Brad Pitt vs. Spenser and MIlton
Okay. There are many, many ideas expressed by my classmates that I want to respond to, so I'm going to number my different response areas in order to avoid having to formulate smooth transitions between topics. No time for segues.
1. Like Jennifer, I am intrigued by all the "intellectual capital" hoopla. Quite a few of the answers on Russell's test eluded me, but for some reasons, I didn't feel as chagrined as I thought I would. I guess I find the idea of every person having a basic foundation of knowledge valid, but who gets to determine what constitutes "basic" -- what facts are the ones that are most valid? According to Searle, I'm not well educated because I'm not fluent in another language and I don't have much of an understanding of physics, chemistry, or the way interest rates fluctuate. And though graduate school often makes me feel a little uneducated in comparison to some of my classmates who are already en route to their PhDs, I know I'm an educated person. Do I still have more to learn? Certainly. That's why I'm here. But each person has a niche, or two, or three, already -- everyone has some sort of basic foundation of knowledge. Jennifer said I can attest to the fact that she lacks pop culture knowledge, and she does (though I'm glad I helped you learn about the nuances of Brad Pitt before his divorce chaos, Jennifer), but that's one area in which I feel completely secure about my wealth of knowledge. But Jennifer knows way more about, say, Spenser and Milton than I do. So who's more educated? Jennifer may be able to write a conference paper examining the key thematic elements of Spenser's poetry, but I might have been able to follow the conversation in her film class with more ease. I think Searle would say Jennifer is more educated, and perhaps Freire would, too, but I find it difficult to determine which types of knowledge are the "basic" ones that we need, a point that piggybacks onto Jennifer's discussion of Russell's test being laden with language arts, current events, and social studies questions.
2. Kristina brings up an interesting idea when she ends her post with her question, "So, for a composition class, are the in-class writing exercises the place for observing, asking individual questions, and finding a position while the polished papers are place to practice making an argument without the distraction of having to define the parameters of topic?" In-class writing exercises certainly strive to produce observations, questions, and positions, but I've found that students I've tutored and taught still have a difficult time creating an argument on paper, no matter how beneficial or stimulating class discussions or exercises have been. Countless times in the Writing Center, I've asked a tutoree, "Well, have you been talking about these ideas in class?," and most of them reply something along the lines of, "Well, yeah..." (silence) or "Not really." I find the former response frustrating and the latter hard to believe; I think that oftentimes, students feel that paper-writing is an extremely solitary experience, one in which they are left all alone to produce something provocative and informative and intelligent -- and so they forget that eveything they've been doing in class is supposed to help them with the daunting paper-writing task.
So, I'm thinking that one of our main tasks as composition teachers will be to get students to "see" (there it is again!) how everything we do and read is in some way going to help them when they sit down to write their papers. And, moreover, we have to create good classes -- we have to make sure that everything we do in class does have the aim of helping them with their writing. If we don't -- if we create a class that lacks cohesiveness or clear goals -- we'd be lying when we tell the students that everything we're doing is supposed to aid their writing. And nobody likes liars.
3. I thought all three lessons on Friday did a really nice job of using what we had read and parlaying that information into interesting and useful classroom experiences. Kudos.
4. Seeing as how I like neither cauliflower and broccoli, I'm going to argue that condiments such as melted cheese and ranch dip are the only things keeping vegetables tasty and consumer-friendly these days.
1. Like Jennifer, I am intrigued by all the "intellectual capital" hoopla. Quite a few of the answers on Russell's test eluded me, but for some reasons, I didn't feel as chagrined as I thought I would. I guess I find the idea of every person having a basic foundation of knowledge valid, but who gets to determine what constitutes "basic" -- what facts are the ones that are most valid? According to Searle, I'm not well educated because I'm not fluent in another language and I don't have much of an understanding of physics, chemistry, or the way interest rates fluctuate. And though graduate school often makes me feel a little uneducated in comparison to some of my classmates who are already en route to their PhDs, I know I'm an educated person. Do I still have more to learn? Certainly. That's why I'm here. But each person has a niche, or two, or three, already -- everyone has some sort of basic foundation of knowledge. Jennifer said I can attest to the fact that she lacks pop culture knowledge, and she does (though I'm glad I helped you learn about the nuances of Brad Pitt before his divorce chaos, Jennifer), but that's one area in which I feel completely secure about my wealth of knowledge. But Jennifer knows way more about, say, Spenser and Milton than I do. So who's more educated? Jennifer may be able to write a conference paper examining the key thematic elements of Spenser's poetry, but I might have been able to follow the conversation in her film class with more ease. I think Searle would say Jennifer is more educated, and perhaps Freire would, too, but I find it difficult to determine which types of knowledge are the "basic" ones that we need, a point that piggybacks onto Jennifer's discussion of Russell's test being laden with language arts, current events, and social studies questions.
2. Kristina brings up an interesting idea when she ends her post with her question, "So, for a composition class, are the in-class writing exercises the place for observing, asking individual questions, and finding a position while the polished papers are place to practice making an argument without the distraction of having to define the parameters of topic?" In-class writing exercises certainly strive to produce observations, questions, and positions, but I've found that students I've tutored and taught still have a difficult time creating an argument on paper, no matter how beneficial or stimulating class discussions or exercises have been. Countless times in the Writing Center, I've asked a tutoree, "Well, have you been talking about these ideas in class?," and most of them reply something along the lines of, "Well, yeah..." (silence) or "Not really." I find the former response frustrating and the latter hard to believe; I think that oftentimes, students feel that paper-writing is an extremely solitary experience, one in which they are left all alone to produce something provocative and informative and intelligent -- and so they forget that eveything they've been doing in class is supposed to help them with the daunting paper-writing task.
So, I'm thinking that one of our main tasks as composition teachers will be to get students to "see" (there it is again!) how everything we do and read is in some way going to help them when they sit down to write their papers. And, moreover, we have to create good classes -- we have to make sure that everything we do in class does have the aim of helping them with their writing. If we don't -- if we create a class that lacks cohesiveness or clear goals -- we'd be lying when we tell the students that everything we're doing is supposed to aid their writing. And nobody likes liars.
3. I thought all three lessons on Friday did a really nice job of using what we had read and parlaying that information into interesting and useful classroom experiences. Kudos.
4. Seeing as how I like neither cauliflower and broccoli, I'm going to argue that condiments such as melted cheese and ranch dip are the only things keeping vegetables tasty and consumer-friendly these days.
posted by K. | 9:11 AM
3 Comments:
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Who the hell is Fred?
Anyway. I choose to ignore him for now.
One of Kristen's comments made me think of Foucault. Who decides what information is on that list?. Kristen writes that everyone has their niche. That statement makes me think of Foucault's "Correct training." Foucault might say that the people in power would much prefer for you to think there was some list of information that you need to know to become "part" of society. The cultural elite can marginalize you by saying "you don't know what is on that list?" although you may know a lot of other stuff. The power comes from the list maker. The person who decides what you should know, i.e. what is on the list, has the power. The list disciplines people, keeps them in line, shows them their place. I had a very weak analogy about banana shopping, but I decided to delete it or your sakes.
Thank you Kristin, but you are entirely too flattering with your comments about my supposed understanding of Spenser or Milton. :)
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