After reading Shaughnessy’s Errors and Expectations and Hartwell’s “Grammar, Grammars, and the Teaching of Grammar,” I’m left wondering what I should be doing in my classroom. I’m concerned about having the time to be able to figure out individual patterns in my students’ writing, as Shaughnessy suggests, and I’m also concerned about Hartwell’s extensive debunking of the value of teaching formal grammar. What is a teacher to think and do?
Enter two chapters from Bruce Horner and Min-Zhan Lu’s Representing the “Other”: Basic Writers and the Teaching of Basic Writing. The first, Lu’s “Redefining the Legacy of Mina Shaughnessy: a Critique of the Politics of Linguistic Innocence,” challenges the premise that we edit and proofread as a final step to the writing process; doing so implies that meaning comes before and is separate from language. Language reflects who we are and what we present to the world, and there are a variety of competing linguistic discourses that we need to be aware of that effect how different readers may respond to our writing (105). Lu notes that, though Shaughnessy challenges students to become familiar with conventions, gain confidence, and respond to conflict between academic and “home” conventions, most ignore that final problem (106).
Shaughnessy also assumes that “linguistic codes” should be taught separately from creating meaning and grappling with different discourses, which is problematic because it doesn’t allow for meaning to change as a result of using language (107-8). For example, when Shaughnessy suggests that a passage by a basic writing student be improved grammatically by removing “filler” phrases (like “I think that…”), she doesn’t take into account how that changes the original meaning the student may have had in mind (108). When discussing these sorts of changes with students, it’s important to talk about how changes in wording, sentence structure, or even punctuation might change the meaning (109).
The key here is that, when teachers show students that they can be a part of the shaping of language (which assumes that Standard English is not, indeed, static but is malleable based on a variety of social and political factors), the conflict between home and academic discourses is less threatening (113).
Bruce Horner’s “Rethinking the ‘Sociality’ of Error: Teaching Editing as Negotiation” offers some more practical advice about how to shift the conversation about error from right and wrong to a negotiation. He discusses the concept of error as a social construction, “…representing flawed social transactions, instances of a failure on the part of both the writer and reader…” (141). As teachers, we are trained to see error, to put on our Standard English “hats” and look for deviations. What happens if we could detach from that, though, so that “we could make the ordinary kind of contract with those texts that we make with other kids of texts”? The answer is that “…we could find many fewer errors” (Lees qtd. in Horner 143). Ultimately, Horner suggests that we need to avoid the right/wrong dichotomy with error because students then are in a position of not having any power over their own writing, “…a position which…also relieves them of responsibility” (150).
To that end, Horner offers several practical suggestions for activities that will get students to pay attention to writing codes and grapple with those codes. First, though, it’s important to give students the power to make decisions about their writing. This means that students could choose to stick with their “errors,” but they generally don’t, not because they feel like they don’t have a choice, but because, if we’ve set it up correctly in our classrooms, they want to communicate in a specific way for their chosen audiences (157).
The first suggestion is to have class discussions that talk about error—what they think about different types of errors, the fact that there are conflicting opinions on what constitutes errors, and ideas about how various types of errors are viewed (158). Having this conversation gets students to think about errors and their ability to be negotiated. We may have our own “systems” for correcting error, but maybe we should give some of those decisions up to the students. Horner suggests asking students about how they want us to respond to their writing. This changes our role from teacher to mediator, “…offering informed guidance to what might well be acceptable outside the course, in different writings or in various contexts” (159).
The second suggestion is to have individual conferences in which we talk to our students about “meaning, purpose, and relationship as much as they involve ‘code’” (159). We need to avoid the teacher role and instead ask questions about what students mean. Pointing out those parts in the writing that are unclear or reading aloud the part that is difficult and then asking the student to talk more about it maintains the students’ power over their writing (160).
Horner also finds that having peer reviews can be useful. Teachers might be reticent to this because they see basic writing students as not having the skills to be able to comment effectively on writing, and the students themselves may also lack this confidence. Remember, though, that what’s happening is a discussion about meaning and a negotiation about the presentation of that meaning. Anyone who can read can respond to writing in this way (161).
Finally, Horner suggests that editing be a part of the whole process, even composing, because it helps create meaning; therefore, we should purposely include writing assignments and activities that ask students to respond to their own and others’ writing. Writing responses to professional writing allows them to think not just about their own writing but what they think about the professional writing AND how their writing relates to the text that they’re responding to (163). What could make for a better negotiation?
Reading these essays reinforced the idea of letting students have power over their own writing. I am especially fascinated by the idea of peer review—I’ve been dissatisfied with my peer reviews for a while now. It’s been a long time since I have tried small group peer reviews in which I meet with the groups, but it might be worth considering. I’m also excited to set up an environment of inquiry in my classroom, talking about language and texts, how texts are created and how students can create them to say what they want to say, how they want to say it.
No comments:
Post a Comment