X-Envelope-to: mbu-l@TTUVM1.BITNET
X-VMS-To: IN%"mbu-l@ttuvm1.bitnet"
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.mbu-l
Date:         Mon, 5 Oct 1992 10:36:00 EST
From:         "JEFFREY R. GALIN" <GALIN@PITTVMS.BITNET>
Subject:      basic writing again and again

Warning:  Another long reply about Imitatio: 169 lines

David Schwalm writes:

>  *** Reply to note of 10/02/92 10:56
>  Jeff, unless you expect each student to invent his/her own original
>  version of English syntax, a student's sentences and structures will
>  HAVE to be like so and so's at some level of grammatical analysis.
>  We're talking shared conventions here, the conventions that make
>  communication possible.
>
>  *** Reply to note of 10/03/92 16:31
>  I guess if we have students copy or imitate, we just ought to be sure that th
   e
>  texts they copy or imitate are broadly representative of the political
>  spectrum. But this objection to using imitatio sounds to me like a objection
>  to reading altogether. When we assign reading, I assume that doing so sends t
   he
>  message to the student that we think the text is worth reading.
>
>  -- David E. Schwalm, Assoc. Provost for Academic Programs

David,
     It is easy to reduce almost any argument to an absurd position.
If I remember my debating lingo it is called reductio absurdum.  What is
more difficult is to take seriously what is proposed and examine its
merits and deficiencies.  To assert that each student could, should, or
ever would invent "his/her" own original version of English syntax" is a
bit extreme, not to mention your comments about reading.  When we assign
reading, students are sent so many messages we could not begin to account
for them all.  Certainly one of them is that reading X kind of material is
worth the time and effort and serves some fundamental academic function.
Though there are many who would argue with me, a writing course without
readings is only half a course.  My objections to a pedagogy of imitatio
have nothing to do with the absence of reading.

     Nor are students islands unto themselves.  For one thing, Rorty
and the rest of the social constructionists have made it pretty clear
that meaning is not made in isolation, nor is learning.  Students come
into college English classes with years of language training, some
formal and some informal.  You acknowledge this yourself:

>  Some folks seem to think that because students "can't write" when they get to
>  college, we have to take them all the way back to square one in the
>  developmental process. What we really need to do is to start thinking in term
   s
>  of a coherent 16 year curriculum. Sure.

You make a mistake, however, in assuming that students entering college
across the country function at a level of proficiency that can be plugged
into a 16 year curriculum.  At the University of Pittsburgh, I am currently
teaching a Basic Reading and Writing course with a hearing impaired student
who also has a learning disability.  She told me that she reads at a 5th
grade reading level.  Yet, she is quite intelligent and belongs, I think,
at the University.  Perhaps I shouldn't mention the 50 year old laid
 off Iranian factory worker who has been in the United states for 15 years
but cannot form a complete sentence.  He is brilliant in math, but has
characteristic ESL problems.  And then of course there are Pauline, a
security guard for concerts and temporary File Clerk at Allegheny General
Hospital, and Chantel, a would be Olympic swimmer whose parents have not
let her work since eighth grade so that she could train 4 hours a day.  I
mention these four students, because they are typical BRW students at
Pitt, with varying levels of competence within the same class.  No matter
what level these students are currently working at by academic standards,
they have come to college with a great deal of knowledge about reading
and writing and the functions these literate practices serve in American
society.

     Where do you begin to teach a class with this range of students?
Well, you could ignore their differing levels of abilities and teach all
of them as if they started at level 13 of your 1-16 scale.  Or, you could
begin where each student is to help them build for themselves the "inner
criteria" of which I spoke in my earlier post.  In order to figure out
how to reach students in this way.  One way is to emphasize the develop-
ment of strategies for reading writing and thinking in an academic setting.
As a general rule, students in BRW and about half in BW at Pitt come to
college without a clear sense of how to DO SCHOOL.
     Among these strategies, having students work with each other has
been one of the most successful I have used.  Students often make the best
teachers of each other.  Students have ways of helping others that I
couldn't match with any form of exercise or sentence combining technique
available.  I offer the following example of a note written by Chantel
to Pauline on the first formal paper turned in this semester.  This is
also the first time students have ever commented on each other's papers,
and there has been no formal syntax or grammar instruction in the course
as of yet.

