Divide to conquer

8/6/2019 Divide to conquer

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Divide to Conquer

Limiting the goals of English

composition courses

Edgar Eslava

National ELT Conference

Chia, Abril 24,2008


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2. Students development of individualized modes of

expression is not always welcomed(mainly because of theweight that tradition imposes to academic writing).

Corollary: The use of

personally-developed

styles that do not

correspond with the

language accepted by

the academicestablishment is often

punished, regardless

of their effectiveness

and fluency in

transmitting content

and meaning.


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BUT, the force of the argument has led to over-read the history ofcomposition theory and its role in the classroom, overstating the goals and

practices that composition instructors should pursue and include whenever they

teach.

And things get all

mixed up.


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My aims for todays presentation:

1. To define the context and extent of what I call the overstatement

problem.

2. To present the basic lines of a suitable solution, the divide to

conquer strategy, in the context of a community of critical

thinkers.

Divide to conquer claims for a pedagogical

dynamics, that limits the need for a permanent

re-enacting of the history of composition theory

while still responding to the actual needs of

instructors and students: becoming members of

communities that value multi-perspective

approaches to conflicts resolution.


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Instruction and critical thinking

English language instructors (us) maintain a two-fold relation with what I

consider to be the main goal of any educative enterprise, the constructionof a community of critical thinkers.

1. We are in very favorable situation for the construction of environments

where critical thinking can be developed.

Few places compare to the classroom

for its multiple options for generating stimulating

discussions. In this space, the instructor

can lead students from diverse backgrounds

towards a mastery of analytical

communicative skills.


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Instruction and critical thinking

2. Because of the very nature of universities and schools as socially-regulated

academic institutions, we are required to show the limits between what can

be said and what cannot be said by those who aspire to become recognized as

members of the academic community. In this sense, we set the limits of the

admissible and the inadmissible.


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To fulfill their task, teachers must:

- Design class activities not only in accordance with the curriculum proposed by

their institutions but also structured under the notion that critical thinking only growsin a meaningful environment.

- Lectures should share the stage with activities where students participation is the

rule and not the exception.

- Present their views in such a way that contributes to students mastery of the

writing process.

- Give writing assignments that ask students for creative approaches, rather thanmerely asking for proving their ability to memorize and repeat information, that

beyond simply requiring logical consistency and grammatical precision allow them

to place themselves as active voices in ongoing dialogues.

- A serious commitment with ways of evaluating writing projects and in-class

participation in such a way that students understand the grading process not as a

punitive mechanism but as a feedback tool that allows them to see where they stand

as critical thinkers and writers.

No wonder why some teachers feel overwhelmed by the

heavy weight of their responsibilities.


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My definition shares:

Dewey's pragmatic approach. Dewey (1916) Democracy andEducation and Dewey (1938)Experience and Education).

Girouxs radicalism. Giroux (1983) Theory and resistance in

education: A pedagogy for the opposition, Giroux (1992) Border

crossings: Cultural workers and the politics of education)

My definition does not go as far, as Giroux does, as to declarepolitical action as the main goal of critical thinking. It opposes some

more restricted approaches that qualify critical thinking as the result

of the close observance of a set of formal activities and the

development of particular skills (for example Lipman (1988)

Philosophy goes to School, and Ennis (1994) Dispositions and

abilities if ideal critical thinkers. )

Links with Critical Thinking

A Critical Thinker is an individual who develops independent,

creative, argument-based and multi-perspective ideas, and whois able to present and defend them competently addressing

concrete audiences and responding to specific problems. (E.E.)


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The primary advantage of such a broad definition is that it rests on the fact that the

generation of ideas involves the individuals who generate them and the contexts where

they are needed as responses to concrete situations.

A typical problem: From the formal approach, this social contextualism is reduced to a mereaccidental issue that can be ignored as part of the process of reaching formal correctness and

that plays no role once such correctness is reached. This is why curriculums centered on the

formal aspects of the composition process tend to promote objective measures of students

progress and efficacy and to pay little attention to the relation between class activities and the

students worldviews.


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As my operative definition suggests, teachers in general are in highly favorable position

to participate in the generation of environments where critical thinking can grow

naturally. This feature, if taken seriously enough, would generate class dynamics

where the traditional roles of students and instructors as the ends of a lineal processof information interchange are replaced by that of members of a community of

critical thinkers.

Argument-based ideas.

Multi-perspective ideas.

Present and defend ideas.Address concrete audiences

Respond to specific problems/tasks.

