perceived and developed at any given point in time. English is dynamic in its teachings and fits to the time in which is immediate around it. In 2013, students who are not English majors are required to take Composition course to at least come in to contact with the writing and composing skills to better their job hunt after the university. This type of commercialization of higher education has been around for a while, although not forever. If, at this point in the history of time, we are using university to perpetuate a job market then I do think that the university ideal as a whole is off its rocker. However, if we can connect English Departments across disciplines we may be able to not only produce a potential work force, but well rounded humans in general. This is critical to the survivability and versatility of society and thought. Although I am idealistic in thinking that this type of system would work, I know that its application may be difficult if not impossible.