Writing 512 Current Composition Theory (Spring 2006)
classoom as a museum?
I’m re-reading Sirc’s book (well, part of it; I haven’t finished it yet), and when I read again that Sirc compares the Modernist classroom to a museum (2), I was reminded of what Gloria Anzaldúa writes in Borderlands: La Frontera. Here is what I wrote in a previous post, followed by some more thoughts after [...]
what is good writing?
I have been so busy and stressed lately that I am completely behind in everything, and worst of all, have found such little time to write and journal! So, I am demanding of myself some time to write tonight on this blog, even if it is for such a short time. In Current Composition Theory [...]
Optimism One
Optimism One. “Punk Power in the First-Year Writing Classroom.“ TETYC (May 2005): 358-369.
Optimism One builds off of Seth Kahn-Egan’s “principles of ‘punk’“ (DIY, sense of anger and passion, attack on institutions of oppression, willingness to endure pain, and and the “pleasure principle“) to construct what ze believes should be happening in a first-year writing classroom. [...]
Sirc’s essay “Proust, Hip-Hop, and Death in First-Year Composition”
Sirc, Geoffrey. “Prouse, Hip-Hop, and Death in First-Year Composition.” TETYC (May 2006): 392-398.
In this essay, Sirc compares local hip-hop to writing, claiming that hip-hop gets at having to say something, explores the desire to understand our pleasures, is real, and understands reality metaphorically. Students can also learn that local hip-hop has what popular hip-hop has [...]
metaphors of architecture and art; happenings
I’m still reading Sirc’s book, and he draws a metaphor between writing and architecture (3-5), which leads him to discuss artists who realize they must work outside the architecture given them:
They practiced an art which interrupted the passivity of the spectator so that, as McLuhan & Fiore put it, “the audience becomes a participant in [...]
more from Sirc - “traumatic writing that explores the wound”
Kahn-Egan, Seth. “Pedagogy of the Pissed: Punk Pedagogy in the First-Year Writing Classroom.“ CCC 49.1 (February 1998): 99-104.
Sirc, Geoffrey. “Never Mind the Sex Pistols, Where’s 2Pac?“ CCC 49 (February 1998): 104-108.
I just finished reading these two essays. As I read Kahn-Egan’s, I liked some of what he was saying, but some things he wrote bothered [...]
sources to check out from The Bedford Bibliography for Teachers of Writing
Lisa asked us to find possible sources in The Bedford Bibliography that we might be able to use for our seminar projects. Here are some:
Under Rhetoric and Composition Theory:
144. Bartholomae, David. “Inventing the University.”
163. Brodkey, Linda. Writing Permitted in Designated Areas Only Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1996.
167. Burke, Kenneth. A Rhetoric of Motives. Englewood [...]
Sirc’s English Composition as a Happening
From the back of Sirc’s book:
Almost everyone will be upset by this book. I feel that I’m a part of teh audience Sirc seeks, and I have been deeply disturbed—and prompted to careful thought—by his critique of the cultural studies tenets that I hold dear. Good books, of course, DO upset people, and they should. [...]
post-process pedagogy
I just read:
Breuch, Lee-Ann M. Kastman. “Post-Process ‘Pedagogy’: A Philsoophical Exercise.” Cross-Talk in Comp Theory: A Reader. 2nd ed. Ed. Victor Vellanueva. Urbana, IL: NCTE, 2003. 97-125.
In this essay, Breuch articulates that the teaching of the writing process is too much of a what-centered pedagogy, a body of knowledge. Post-process theory is meant to avoid [...]
responses to my I-search essay
Today we got our I-search essays back (mine available as a pdf here) along with responses from classmates. It was really cool to get some feedback on an essay that I think was fairly risky. I wanted to write about some of the responses, because they got my wheels turning.
One classmate wrote back and asked [...]