Not a one-way communication


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For that reason composition instructors are in a privileged position as critical

thinking leaders and promoters. They act in a territory full of possibilities to

incorporate in their classes alternative viewpoints about shared problems, and the topic of

their classes cannot be more appropriate for the task of developing critical thinking: a

mastery of writing allows individuals to communicate in diverse contexts and to present

their ideas in a wide variety of modes. Consider for example how public discussions of

conflictive issues such as state legislatorsdecisions andcitizenspolitical participation

would benefit from voices of individuals capable of addressing the central arguments of

rival positions and to put them in fair dialogue. Such individuals would help

transforming open forums into standpoints for agreement.


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Therefore: teaching composition naturally subsumes the

promotion of critical thinking.

The critical thinking approach enriches the practice of

teaching composition by introducing into the teaching

practice valuable elements such as new roles for students

and instructors and a fresh way to undertake the

construction of class dynamics.

It is in this context that the problem of

overstating goals and practices must beunderstood.


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The overstatement problem

The overstatement problem is a twofold problem:

1. The over-reading of the lessons from the history of composition theories.2. Traditional methods are based on a view of writing process that positions it

as the most important communicative activity (at least for college-level

students), leaving unattended not only the rest of communicative practices

that play a role in the construction of discourses and disciplines but, more

insidious, the fact that they are in permanent dialogue with one another.


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1. The over-reading of the lessons from the history of composition theories.

Instructors try to condense all the lessons from the history of the discipline in

their current practices, without questioning the particular agendas and

objectives that such a history serves.

They tend to forget the enormous

difference between the time necessary forhistory to be built and the time frame in

which active instruction is confined.


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We know too much about our discipline if we try to use all our knowledge at once.

It is true that there is a tradition we are preserving and actualizing every time we get

into the classroom. We know about contexts, audiences, stages, theories, models andactivities.

BUT

The students we find in front of us are individuals starting in different developmental

stages, belonging to diverse social contexts.

We know too much if all our knowledge needs to be displayed on daily basis. There

will never be enough time for responding to all the variables history teaches us we

should consider for integrating the immense amount of tasks that generations ofeducators have shown we can perform to complete our goals, for understanding and

executing all the different theoretical approaches we know could be understood and

executed in order to make our practice more effective.


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It takes more that just one or two academic terms to develop solid and structured

writers, but that is about the time that composition instructors usually have toparticipate in the progress of their students.

The problem is then trying

to do much more than

what we can effectivelydo, just to be respectful

with the knowledge gained

from history.


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A path to solve the problem:

We have to carefully select the goals and activities around which our practice

gravitates and avoid the tempting way of pretending we can do everythingevery time.

Comprehensive goals are not at odds with using a limited number of strategies

to achieve them. Multi-perspective projects do not imply missing the focus

our class activities. Integration does not mean mixture, it means recognition of

the existence of multiple suitable solutions to particular problems, and finding

out which out of the multitude is the one that better serves us.

Divide to conquer means limiting the

goals and focuses the tasks that basic

composition courses should

accomplish, and extends the timeframe

for accomplishing those goals.
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Extending in time the inclusion of formaland practical issues about composition

reduces the possibilities for being

overwhelmed by the cumulative character

of our knowledge.

Modifying instructional formats that

propose mastering different composition

styles and purposes in a mater of weeks

with, say, term-long formats that promote

the mastery of fundamental skills avoids a

dangerous mixture of goals and wouldprevent students to be overloaded with

activities.

History allows us to theset goals and provides

with examples of

suitable ways to

conquer them.


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A divide-to-conquer based program acknowledges this fact and uses it in the benefit of both

instructors and students. Composition instructors would find that in their effort for offering

students tools that allow them to understand, interpret and judge a diverse set of contexts and

media (written, drawn, played, multi-media constituted) there would be no better way than to

integrate them into multi-dimensional discourses.

Replacing the seemingly endless list of micro-projects that has traditionally been used to gain

practice in diverse writing styles and formats by projects focused on certain basic skills and

that help students to gain familiarity with the multi-dimensionality of the current academic

discourse would serve the instructors cause while making their practice more interesting and

rewarding.
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Students would find that such integrative projects open new

ways for effective use and construction of their own discursive

voice, with the emphasis placed not in the supremacy of writing

over the rest of communication strategies, but in the benefits that

mastering composition offers for participating in a multi-

dimensional dialogue - precisely the kind of dialogue that critical

thinkers are to generate and promote.

End of the theory, let us see an example


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Course Description [of a classical Eng 101 class]

Composition 1 provides students with the rhetorical foundations that prepare them for the demands of academic and professional writing.

The course will help students understand the strategies and processes that good writers use when they try to accomplish a specific purpose.

