CCCC 2005: ReviewReview: O.01: Confronting Others as a Rhetorical Heuristic to Build an Appreciation of Difference in Ourselves Mary Rist presented “The Lost Art of Listening: Sequencing Writing Assignments to Emphasize Civilized Debate, Not Strong Argument.” I always find it incredibly helpful when presenters connect theory and praxis, particularly when they share materials they have used in class; it helps me in particular envision new ways to consider assignments in my courses, and especially when the assignment meshes well with something I am already teaching. In this presentation, the presenter handed out an assignment which aims to encourage civilized debate as opposed to strong argument, and I found the assignment quite helpful, as I’ve been teaching a similar assignment up until now, but the subtle differences between the two may be quite helpful for me as I revise this assignment. The presenter even noted that the students hate this assignment sometimes, which is the same problem I am having with mine; perhaps it is simply the nature of the assignment—it’s hard for students to back away from the right/wrong dichotomy of argument. I wish there had been more discussion of the actual use of the assignment in the course; I really didn’t feel like there was enough discussion of the actual pedagogical application of the assignment, and I would have loved to have heard more from Mary to that end. I did find it hard to follow along with the overall talk because of the lack of a PowerPoint—the presenter had select quotes on overheads, but I had difficulty following the overall, larger thread. The presenter was very comfortable with speaking in front of an audience, and the session seemed conversational—rather than having a paper read at me—and I always find that refreshing. However, it might just be my mind’s tendency to wander if I don’t have an outline or a PowerPoint to look at, but I found myself having difficulty keeping on track where we were in the conversation. “Electronic conversations marginalize those who don’t conform”—the example that the presenter gave, that of a chat room conversation/thread where people were basically talking past each other, not to each other, reminded me strongly of Lester Faigley’s Fragments of Rationality book (the second half, where he talks about a chat conversation “gone wrong”). And actually, I was interested to see the presenter quote extensively from discussion boards without really discussing the ethics of that—I recognized a board that I frequent, and I wondered how the member of that board being quoted/discussed would feel about her words being quoted for an academic research presentation such as this… Katherine L. Hall presented “Access and Student Success Through Writing About the United Nations.” The idea sounded excellent, but again, I must confess, I wanted more of a structured session which would lead me through the theory behind the pedagogy and then explain the pedagogical tools satisfactorily. I think the concept, that of using the United Nations as a tool to help students think about difference, is wonderful, but even after attending the session and listening to Hall’s talk, I don’t have a clear idea of how to apply these ideas. Jenny Jacovitch presented “Rowling’s Rhetoric as Symbolic Action: Teaching Harry Potter with Issues of Race, Gender, Sexuality, and Institutional Power in the First-Year Composition Classroom.” As a Harry Potter fan, it was quite fun to hear how one instructor had envisioned using HP in the classroom as a “serious academic exercise.” I guess I did not realize how much was out there in terms of theoretical work on Rowling’s series, though it doesn’t surprise me upon thinking about it more seriously; after all, her books took the world by storm and were wildly popular among many instructors, who were quite thrilled to see students reading voluntarily and voraciously. In any case, Jenny gave a professional handout which explained the setup of the course she had taught which used Harry Potter and walked us through some of the concepts she used. Smartly, she pointed out that the categories of race, class, gender, sexuality, and so on were simply that—categories—and not hard and fast divisions; in other words, these “divisions” meshed and overlapped and thus we are not to think of each as an essentialized, separate category, but rather all manifestations of overall difference. The focus on the pedagogy and “how to” of the course was interesting and I plan to look into more about how to use Harry Potter and other pop-culture phenomena to teach difference and inequality in the writing classroom. |
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