IH Final Post!!

Revision and Technology

This week in class, students worked on their final essays.  Professor K has assigned them persuasive essays, in which they must argue utilizing the appeals of ethos, pathos and logos.  They have worked extensively on revision and rewriting, utilizing feedback from both peers and Professor K, and assessing their essays for individual strengths and weaknesses so they might shape and craft their writing to the best of their abilities. During each revision, Professor K has them underline their substantial changes both so that he is on the same page as his students, and to ensure his scholars put proper thought into any revisions they make.

I, too, have spent a great deal of time on revisions and rewriting in my classroom.  I think it’s so important that students learn that writing is a process, and not a one-time-deal.  My students have spent a great deal of time working in peer response groups and considering substantial changes.  However, I really admire the way Professor K has his students revise in class, considering his lessons and using them to hone their own writing.  I think there’s something integral in teaching students various writing techniques, and then having them turn immediately around and wield these techniques in reshaping their own writing.  I’d like to do more of this next term.

Another admirable aspect of Professor K’s classroom is the way he asks for student input.  During this, the last week of class, he has asked his students to complete a survey.  The survey considers the strengths and weaknesses of his course, the lessons students have learned, and the lessons they still wish to conquer.  Professor K has utilized the writing lab to great effect; the surveys were completed on a web server, which enables students to write more, and Professor K to read more easily.  It’s also a great way to keep student answers organized; Professor K can simply flip back to these student surveys in order to shape his next class.  He actually took the time to show me the results of the survey, which students completed through a CSU Stanislaus program called “quantrics.”  The data is compiled into graphs and neat lists, and certain quantifiable numbers (e.g., ratings students assigned to various questions) that can all be easily accessed should Professor K wish to utilize the information.

Throughout the semester, Professor K has utilized computers to great effect.  I hope to emulate his example in my English 1007 classroom next semester; the class will be held in a computer lab, and I’d like to use each of the programs I’ve seen used by Professor K and his class.  The survey was a fantastic idea, and I really like the idea of using Google docs, which is something Professor K has relied upon for the entirety of his class.  Each of these programs teaches students the importance of technology, which is arguably a fundamental facet of any career field.  As English teachers, we have the chance to help our students gain valuable technological knowledge; it’s vital that we capitalize upon this opportunity and guide our students toward honing these important skills.

Post-Semester Interview

Fifteen weeks ago, a semester of internship responsibilities and lessons stretched out before me.  Which way would I go?  Which lessons would I learn?  As I traversed the winding road of teaching, several possibilities presented themselves: the notion of learning how to incorporate social constructionism into the classroom community; the notion of building a classroom community bottom up; the notion that I, too, could become a skilled teacher, with the tools and methods necessary for guiding my students toward a better understanding of writing and themselves.  Now, as I wrap up my semester long internship, a few questions have arisen; I’ve formulated these into a question/answer session with Professor K, and the results are below. 

Michele: How has the computer lab helped shape the building of a writing community in your classroom? How has it hindered community building?

Professor K: The group is the core unit in my classes. Just seeing that one is in a specific group helps to build community—that’s not dependent on technology though part of the group identity is online through peer response and online conferences. I do not think it has hindered community building although students might benefit from additional practice in F2F communication.

[SIDE NOTE: I specifically chose to ask this question because I, too, strive to incorporate a community into my classroom, and I wondered how computers had shaped Professor K’s experience.  This is especially vital because my English 1007 course next semester will take place in a computer lab, and I don’t want the computers to prove distancing.  It seems that just the tiniest action – placing students into groups – helps shape the community all on its own.]

Michele: At the beginning of the semester, you stated that you expect your students’ writing to transform the world. How have your students achieved this feat? What obstacles continue to stand in their way?

Professor K: Clearly. Thanks for reminding me about this; I need to remind my students. Essentially, it is labor that transforms the world, and part of that transformation is to become better, more adept, with the technologies we have at hand and can employ to make changes. For example, I think in the world of the classroom, students’ work on writing has transformed my understandings of them and their shared understandings of one another. It has been the main source of communication and understanding in that world. One could look at this trivially or as something fundamental to what we come to the university to practice. Writing critically transforms students’ understanding of the world around them and their understandings of themselves. Writing is work and work changes things.