Pauline writes:  "One of the assigned temporary job was a file clerk at
Allegheny Hospital for four months."

Chantel writes in the margin:  "This sentence does not flow well.  Does
it mean you where a File clerk For 4 months?"

Yes, both students have sentence level error in their sentences.  This
does not concern me for the moment.  What interests me about this
example is that Pauline has a comment from Chantel that demonstrates
why syntax makes a big difference in the way meaning is produced.  This
example interests me because it demonstrates how important it is for
writers to write for an audience.  And it demonstrates that Chantel has
a way of speaking about clarity in writing that not only makes sense,
but also enables her fellow student to understand.  In other words,
Chantel has just given Pauline an important lesson in writing in the
second comment she makes on Pauline's page.
     No matter how much I, as a teacher, talk about audience or
demonstrate how other writers write for audiences (or for that matter
structure sentences) Pauline has a lesson here that can't be matched.
She has the opportunity to internalize what it means to structure a
sentence for someone else to read.  This is the "inner criteria" of
which I spoke in my post about imitatio.  One may learn about things by
imitation.  One may even be able to hear a cadence in someone else's
writing, but until a student like Pauline is able to translate that
concept into her own practices, what has been "learned" has not been
internalized.  Pauline will do this work in her revision.

     This kind of work begins where the student is when she enters my
class, not at the level I dictate or assume.  Yes, when students turn in
yMrevisions of papers, we will look at student writing for class
discussion and develop additional strategies for dealing with
grammatical and syntactic problems as they relate to the content of the
paper and how it responds to texts from which it might be drawing.  As a
class, we develop criteria based on acceptable writing standards, most
of which even my BRW students are familiar with.  Later in the term,
about five or six weeks into the course, students are expected to follow
the checkmark procedure I outlined in my previous message, helping each
other, seeking advice from the teacher or other resources they have
available to them. And we constantly discuss what moves students make in
their papers and why.

     If students choose to imitate patterns they see in each others'
writing or in the numerous texts we read in the class, they may indeed
be developing strategies of imitatio that they will be able to carry
with them beyond my class this term.  I emphasize the development of
reading, writing, and thinking strategies at every step along the way.
As I also said in my previous note, it is highly likely that I will now
include among my repertoire of techniques imitatio as an option.
Though, since I still don't understand how it actually serves students,
and though, as Johndan and Jim suggest, it might actually distract them
from the goals I hope it will help them achieve, I would offer the
technique in a context that explains why they might try it, what they
might pay attention to, and how it may serve them.  I would also tell
them that if it was not a strategy that seemed to work for them, to try
something else.

     Of course this begs the question how much students have to use a
given technique to gain the desired benefits.  I echo Wes' call for any
discussion on research that suggests an answer to this question.  It may
turn out that some techniques work well for some students and other
techniques are more efficient for other students.  At the very least, no
matter what techniques we use for teaching composition, we should see our
students as individuals with different needs, interests and learning
patterns.  Any technique that's applied blindly is potentially deadening
for students.  So, no matter what techniques we build into a pedagogy, we
should explain to our students why we are asking them to do what we do
and give them a chance to help us teachers get a sense of what works best
for them, not what we as teachers thinks works best.  My guess is that
most of us on this list are actually closer in pedagogical practices
than our discussion of our practices might suggest.

     One last note, perhaps you've seen William Smith's critique of
sentence combining exercises.  He demonstrates how sentence combining
exercises can actually encourage students to write with such tangled
sentences that they actually hinder meaning making rather than support it.
THis is not to say that sentence combining won't help some students
with their writing.  It is to suggest that no technique works for every
student and that we need to introduce techniques that best suit our students'
needs and learning styles.

     My point is that I am giving students options.  I am sending
the message that no technique exists that can help everyone.  And I am
suggesting that what is important is not a criteria based on what some
professional writer has produced.  Rather I am emphasizing development of
criteria based on common academic standards that are nonetheless
individualized.

jeff galin
galin@vms.cis.pitt.edu
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU