General Response to the Reading
I really liked the second article we read for this week, Lisa Ede and Andrea Lunsford's "Audience Addressed/Invoked: The Role of Audience in Composition Theory and Pedagogy," and I think it relates a lot to my blog response for this week (listed after this) in terms of situation and critical thinking. Reading their discussion of audience, I was reminded of an article I read and heavily used in a chapter of my thesis, called "Rogue Cops and Health Care: What Do We Want from Public Writing?" by Susan Wells (here on JSTOR) which argued public is typically more of a fluid concept than a static audience, location, or forum (as Wells positions it, public should provide "questions, rather than answers" pg. 327).Too often we expect students to "write to their audience," but I think that can be an oversimplification, and potentially a disservice when we position audience in a sort of Us and Them dichotomy. Public, Audience, or Public Audience doesn't exist in a vacuum completely divorced of the classroom--it's a combination of wonderfully complicated systems, locations, historical time frames, cultures, and ideologies. The main point I gathered from the article was that we invent our audience through analytical processes--that the construction of audience is in a way similar to the construction of an educated guess, and requires both the ability to interpret contexts as well as incorporate elements of innovation or creativity.
Also, I especially liked the point in the article about the writer or producer being included in their own audience--I mean, if you're writing for yourself, you still have someone in mind, right?
9/1, blog prompt for this week: What is the most difficult thing to teach in the teaching of writing, and how do you go about teaching that?
What is the most difficult thing to teach in the teaching of writing?
I think for me, the most difficult thing to teach in the teaching of writing are the critical thinking elements--how to include self-reflective elements in the writing process, how to research or understand various perspectives on issues or arguments, and how to facilitate the growth from "this is what I know" to "this is what other people know." And, in that vein, to understand that there is an element of accountability (responsibility, maybe?) when communicating with a public.It's hard to try going outside the analytical and interpretive frames that are readily available and comfortable to us as writers (or readers)--to challenge our own belief systems and ideologies when it comes to constructing a piece of writing that is meant for audiences outside of ourselves. It's also difficult to emphasize or demonstrate that there is value in trying to more fully understand opposing viewpoints, alternate methods, and different epistemological approaches.
A lot of understanding the writing process, I feel, involves the externalization of our thinking processes: how did we get to that conclusion? Why do we feel like it's the "right" one? etc. Trying to instruct students to evaluate and reflect upon their process is an element of teaching that is going to be difficult no matter what writing level or setting.
How do you go about teaching that?
Haha good question! At the moment, I'm most interested in looking at more Neo-Sophistic pedagogy strategies, especially at methods of deconstruction (in argumentation, in composition, in research, etc.) and ways to externalize meaning-making processes. Things like mapping, brainstorming, and outlining are a good start, but I want to find more ways to tailor these processes to research literacy--I want to find methods to encourage students to be reflective on not only their composition, but how they research and how they reach conclusions-- the age-old question, How Do You Know What You Know?
Thanks--and yeah, I think we all have responsibility (or at least, accountability) for the messages we produce--something I really want to do more is incorporate more elements of civic engagement to the FYC/W courses I teach. I agree- we don't want students being taken advantage of, and critical reading/rhetorical analysis I think is a good starting place for that type of education.
ReplyDeleteA good point with brainstorming--sometimes collaboration can be a double-edged sword (or pen, I guess?).
Love love love this. Combining your responses, might it be productive to have students analyze themselves as audience in a variety of situations? They could imagine themselves as members of hiring committees, community leaders, or whatever role fits the assignment in question. I think many students would have a general idea of the kinds of things that are/are not acceptable in each context, e.g., they would hopefully know that texting lingo is inappropriate in a letter of application to a future employer. They could create a list of characteristics they would find acceptable or unacceptable and keep that list in mind while writing. It would, I think, "facilitate the growth from 'this is what I know' to 'this is what other people know.'"
ReplyDeleteAnd if they even have trouble with that exercise, back up to "this is what I know" by positioning them, as they are, as the audience of a letter from a friend, a parent, an employer, etc. Placing the concepts of audience awareness squarely on their shoulders could jog their thinking and hopefully bring about a more nuanced understanding of how to write in the proper register and how to consider other people's views.
Hope that makes sense...just a thought!
Nice post, Leah. Should we work with students to identify what they themselves know as writers as they're, in part, the readers too? How can we do so without getting them too confused? I think that's helpful because they'll analyze the audience better. Good thinking about interpretation and the conclusion. You might like to read Stanley Fish. Maybe look up his "Is there a text in this class?" theories about interpretation.
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