[SIDE NOTE: This is another question I specifically chose to ask because of my own teaching experiences, and also because I love Professor K’s notion of writing as transformative.  I think it’s so important to help students incorporate themselves into their writing; it enables the transformation from passive learner to active thinker, guiding students toward the belief that their writing can change the world.]

Michele: How have the philosophies and teachings of social constructionism come into play within your classroom this semester?

Professor K: I can best answer this by saying that I am a social constructionist to the very core—it is who I am (constructed to be). So, I don’t know how to answer this question except in these two ways. First social constructionism permeates every day of every class I teach, not in a planful way where I review my agenda and activities to make sure I have injected some construction but just because that is how I think. I have often said that I am not concerned with voice in writing, which is just a provocative way of saying that my voice does not belong to me but to all the intersecting texts that have constructed the unique voice I get to use. Second, this question relates to [the previous question] because I believe that every writing that we do constructs meaning, communication, truth, and that, in doing so, we are constructing the world for ourselves and others which is an act of transformation.

[SIDE NOTE: I chose this question because I am fascinated by the ways in which theory shapes teaching.  As many of you know, I tend to focus on expressivism.  Professor K’s social constructionism, however, has gone a long way in shaping his students’ learning experiences, all of which have been exemplary.  I find his response intriguing, and hope to learn more about social constructionism as I advance in my teaching career.]

Michele: How have this semester’s students used their own judgments to build upon voice and writing skills?

Professor K: Some place synthesis or “creativity” above judgment in the hierarchy of thinking skills, but I continue to believe that judgment is at the top and “what we’re at school to learn to do.”  I have not done much with judgment up to this point, but the second essay ends with a judgment based on analysis. So far as writing skills, I tend to think of the cognitive load that students must carry into that last part of the essay. There is a lot when students are coming out of an analysis, holding that analysis in mind, and bringing it bear to make a judgment. This is not an easy essay. So, if a student can use the control the technology of writing to present their thinking coherently, then, yes, I think we’ve done something with writing skills. Here I re-admit that I have not have spent much concern on voice.

[SIDE NOTE: One of Professor K’s “pop out statements” in my pre-semester interview focused on how he’d use judgment to build voice and writing skills. While he asserts that he has not spent much time this semester focusing on judgment or voice, I still find that his students have learned about both.  Each of his assignments is carefully tailored to guide them toward becoming better writers: a skill inextricably interlinked with voice and judgment.  When I graded his students’ papers toward the end of the semester, I found their voice and judgment strong; I must believe Professor K’s lessons helped them hone these strengths.]

IH Hours Week 14

To Grade Harsh or Not to Grade Harsh: I’ve Got the Question; Now What’s the Answer?

I spent a large portion of my internship hours grading Professor K’s student’s precis; something that I truly enjoyed.  I began the process by meeting with Professor K in his office, and speaking with him in-depth about how best to grade this assignment.  It included not only the precis (that four-sentence summary that strikes at the heart of an essay, requiring students to cite not just argument and evidence, but also to consider purpose and potential audience), it also asked students to frame a critical question and develop a response.  And Professor K was adamant that students follow this procedure; they were not to slack off, or go lax on their work.  They had to craft a brilliant precis, critical question, and discussion section, or risk receiving a low grade and the suggestion that they redo their work in order to achieve a higher score.

I was a little hesitant about grading with such strict parameters.  I’m notorious for being lenient with my students, and grading easy when perhaps I should grade more strict.  For this reason, I asked Professor K to provide me with two or three essays he’d already graded, so I could learn from his marks and suggestions and attempt to use similar techniques in grading his subsequent essays.  Even then, I found the first ten difficult to grade.  Each essay took me anywhere from ten to fifteen minutes because I was determined to use painstaking accuracy on critiques and scores.  As the process became more natural, I found myself jumping into the grading experience and producing helpful, instructive comments, which I believe will guide students toward crafting better papers.  I graded 33 essays overall, each of which were critiqued according to Professor K’s standards, and each of which allowed me to shed the “lenient instructor” mode and slip into the caring, strict instructor model.

At the end of the experience, Professor K invited me into his office to discuss my grading techniques and common problems students experienced on both their precis and their overall arguments.  I learned a lot during this discussion, not the least lesson being that Professor K sometimes experiences similar hesitancy in grading student work.  I also grew more confident in my techniques, especially because I realized that students would have a chance to take advantage of my critiques in crafting better papers, which they could then turn in for higher scores.

Before this semester, I had no idea what a precis was; now I know how best to grade one, and how best to guide students toward crafting skilled precis.  I feel confident that I will incorporate not just Professor K’s grading techniques into my own classroom, but also his use of the precis.  There’s something to be said about requiring students to summarize essays in four sentences.  It not only encourages them to think, it also guides them toward a better understanding of what they’ve read.  And this is, I think, a fundamental lesson within the English classroom; critical thinking is a must when it comes to any type of learning.

IH Hours Week 14

Critiques, Comments, and Rubrics, Oh My!

Professor K begins his class by introducing a detailed rubric.  Students are expected to utilize this rubric in commenting on their fellow students’ essays; each criteria includes concise guidelines on which levels of work will fall under which groupings (e.g., work that is strong/proficient, work that is adequate, work that is developing, and work that is weak or missing).  For the next several minutes of class, students break into groups and use this rubric to consider their fellows’ essays in great depth.  I’m intrigued by the work that’s going into this critique session.  Often, students don’t receive enough information from teachers on how to critique/comment on one another’s writing; here, Professor K has given them explicit instructions.

Walking around the room, I see many students ignoring Professor K’s instructions.  Some are watching You Tube videos; others are browsing the Internet.  Still, there are those specific few who are critiquing one another’s essays, commenting on how impressed they are with each other’s work.  I stop to speak with a couple of students, asking them their opinions of Professor K’s critique.  While they are quick to state that it’s difficult and time consuming, they are just as quick to applaud its power in helping them craft better essays and critiques.  One student says, “It helps me a lot.”  Because their peers are critiquing using this in-depth rubric, they are producing in-depth critiques, which students may then use in crafting better developed essays.

After speaking with students, I take a closer look at the rubric.  I’m impressed by the groupings/criteria involved.  Students are not only expected to consider title and headings, description and summary, they are also expected to reflect upon the use of logos, ethos, pathos, and judgment. This requires a higher level of thought; it requires students to become the teachers, thus increasing their understanding of the appeals of ethos, pathos and logos.  My own students still sometimes struggle with these appeals; Professor K’s students, however, are expected to know the appeals so well, they can help each other perfect their own use of these persuasive methods.

After about half an hour, Professor K projects instructions on the overhead: “Make your Plan for Rewriting so that you can access it in the Writing Center today . . . This is a chance to discuss with tutor and peers what you need to focus on in rewriting.”  Again, I’m impressed by Professor K’s foresight into the process of rewriting; I’m equally impressed with the knowledge that his students are required not just to rewrite, but to consider in-depth how they will tackle this process.  They are very much an active part of their rewriting process, and through use of Professor K’s techniques, they should be learning quite a bit about themselves as writers during the procedure.

During the process, Professor K wanders the room, checking to ensure his students are on task and that they require no further assistance.  But students have slipped into their scholarly modes, and the tasks are progressing nicely.  Even those who at first watched You Tube and surfed the Internet are now taking their roles seriously, and working hard to critique their peers’ papers.  And here, in the last two weeks of term, I have discovered an important lesson.  For most of the semester, I have struggled to teach my own students how to critique and leave helpful comments on their peers’ papers.  Professor K has taught me in one short lesson that the procedure lay in the planning; by providing students with both a rubric and instructions on how to create a Plan for Rewriting, Professor K has equipped them with all techniques necessary to create helpful comments and critiques.  I will definitely be employing these techniques in my classroom next term.

IH Hours Week 12 (2)

Yesterday, in English 1006 . . .