In college, these purposes include writing to understand and to demonstrate that understanding; writing to teach, entertain, or persuade a

reader; writing to pose or solve problems; and writing to explain or challenge existing knowledge. The course will also teach students to

respond effectively to the writing of others, and to use the suggestions of their teacher and their peers to improve their own writing. Some

class discussion and readings focus on the function and scope of language and communication in a variety of social contexts.Student Learning Goals

Upon completing English 10, students should be able to:

Effectively use and analyze forms and conventions of academic writing;

Generate good writing using the help of specific methods for inventing and elaborating ideas, for arranging these ideas to achieve a specific rhetorical purpose, for

producing good style, for revising and for editing;

Write well in a variety of rhetorical contexts;

Understand the ways that purpose, process, subject matter, form, style, tone, and diction can be shaped to address a particular audience in a specific situation;

Demonstrate understanding of the ways that language and communication shape experience, construct meaning, and foster community;

Use Edited American English appropriately.

Course calendarWeek 1 (Aug.20-24)

Diagnostic

Presentation of Class Syllabus, activities and assignments

Introduction of Paper 1 assignment

Week 2 (Aug.27-31)

Generating and focusing essays ideas

Narration and description

Week 3 (Sept. 3-7)

First paper dueLabor Day Holliday

Focusing (II)

Introduction of paper 3 assignment

Week 4 (Sept. 10-14)

Second paper due


Audience awareness

Week 5 (Sept. 17-21)

Persuading and argumentationDiscussion of a classical Philosophical argumentative text

Week 6(Sept. 24-28)Third paper due


Week 7(Oct. 1-5)

Research tools

Design of a research outline

Week 8 (Oct. 8-12)

MLA and other technical tools

Technical workshop

Week 9 (Oct. 15-19)

Illustration and exemplification

Fourth paper due

Week 10 (Oct. 22-26)

Comparing and contrasting

Fall Break (Oct.27-Nov.4) No Classes

Week 11 (Nov. 5-9)

Analyzing the writing process

Week 12 (Nov. 12-16)

Fifth paper due

Review of theoretical contentFocusing on the final document

Week 13 (Nov. 19-23)Review of technical tools

Grammar workshop

Week 14 (Nov. 26-30)

Editing and revising

documents

Week 15 (Dec. 3-7)

Final paper due (Monday)

Course evaluation

Preparation for the final exam

Final Exam

Dec. 10, 10:00-12:00


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Course Description [of a classical Eng 101 class]

Main activities:

Read and Write.

Main resources:

Textbooks.

Final product:

Large amount of diverse (unconnected) material, plus final exam.


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A less classical (real) example

Course goals: extend the skills of expository writing and critical thinking, appreciate and

interpret drama and poetry, and write analytically about them; understand literary principles

and use basic terms important to critical writing and reading; and document essays using textualevidence.

This section will focus on the plays of Shakespeare and film adaptations of those plays. Students

will learn to deal with the challenges of reading Renaissance drama, discuss the importance of

cultural context in reading Shakespeare, explore reading film as literature, and examine issues of

adapting and updating the plays for the screen.

Course requirements: Students will write four essays (two drafts and two finished texts) . In

addition to writing papers and doing other work, all students will create a Final Writing

Portfolio that counts approximately as one-third of their final grade. The Portfolio will include:

a biography of the portfolio author and, if desired, a picture of the writer or other relevant

image;

an Introductory Reflective Essay that presents a significant "thesis" to be demonstrated by the

individual writing exhibits;

two of the four essays written for the class--revised, edited, and polished as final products for

the portfolio;

one example of writing that demonstrates and discusses the student's composing process and

revision skills/process;

one example that demonstrates and discusses the student's contribution to peer review;

one "wild card" submission chosen by the student.


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A less classical (real) example.

Main activities:

Read, discuss, interpret, watch, document analysis, write.

Main resources:

Films, personal portfolio, Shakespeares.

Final products:

Two sets of connected essays, Writing portfolio, enactments.


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Students would find that such integrative projects open new

ways for effective use and construction of their own

discursive voice, with the emphasis placed not in the

supremacy of writing over the rest of communicationstrategies, but in the benefits that mastering composition

offers for participating in a multi-dimensional dialogue -

precisely the kind of dialogue that critical thinkers are to

generate and promote.

After all

Theoretically speaking, even if the general features of a text could be understood in

similar ways for multiple readers, the transmitted message or the aesthetic effect it

provokes could probably be considerably different. For example, depending on

personal backgrounds and interests, Shakespeares Romeo and Juliet can be seen as a

drama of passion and devotion of young lovers, or as a tale of immaturity and

foolishness, or it could be viewed as a story that points out the need for transgressing

social rules and commitments when trying to get what is desperately wanted, or the

theme of the angst and hollowness of two lives that look for their meaning out of

themselves.


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Who can explaina kiss, with words

only?
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Divide to conquer