Computer Writing and Research Lab | University of Texas at Austin

Making the shift

Submitted by Daren Young on October 29, 2007 - 5:31pm

Today was profoundly frustrating in two of my three First-year Composition classes. Backstory: we spent all last week participating in student-led group discussions of a handful of essays that my student writers are about to use to construct an essay about the academic discourse community. We've been working all semester with the terms for Discourse Community Analysis provided by James Paul Gee's discussion of discourse identities: language, actions, tools/symbols, and values.

Today was the day to bring it all together and help them start thinking about theses around which to construct their arguments. The question that stymied two of three classes (and nearly the third): What kind of discourse community does (author) seem to be saying he or she would like the academy to be/become? The response: blank stares.

So, I called on folks and walked them through it. I thought that, after the first few examples, they'd get it. Not so.

The second part of the exercise, choosing three of the seven essays and explaining why they might work well together in a paper, went much better. What concerns me is that I had to provide the analysis for the first part. They just didn't seem to get what I was asking for, and I don't know of a way to communicate this skill except to ask that they do it.

The essays/articles under consideration:
"Tools of Inquiry and Discourse" by James Paul Gee (Ch. 3 of _An Introduction to Discourse Analysis: Theory and Method_)
"Literacy and the Politics of Education" by C. H. Knoblauch
from "Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work" by Jean Anyon
"Abby's Lament: Does Literacy Matter" by Robert Yagelski
"Confronting Class in the Classroom" by bell hooks
"The Student and the University" by Allan Bloom
"America Skips School" by Benjamin Barber
"The Future for Higher Education: Sunrise or Perfect Storm?" by James Hilton

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I'm thinking of a color

Submitted by jonathanlamb on October 30, 2007 - 3:00pm.

Was this a situation where you knew what answer you were looking for from the get-go? That is, did you know what kind of discourse community [author] would like the academy to be? Would other answers have sufficed?

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I certainly had some ideas,

Submitted by Daren Young on October 30, 2007 - 6:03pm.

I certainly had some ideas, but I hadn't written them down or anything. In fact, when my coaxing did get them going in short bursts, each class came up with subtly different answers. The only thing I required was that they be able to say what it was in the text that made them think that way.

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Blank stares - we've all

Submitted by Jim Brown on October 30, 2007 - 7:41pm.

Blank stares - we've all gotten them. When I get them, I usually run through all the possible scenarios: Am I speaking gibberish? Is this an apathetic bunch? Are the readings too dense? Too boring?

Ultimately, it seems that these situations are complex and impossible to boil down. It could be any combination of factors that contributes to the "blank stares," but it seems that the most healthy response is to recognize that it's not necessarily something you did wrong.

One other thought: Is it clear to the students what's at stake in the argument? I sometimes find that I skip this step when teaching an argument that I assume is important (but that students think is just a topic for classroom discussion). You and I are clearly invested in arguments about what a university is/should be, and we think students should be too. However, it might help to back up and unpack this for students by explaining to them why this matters to them. It clearly should matter to them, but maybe they're not seeing what's at stake?

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unpacking

Submitted by billwolff on October 30, 2007 - 9:23pm.

Adding to Jim's discussion of unpacking, the issue may also be one of overload. Eight theory-heavy texts, each with new terms, ideas, and discourses is a lot to digest for an upper-level undergrad, let alone someone in first year comp.

Placing texts in conversation with one another, which is essentially what you were trying to do with the sentence you constructed, is one of the most difficult skills for students to learn. It is completely different than anything they have done in the past.

Perhaps starting with two texts and going from there will work--it locates the issues for students and helps them to see connections more.

Good luck!

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Yes, I can see that. A

Submitted by Daren Young on October 31, 2007 - 1:37pm.

Yes, I can see that. A senior colleague said much the same when I asked her advice, too, i.e., that they may not be cognitively ready to do this kind of analysis and comparison task. At this point in the semester, I don't want to crush them with stuff that's outside their zone of proximal development. Perhaps I'll have to consider simplifying/scaling back what I'm asking in this unit . . .

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