Professor K discussed elegant persuaders: those delectable appeals utilized by Aristotle and all great persuasive thinkers who have followed after, culminating in a rush for knowledge and persuasive power within the composition classroom.  There’s ethos: authority, trust, believability, credibility, reputation (think branding); there’s logos: reason,  logic, common sense, examples (think charts and graphs); and then there’s pathos: emotion, feelings, desire (think cute little puppy dogs and cats that go “mrow”).  Each of these appeals can be utilized to create a powerful persuasive argument, which is exactly what Professor K is teaching his bright-eyed students.

Because his class is having some trouble understanding the methods of ethos, pathos, and logos, he delivered a powerpoint presentation which went over all of the intricacies, offering suggestions for how they might incorporate these appeals into their arguments.  Once students had a better grasp of the concepts, he assigned them a task: develop a computer-based presentation which encompasses each of the three Aristotelian-approved persuasion methods.  (Side Note: Don’t you just love the word “persuasion”?  It has so many possibilities.  Persuasion.  Persuasion.  Persuasion.  Ahem.  I’m done now . . .)  Anyway, students spent much of class searching the Internet for advertisements about candy bars, cars, and other assorted goods, crafting their presentation so that they utilized these appeals.  They will be giving these presentations next week.

I thoroughly enjoyed this class.  My own English 1006 students have spent the week learning about ethos, pathos, and logos, hunting down advertisements and watching commercials, preparing for their final essay of the term; it’s quite beneficial to watch another instructor teach the same concept.  I actually learned quite a bit in Professor K’s class: information which I then imparted to my own students, who now seem to understand the appeals just a little better.  I hope to gather even more information as Professor K continues this unit.  As someone who never studied these appeals until this semester, it’s wonderful to learn them now.  Whoever knew Aristotle had so much to offer?

IH Hours Week 12 (1)

This week, in English 1006 . . .

Professor K taught his students about ethos, pathos, and logos: the three rhetorical appeals originated in Greece, and keeping us company ever since.  Good ol’ Aristotle and his persuasive methods; who ever woulda thought they’d still be around 2,000 years later?  Certainly not Professor K’s students, who stared at him blankly as he reiterated the ins and outs of these three powerful methods.  Luckily, the light finally clicked on, and Professor K handed them a task: to write an essay based around these three methods.  Some students have chosen to write about candy bars; others have chosen more lucrative items, such as those transportation mechanisms known as cars.  Whatever the choice, each student is primed to write their first persuasive essay of the semester.

Of more interest to me, at least on Tuesday, was spending about an hour in Professor K’s office after class, during which time he taught me the intricacies of grading.  Y’see, I’m finally embarking on this semester’s research project: I will be grading student rhetorical precis with an eye in mind toward keeping them honest and direct.  Each rhetorical precis comes complete with four sentences; each of these sentences must accomplish a task.  Because I’ve gone into the intricacies of rhetorical precis in a previous post, I won’t bore you with the details here.  Suffice it to say that I must ensure each student accomplishes the purposes of every sentence, without veering too far off course.

I’m looking forward to grading these assignments; I love that Professor K has given me such solid parameters, and I look forward to seeing how his students complete their precis.  I’m considering using this assignment in my English 1007 course next term, so I’m happy to have a chance to explore it in more depth.  In the meantime, I’m enjoying Professor K’s persuasive lessons, and eagerly await his students’ persuasive arguments.  It will be fun to see how they put ethos, pathos and logos into effect.

RR Week 12

Anxiety Within the Computer-Based Composition Classroom

“Computer-mediated written discussions are particularly beneficial for students who are normally reticent in face-to-face oral discussions.  It is important to note, however, that the incorporation of computer technology into the classroom has also been accompanied by an increasing number of students who experience anxiety when interacting with computers or when thinking about the possibility of using computers” (Matsumura and Hann 403).

In an age where composition teachers are increasingly relying upon computer-based instruction, and composition students are increasingly expected to interact within the medium of computer-based technology, one question looms above the rest: is this new type of “space age” classroom beneficial to the students involved, or does it present fresh problems yet to be resolved?  In their article, “Computer Anxiety and Students’ Preferred Feedback Methods in EFL Writing,” Shoichi Matsumura and George Hann consider this issue firsthand, delving into the intricacies surrounding a class of second language learners given the opportunity to utilize Internet technology in the revision process of their composition essays (404).  In an attempt to better understand the fresh problems stemming from the use of computers, Matsumura and Hann consider the presence of computer anxiety within their students, and its measured effects upon the writing/revision process.

In assessing the effect of anxiety upon writing students, Matsumura and Hann encouraged their composition class to divide into revision groups based upon preference.  Some students chose to form groups online, posting their papers to a virtual bulletin board so that both their instructors and their peers could comment upon their writing.  Others chose to receive face-to-face feedback from their instructor, veering away from Internet revision either because they suffered from computer anxiety, or because they preferred the one-on-one time.  Still others chose both forms of revision, taking advantage of traditional and new age mediums.  All students received help through the revision process, either through individual consultation with their instructors, or through consultations with instructors and peers (405-7).

Matsumura and Hann made an interesting discovery.  Those students who took advantage of both forms of revision scored highest, of course, but those who relied upon computer-based revision scored higher than those who utilized the more traditional form of face-to-face interaction.  Perhaps the former students benefited more readily from receiving advice not just from instructors, but also from peers.  Certainly reading the writing of their peers helped their revision process; these students were able to study the approaches used by their fellows, which facilitated their understanding of the writing process.  While all groups of students performed fairly well on their essays, the use of computer-based technology bolstered the performance of those who took advantage of its benefits (407-12).

So where does that leave us?  As an instructor who wishes to utilize computer technology within my classroom, and as an intern who watches her professor utilize it in his own, I’ve learned firsthand the benefits offered by this new age medium.  That said, I think it’s important to note the anxiety experienced by students without computer experience.  The composition classroom is many things; among them, it is a place for students to share ideas, to explore their minds, to offer their inner reflections.  It is certainly not conducive to any form of anxiety.  If students do experience anxiety from using computers, then we as teachers must do our best to alleviate these fears, perhaps by offering computer instruction.  We must also offer our students another medium in which to share their ideas.  Like the students in Matsumura and Hann’s study who benefited from examining their peers’ papers online, perhaps our students might benefit from studying their peers’ papers in face-to-face interactions.  There is always a way to facilitate the anxious student, to offer new avenues for their learning processes; as teachers, it just might be our job to ensure these avenues are explored.

Works Cited

Matsumura, Shoichi and Hann, George. “Computer Anxiety and Students’ Preferred Feedback Methods in EFL Writing.” The Modern Language Journal 88.3 (Autumn 2004).

IH Week 11

Professor K begins his class with QCC&R: “Questions, Comments, Complaints & Requests.”  I happen to think this a smart move.  It snaps students into attention by reminding them that they are within their composition classroom: a place where they are not only allowed to speak up, but where their input actually matters.  It also gives them a forum for addressing grievances, and for asking any questions that might have arisen about their homework. While not too many take the opportunity, the few that capitalize upon the chance are able to ask questions others may be too shy to voice, thus freeing Professor K up for other classroom matters.

The majority of Thursday’s class was dedicated to the rhetorical précis: a set of four questions which highlights the rhetorical argument made within any given piece of writing.  Students experienced some difficulty with their précis, particularly with the second and third sentences.  Professor K went over each segment in great detail, guiding his students through the more salient aspects of the assignment.  For example, in helping students better understand the second sentence (dedicated to listing the author’s evidence), he discussed several types of evidence, giving students a list of various tools a writer might utilize in making her argument (e.g., personal example, explanations, possible definitions, research/statistics, educational philosophers, and recent authors/books).  He urged students to reconsider their second sentence, and practice listing different kinds of support.

Students also took a few minutes to write and discuss what it means to be a well-educated person.  While I was intrigued by this question, and spent a few minutes simply considering what “well-educated”  might mean, Professor K’s students gazed at him blankly when asked to share their writing.  He encouraged them to consider the ramifications of the question, the weight of being in college and needing to know what it means to be well-educated, but only a few spoke up.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of class came when students were asked to consider the article, “Jesus is a Pair of Jeans.”  Professor K has begun a new unit with his class: the rhetorical power of the advertisement.  This article discussed how advertisements encourage us to replace human beings with material goods.  Students were asked to consider whether things can make people happy, or if advertising should be taken seriously.  Most said they ignored advertisements, because they found them boring and unnecessary.

