Thursday, June 08, 2006

yesterday's very obvious, not terribly insightful thought

Just a thought—probably nothing new—probably not my own, but in ruling out expressivism, we seem to be perpetuating the creative/expository (or academic, essay, etc.) writing split.

---
I thought this yesterday. And it mostly seemed worth noting because of the way it sits, uneasily, with me. I'm sensing a potential expressivist revival, and I need to explore my own discomfort with this. This comes after reading this yesterday.

8 comments:

Holly said...

Hi, Jenn--I'd be interested to hear more about yr unease/discomfort. You seem to be implying here that expressivism has tendency to unify the creative/expository split--is that a bad thing in some way? I'm in process of exploring many of these issues myself and am curious to get other viewpoints. I don't know about any potential revival of expressivism. I'm a Rip Van Winkle myself, having been out of teaching for 20 years or so while my kids were small and now back to a (to me) newly invented discipline,

bowerr said...

Considering post-process and socialist critique, does expressivism make us feel like writing pedagogy is moving backwards? I'm uneasy in a total expressivist revival as well--of course, we should acknowledge that its pedagogy has continually been present since the 1960's, especially in some public schools and for good (local) libratory reasons. Mostly I'm uncomfortable though b/c I'm unconvinced, as Knoblauch and Brannon would have it, that expression leads eventually to “language for self-realization, social critique, and cultural transformation." What I do take solace in is that expressivism is at least still admittedly a rhetoric.

After all, if few choose to teach writing, will writing still be learned?
I don’t like the “Maybe” answer.

VTmtngrrl said...

Hi Holly. I believe Richard points--to some extent-- to my unease, with the idea of feeling like writing pedagogy is moving backwards if it is within an expressivist paradigm. Intellectual/pedagogical stasis within composition is something I am always concerned with, but it is not only "moving backwards" that worries me. In fact, it is quite possible to move backwards in a progressive way--at least, in my mind it is. I don't know.... As I said, I know I need to explore this further, but I guess some of my problems with expressivism are the same as the numerous critiques (and at times complete disdain) that have been lodged against it over the years: Expressivism allows the concept of an autonomous author--asking students to find a "voice" that is inherently their own. It is focused on the writer as individual. The "personal" is supposedly unique to that writer and so forth. I don't believe we are autonomous/individualized writers. I don't think that is possible--hence my discomfort. I am also uncomfortable with the sometimes "therapeutic" nature of expressivism, which Richard also seems to point to.

I found it interesting that in your post you mentioned Newkirk's argument that expressivism is antiacademic without being anti-intellectual. I should go back and review is intro to nuts and bolts because I know he addresses this academic/personal split.

I guess what my thought implies is that to simply wrtite off expressivism as weak or bad or irrelevant to composition is to say that expository or "academic discourse" is all that matters and that all writing isn't creative in some way.

VTmtngrrl said...

Richard--when you put it like that (at least expressivism is still a rhetoric) it seems so simple. What am I worrying about?

And while I am also uncertain about the transformative effects that you mention, every semester I view What I Want my Words to do To You and question what kind of argument I'm making--about writing--by showing them this film. It seems pretty pro-expressivist.

Holly said...

Just a few quick thoughts. (I'm in the middle of gestating a fuller response for my own blog...)

The thought of expressivism as a backwards movement doesn't bother me so much, I guess. I think of comp/rhet more as philosophy rather than science (so that the ideas of Plato, Spinoza, Sartre aren't dismissed as would be the ideas of scientists who claimed sun revolved around the earth, say).

I need to think some more about yr denial that the writer has an individual voice. That idea really dismays me, in ways I need to think about. I certainly do acknowledge that writers are subject to social conditioning of one sort or another, but I'm not sure I'd extend that logic to say that therefore there's no core of individuality. (And I don't think it's poet-in-a-garret romanticism for a writer to cherish that notion that he/she has a unique perspective to communicate; in fact, it seems to me hard to get anything written if I don't believe that.) And though one ultimate goal of education may be for students to recognize how those outer forces have shaped their perspective (a la cultural studies), I'm not sure it should be the focus of FYC. More on that to come...

As for the smarmy confessional aspects of some expressivists, I find myself uncomfortable with that as well. But I don't think personal writing is necessarily confessional. (And I'm not sure that personal writing and "expressivist" writing are synonymous...)

Anyway, I'm trying to do a bit of self-educating on some of these ideas--any suggestions of books/articles I might look at?

VTmtngrrl said...

Holly:) Well, now I am curious as to why you think that having students recognize the forces that shape their existence, perspective, experiences, etc. shouldn't necessarily be the job of FYC.

I also think it is important and necessary to flesh out the differences between "personal writing" and texts that come out of an "expressivist" approach. I am sure that I am oversimplifying here when I speak of expressivism, as it is not my particular focus. And maybe that right there points to the reason for my discomfort.

In terms of articles/readings--You say you have been out of teaching for 20 years, so it seems that you must have been "in it" when the most well known debate over expressivism took place (Elbow/Bartholomae). I believe that is the one we continue to point to all these years later. But, "expressivist" pedagogy has been lashed out at from all angles. . I find Victor Villaneueva’s collections Cross-Talk in Comp Theory to be helpful in terms of reading across these various debates. Both James Berlin and Lester Faigley have at various times put together a kind of composite sketch of the different pedagogical theories that comprise rhet/comp. (Berlin’s is “A Contemporary Composition: The Major Pedagogical Themes.” College English 44 (1982): 765-77. And Faigley’s: “Competing Theories of Process: A Critique and a Proposal.” College English 48.6 (Oct. 1986) 527-539.). More recently is Richard Fulkerson’s CCC piece, “Composition at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century” (June 2005). Gary Tate, Amy Rupiper, and Kurt Schick have a pretty useful book as well, which Fulkerson refers to in his piece, A Guide to Composition Pedagogies

Holly said...

Thanks a lot for the reading suggestions! Yes, I am familiar with the Elbow/Bartholomae debate, and I did find the Fulkerson article, courtesy of a mini-rhet blog-carnival, but will certainly check out some of yr other suggestions.

And I share yr concern/interest in identifying the connection and differentiating between expressivism and personal writing...

As for ferreting out those "social forces," I'm certainly not saying that discussion has no place in FYC, just that in my view it shouldn't be the *focus* of a comp class. It's part of the critical thinking package, asking students to consider how they form their opinions and bring to the foreground some of the cultural/familial assumptions that color the way they look at the world. But I'm not at all comfortable with the vision of the
FYC teacher as one who peels back those cultural veils to reveal some "truer" more objective reality. Both teacher and student are operating from their own set of cultural biases, and though there's general educational value (for both of them) in examining those biases, I'm not sure to what extent it's possible to bring students in one semester to "purer" vantage point (if such a place exists). As a writing teacher my primary aim is that students be able to organize their thoughts and find the language to express the view from *their* location, wherever it may be. Lots more thinking for me to do, though...

Holly said...

Or to put it another way, my primary concern is the connection between what's in the student's mind and what's on the page, not between what's in his/her mind and the "real" world.