1. Regarding Bartholomae's examination of objectivity and the writer as a factory worker, how do you think our own educational histories, likely entrenched at some point in this idea, affect our abilities to write and teach? In other words, how does our learning (and perhaps later subverting) of conventions influence our pedagogy? In particular, I'm interested in the ways our various writing styles, whether academic or creative, change the classroom dynamic when approaching the same assignment.
2. Tobin (page 15) suggests coursework is often organized "around production or consumption," or at least that it's a question worth asking writing instructors. What methods do you find beneficial in balancing these two ideas in the classroom?
Afternoon Aram,
ReplyDeleteRegarding Tobin's concept of a composition class that is centered around "should a writing course be centered around production or consumption" I want to propose not so much an answer to his question as much as an answer to yours by critiquing his (15). I would say that Tobin's question is one wrongly asked. As an instructor I’m not concerned with which of these two things should be the center of my course nearly as much as I am with identifying, based on the students I am teaching at the time, which approach would be most beneficial for them. I don’t see why you can’t achieve the ends of either process or postprocess ideologies through both production or consumption based pedagogies as long as they are implemented carefully and thoughtfully (for example a process based teacher might find the need the need to have the students read more so that their production increases). If I find that students have a hard time engaging with open ended writing assignments then I would start to give them more reading so they have a baseline for their writing to react to. If I found their writing to be struggling to deal with topics of assigned reading I would try and shift the class towards a more open-ended production approach. The key still is identifying which students and classrooms need which approaches when and understanding that this need can shift at any time not just between classes or sessions. In that sense the question I wished Tobin had asked was more along the lines of “how do we know when it is best to center a class around production or consumption?” instead of suggesting that the two paths he has most commonly seen are the two options to choose from.