Grading + Curriculum = Major ?

Carole Deletiner asks a lot of questions in "Negotiating the Negotiated Curriculum" which are not easily answered. In fact, she concludes the article by saying that answers are "provisional, conditional, and fluid" and that, to her, "the questions are much more important" (103). What are her questions? Her article explores the negotiated curriculum -- one where students help decide the path of the class -- and the issue of grading versus evaluation. I will not lie. These topics are super tough.

Her article documents a trial period between two classes, one of which is an overall success and the other a complete failure. Ultimately, she concludes that her own apprehension affected the attitudes and participation of the students. In the end, both classes seemed to gain something from the experience. Where the class which engaged successfully in the exercise considered it a positive experience full of inspiration, insight, and surprises, a student in the other class claims that he at least learned more about himself and his writing. This alone is a major accomplishment as writing teachers ought to be helping students discover their own voice in a writing classroom.

Some points of interest? Here we go --

The relationship of teacher to student is
often looked at as “one is assumed to have
knowledge and one who does not, between
one who possesses authority and one
who has none” (95).

The negotiated curriculum clearly breaks down this barrier as students take control of their learning and, essentially, are given the power to decide the direction of the course and the writing. However, the difficulty is the role of the teacher. S/he should be engaging in the course and the workshopping, but also shaking of the image of "one who has knowledge" so that students can recognize their own knowledge and authority. How is that trouble?

“If [students] are to know what I know
(that there is no-thing to know), I have
to simultaneously renounce and assume
my authority. One way to achieve this
paradoxical end is to implement a
negotiated curriculum which upsets the
idea of teacher as locus of authority
in the classroom” (96).

Ultimately, students are as smart as teachers. I'm okay with that. Every person has their own area of expertise. But how can a teacher simultaneously push away authority while asserting his/her place in the classroom? What a fine line to walk... Done successfully, as Deletiner seems to do with one of her two classes, walking that fine line offers students the opportunity to see the teacher as another learner, one who learns from them as much as they learn from him or her.

As for grades, this is what we are dealing with:

“Grades are a weapon of power, very
often used as weapons against the
powerless by those who wield them as a
way not to feel powerless. Evaluation is
different. Evaluation is an exercise in
developing authority and autonomy.
Encouraging students to ask questions
about their learning can offer them the
authority that no grade could confer” (96).

This seems pretty obvious. In assigning grades, the teacher makes or breaks a person's future. Everyone had the teacher who was "out to get them," who seemed to purposely toss D's simply to assert their power. Therefore, evaluation -- a method of carefully studying or appraising a piece of writing -- offer constructive feedback. The letters A, B, C, D, F tell a person nothing about moments where their voice truly shines through or instances where s/he wavers stylistically. The difficulty, though, is helping students to transition into a classroom where evaluation -- the constructive -- holds greater importance than a letter. Breaking the mold. Revolution is always difficult.

Until next time, I'm hoping for more revolution.

--Mis

Collaborative Writing Groups: Effectively Enhancing Student Authority

Wow. Leanne B. Warshaurer says a mouthful in her article "Collaboration as a Process: Reinforcing the Workshop." Not only does she stand up for the writing workshop, but she backs her argument with personal experience and some great minds! The focus of her argument is that teachers of the writing workshop need to decenter their authority within the classroom. In doing so, students are given the opportunity to develop their own sense of authority in the work they do. Again, I picked out some quotes that really stood out to me. They are:

“[One professor] explained that he pairs his
students together, “strong” and “weak,” and
has them edit each other’s papers” (87).

In separating students in such a way, this professor is developing a writing hierarchy in his classroom; he is giving power to those deemed "strong" and stripping those labeled as "weak" of authority in their own writing. Because the labeling comes from the professor -- who has obviously not decentered himself in this workshopping environment -- students will automatically assume that the labels are correct because he is the authority figure. Plus, students will realize which category they are supposedly in. The strong will assume take the powerful role granted to them by the authority whereas the weak will revert to submissiveness. In the end, this workshop will make little progress.

Warshauer points this exact idea out in saying that a student chimed in to point out that “such a pairing is demeaning to students;” however, the student's ability to speak out against a professor's writing pedagogy creates a special dynamic in which the "students were the authority” (87). By this she means that students have a greater capacity to understand the feelings of other students than professors. Therefore, the professor who feels students can easily be separated into "strong" or "weak" is quickly reminded that his authority is limited. There are arenas in which students rule. This is best described when Warshauer says:

“As a teacher, I had the authority of my
training and the authority granted to me
by the institution; as students, they had
the authority of experience” (88).

Again, we are left with a hierarchy in which the university is the authority of professors who are the authority over students. However, this scenario gives the students a place where they can be more powerful than teachers. This is called “a plurality of power and of authority among teacher and students” (88).

Another quote...

“Collaborative learning can lead students
to an appropriation of the types of discourse
valued in an academic setting” (88).

Using the talents of others, students can gradually adapt their language so that they may achieve an authority professors have already obtained – the authority that exists within academic discourse. Reading this, I thought to myself "I need more workshop in my life" because I am still trying to achieve this level of authority! Any suggestions or volunteers to workshop with me?

Finally, Warshauer seems to make her greatest argument for a teacher's decentering his or her self in the classroom in saying:

“As a teacher I have an undeniable,
unrelinquishable authority in the classroom.
Even in my workshop classroom, I’m still
an authority because the very choice to
have a workshop classroom is an
authoritative choice. However, I’m only
‘an’ authority, not ‘the’ authority” (91).

Well said! This should be the goal in every classroom. Students recognize the role of teacher as an authoritative role; however, an effective teacher will not stifle the academic and social growth of his or her students by stripping away the authority students inherently have within their thinking, collaborating, and writing.

It is nice have some tool to give students in order to help them take control of their thinking and writing. Workshopping. It's definately not a new idea, but this approach seems far more effective than the one used by my teachers in high school!

Au revoir pour maintenant!

--M

Who has the authority in language matters?

I have just finished reading Mary R. Boland's article, "Teaching that Language Matters." Her commentary on the masculine nature of the English language really makes a person (in this case, a woman) think about the stereotypes and expectations of women especially in terms of how our language oppresses. While reading, I picked out a few quotes that really spoke to me. Here we go...

"A lot of scholarship on feminist pedagogy…
suggests the necessity of making the classroom
a safe haven for negotiating social differences.
For feminists, this necessity arises from the desire
to establish environments that respond to
women’s particular orientations to learning
and the related desire to find alternatives to
masculinist paradigms that value hierarchy,
individualism, and power” (67).

I found this quote important because the masculinist paradigm seems to fit well with a theme in academia-- that being an “age/education paradigm” that suggests older, more educated teachers are more valuable than younger, still-learning teachers and even more valuable than the student. Afterall, who hasn't experienced a moment where communication across generations was difficult. Stereotypically, youth is less mature linguistically.

(Click to enlarge.)

Does it have to be this way, though? The term power in the previous quote suggests that the older generations (as well as the masculinist and academic paradigms) have been assigned (self-assigned?) authority. Parents, teachers, and of course ALL men are situated (whether they put themselves there or not) at the top of the hierarchy. Intimidating. Sadly, this hierarchy places female graduate TA's in a world of trouble. Woe is me!

“In [classrooms geared towards feminine ethic],
teachers often adopt a maternal orientation
in teaching, relinquishing a position of central authority
and employing collaborative tasks to help
students develop their own sense of authority
with language” (67).

In reading this quote, I couldn't help but think that this follows the stereotype that women are not deserving of authority. A "nurturing" style of teaching would, therefore, further the masculinity of our social order. A woman would then be fitting into her role in the masculine world. In the end, what does this really teach students? Boland says just that in claiming that “the female teacher who brings a nurturing attitude to her work with students may simply be viewed as “appropriate” instead of radically challenging. The male teacher who adopts a maternal approach in his classroom may more successfully validate a traditionally feminine social orientation because he will be regarded as making choices about his teaching style” (68). Does it seem fair that men can act like me -- being that I tend to be maternal with family, friends, small children and animals -- as a tool, but me acting like me only enforces the sexism of our world?

“What seems especially significant is the
flexibility of the maternal role: mothers
set rules and encourage autonomy; they
judge behaviors and sit on floors to join
in play groups. ...This flexibility offers a
compelling model for the classroom. Rather
than positioning the teacher as either central
authority figure or nurturing facilitator,
I’m interested in the possibility of teacher
as one who pivots between ‘mothering’ roles,
exerting a directive hand and asserting an active
membership in the classroom community” (71).

Reading this, I felt quite satisfied with my gender. It is true that mothers are for more than a shoulder to cry on. It makes sense that the tactics of mothering would be beneficial in a classroom as a teacher must be able to engage students emotionally and academically. A female graduate TA's can take solace in knowing that a maternal nature allows her an upper hand; she is capable of "exerting a directive hand" while also acting as a nuturer.

How nice to beat the system. And all it takes is following one's nature!

--Missy

Welcome!

Hello, readers! Welcome to my critical research blog! Here, I intend to make initial responses to the texts I read while researching for my composition theory multimodal project. My goal is to consider the issue of authority in college English classrooms and to consider methods graduate teaching assistants can employ in order to make learning engaging and beneficial to students.

I am reading chapters from In Our Own Voice: Graduate Students Teach Writing as well as other articles. Through these readings, I hope to gain a greater understanding of the power struggle graduate teaching assistants face as they enter one classroom as teacher and another as student.

I hope my responses give you a little insight to the issue. Hopefully, my thoughts will serve as a nice supplement to my final analysis of the issue of authority for graduate TA's and their students!

Until later--
Missy