RR Week 11

“Rebels With a Cause”

“Studies had consistently shown that girls enjoyed some advantage over boys when it came to writing compositions . . .” (Martin 36).

Hunters and gatherers.  Baseball players and ballerinas.  Money earners and housewives.  For millennia, men and women have been grouped into different categories.  For millennia, they’ve been given different classifications, different job titles, different roles.  Men have been taught not to cry; women have been taught not to sit with their legs uncrossed.  Men have been reared to be tough, efficient, hardworking; women have been raised to be sensitive, caring, motherly.  But what of the male and female English student?  What of the male-written essay, the female-penned composition paper?  Are there differences there, too?  And while we’re considering those differences, might we also consider the possibility that each type of writing could garner different grades, perhaps even different reactions from male and female graders?  This is exactly the question the Vinton (Iowa) High School English department considered as reported in W. Don Martin’s “The Sex Factor in Grading Compositions” (36).

 That department began to notice a trend within their own program, and also within professional studies: male students consistently received lower grades on their composition essays.  In acknowledging this, they acknowledged that female students consistently received the top grades within the English classroom, with their male counterparts suffered lower scores.  In an attempt to decipher the meaning of this phenomenon, they assigned students grades nine through twelve an essay prompt: “What Parents Should Know,” which they were then required to answer in their own hand.  While teachers believed male students to have poorer penmanship, and admitted this might lead to lower grades, the department didn’t have the resources to type each individual answer (37-40).

Results were intriguing.  It was generally agreed that male and female graders scored male and female essays about the same, thus eliminating the doubt that teachers might be more lenient on members of their own sex.  Even so, male students consistently scored lower on their compositions.  One interesting trend was discovered: male-penned essays tended to be more independent, argumentative, and rebellious, whereas female-penned essays tended to demonstrate use of convention and exposition.  For example, male students began their essays with the arguments “Parents seem to think they know everything” and “Parents should keep out of their children’s lives,” whereas female students began their essays with the statements “Everyone knows that being a parent involves many responsibilities” and “There are many things that parents should know” (46).  The Vinton High School English department hypothesized that graders were more likely to award the conventional students with higher scores than their argumentative, rebellious male counterparts (id.)

Another interesting trend was discovered in student reactions to their peers’ essays.  To determine whether students might grade their peers’ papers differently than did their teachers, the Vinton English department enlisted several students to grade each other’s compositions.  There was a definite disparity between teacher-given and student-given grades.  While teachers were more strict on the rebellious male, his fellow students tended to be more lenient.  Martin likened this to life experience.  Teachers expect their students to conform, to answer the essay question in a conventional manner, whereas peers living within the same generation have a better understanding and appreciation of this rebelliousness (46-7).

So where does this leave us, the future composition teachers?  While this study is over thirty years old, I can’t believe the current situation is too different.  With that said, I suppose we have to consider whether we want to focus upon convention, or upon writing skill.  While it is easy to grade based on whether a student answers an essay prompt, I think it’s important to look outside the box.  Sometimes, students might be inspired to write something completely different; something that emphasizes their own life experience, their own world view.  Sometimes, they might not respond to the essay topic at all.  In these instances, we must ask ourselves: do we want to encourage this rebelliousness if it leads our students to such alarming inspiration, they’re able to pen an essay that comes entirely from within?  Or do we want to teach them to conform to the expectations of the teacher, the job, the boss?  I see benefits in either approach.  Perhaps there’s a middle ground: a place where we can teach our students to write from within, while still fulfilling their essay parameters.  Whatever the case, I think this essay teaches us that we must keep a mind toward bias; at times, we might be tempted to grade a students’ essay higher simply because it matches our own beliefs, our own expectations.  It is at these times that we must remove ourselves from the equation, and grade not by expectation, but by merit alone.

Works Cited

W. Don Martin.  “The Sex Factor in Grading Composition.”  Research in the Teaching of English: 6.1 (1972).

RR Week 10

A Pedagogy of Charity

“A pedagogy of charity requires continual work; it is easier to be severe than to be charitable” (Porter 599).

A pedagogy of severity: that peculiar teaching method in which students receive horrible grades, teachers proclaim them horrible students, and the student/teacher bond suffers horrible setbacks.  In his essay, A Pedagogy of Charity: Donald Davidson and the Student-Negotiated Composition Classroom, Kevin J. Porter cautions teachers against taking such an approach, which stunts the learning process and causes student withdrawal.  He begins his study with a look at Maggie, a student who received a “D” grade on her exam.  Horrified by her teacher’s comments (he had written “poor study” in glaring red ink which screamed at her from the top center of the page), Maggie stopped listening and withdrew her attention.  She just could not bring herself to care; not when she had spent hours studying only to be faced with a cruel, thoughtless comment from her teacher, proclaiming her efforts wasted and “poor”.  By the end of the day, she had dropped the course (574-5).

It might interest some to know that Maggie was taking a history course.  Then again, this distinction between history and composition is minimal at best, negligent at worst.  Any teacher can make the mistakes committed by Maggie’s instructor; any teacher can fall victim to the pedagogy of severity, chasing their students out of their classrooms before ever really giving them a chance to prove their skills (574-6).  Indeed, Porter discovered that his own students subscribed to the pedagogy of severity in critiquing their peers’ essays.  When faced with the daunting challenge of applying their limited skill base to the constructive criticism of essays, they fell back upon comments they’d received throughout their educational career: those harsh criticisms from teachers who believed it best to critique comma placement and paragraph structure without providing insightful feedback upon which their students might thrive and grow within their writing classrooms (576-84).

So where does this leave us as teachers?  If a good number of us been programmed as students to adhere to a doctrine of severity, how do we transform our methods so we might instead rely upon a more charitable approach?  In considering this conundrum, Porter focuses upon Donald Davidson’s pedagogy of charity: that teaching style which depends upon interpretation (the dynamic process of applying meaning to communication based on experience and world view), rationality (the concept that the communicator must be rational) (585), charity (the idea that effective communication cannot occur unless both communicators accept each other as rational) (585-6), truth (the belief that each communication is infused with truth), and shared world (the understanding that mutual communicators live in a world common to them, with shared world views).  That said, it is important to understand that the use of charity does not guarantee the truth of each communication; rather, we must accept that communication is true to the best of the communicators’ ability, but that it might in time prove to be false (586).  Put in other terms, should the composition teacher wish to act on a pedagogy of charity, she must accept her students as rational beings who communicate the truth to the best of their ability, turning in writing (which is, in and of itself, a form of communication) that is both rational and true to the best of their abilities (586-7).

I am quite interested in this concept because as I find Professor K adhering to a certain pedagogy of charity.  He treats his students as rational beings, relying on their truths to propel the fundamental points of his lessons.  As I discussed in my internship hours post, he spent a portion of class yesterday showing them videos of Levi’s jeans commercials.  These videos were intended to teach his students the major points of persuasive writing, such as the utilization of genres and the use of persuasive techniques in eliciting a response from the communicator’s key audience.  After the students had viewed the commercials, Professor K asked them to share their insights (their truths) into such persuasive techniques.  While they may not have shared exactly what he hoped, he piggybacked off their observations, using them to fuel further discussion.  After a few minutes, once students learned they would be treated as rational beings, more and more began volunteering their world views.  In this way, Professor K fostered the learning environment, keeping himself safely outside of the pedagogy of severity.  By embracing the pedagogy of charity, he was able to garner interest, which in turn led to the development of understanding and interest among his students.  As the opening quote of this paper illustrates, it is easier to be severe, to tear apart student writing and move on to the next task.  This requires little thought; little work (599).  It is the pedagogy of charity, however, that elicits student contribution, and that moves the classroom from the static to the dynamic: an environment in which students strive to learn, rather than learn to survive.

Works Cited

Porter, Kevin J.  “A Pedagogy of Charity: Donald Davidson and the Student-Negotiated Composition Classroom.”  College Composition and Communication: 52.4 (June 2001).