Week 1

Berthoff, Ann E. "Is Teaching Still Possible? Writing, Meaning, and Higher Order Reasoning." Cross-Talk in Comp Theory. 2nd ed. Ed. Victor Villanueva. Urbana: NCTE, (2003): 329-343. Accessed via http://www.wou.edu/~waitej/crosstalk.pdf

In her piece “Is Teaching Still Possible,” Berthoff examines the thinking process involved in expression via writing. Berthoff's essay, in a major way, is a call to action for teachers of English in particular: We need to "invent a pedagogy that views reading and writing as interpretation and the making of meaning" (pp 329). This new pedagogy will, as a result, allow us to better navigate – and possibly avoid – the pitfalls of traditional developmental models. The crux of this re-framing is that unless “a learning is engaged [with the teaching model], no meaning will be made, no knowledge can be won” (pp 330). To solidify her claim, she states that the Piagetian model of education, which “represents the stages of development of the language and thought of the child” (pp 329), doesn't do enough to address the needs of older students.

By breaking down the essence of learning via language, Berthoff further shows why it is necessary for modern teachers to move beyond these traditional understandings of language and education: “If you start with a working concept of language as a means of making meaning, you are recognizing that language can only be studied by means of language” (pp 331). This presentation seems to imply a limited effectiveness for teachers who rely too heavily on archaic lecturing tactics to shape student understanding (instead of including various multimodal discussions and activities that would expand the "language" used and studied in class). Because of this limited focus, Berthoff explains that students are not given the guidance needed to adequately interpret and apply writing concepts. The author cites I.A. Richards in showing that this inadequacy prevents students from recognizing the role of language and expression as tools for defining one’s “becoming.” Instead, language is viewed as a hard-to-crack code, an obstacle that must be overcome in order to convey information.

Further emphasizing the importance of engaging the student’s mind in active learning, Berthoff explains that “[teachers], by means of a careful sequence of lessons or assignments, can assure that the students are conscious of their minds in action [and] can develop their language by means of exercising deliberate choice” (333). According to Piaget, these lesson plans should test students’ cognitive understanding by removing themselves as far as possible from “language-dependent settings” (335). However, as we hark back to Berthoff’s earlier stipulation that Piaget applied his youth-teaching techniques to the role of post-secondary teachers, we may be inclined to notice her disagreement with this assessment. Instead, one might note that while this method could be effective for teaching children, young adults may need a more advanced focus.

Berthoff explains that students do not experience difficulty in forming abstractions as much as they do in forming generalizations. Abstract thinking, she claims, is “the way we make sense of the world in perception, in dreaming, in all expressive acts, in works of art, in all imagining” (pp 338). This imagination is something naturally inherent to us all through birth, she asserts. The difficulty that we all face as composition instructors, then, is in moving “from abstraction in non-discursive mode to discursive abstraction, to generalization” (pp 338) – in other words, applying a method to the madness of abstract thinking. Berthoff's emphasis of the importance of the imagination reminds me of Lacan: Indeed, is it more “natural” for us to think abstractly than concretely or generally? (The seams show when we transition from the Imaginary Order to the Symbolic Order, right?) Or is Berthoff making a lot of cultural assumptions with that statement (i.e. are all student-writers, regardless of socio-economics, race, location, etc, “born” to think in abstracts)? Even thinking about my own students as all being the same in this regard feels somewhat problematic: Sure, I'm inclined to sympathize with those who privilege imagination, but isn't the free exploration of imagination in itself a privilege?

But I digress. Berthoff's suggestions, although originally made in the 1980's, are still relevant and useful to us. To give us direction in our quest to develop our students’ generalizing techniques, the author cites Kenneth Burke and his studies concerning multiple perceptions: “Looking again and again [at a subject] helps students learn to transform things into questions; they learn to see names as ‘titles for situations’” (pp 339). Expanding on this idea, she adds, “In looking and naming, looking again and re-naming, [students] develop perspectives and contexts, discovering how each controls the other. They are composing; they are forming; they are abstracting” (pp 341). This consideration of multiple perspectives drives the students’ learning as they begin to learn less in terms of facts and more in terms of concepts. “Concept formation as it is often called,” explains Berthoff, “must be deliberately learned and should therefore be deliberately taught.”

As an instructor, I really like this philosophy, valuing interpretation and meaning-making over the sterility of facts and regurgitating information. Especially in light of the ill effects of No Child Left Behind, it would be helpful to re-engage with these concepts again: We lose a lot when we fail to emphasize the authority of thoughtfulness and imagination. “If we let our practice be guided by whatever we are told has been validated by empirical research, we will get what we have got: a conception of learning as contingent on development in as straight-forward, linear fashion; of development as pre-self program which is autonomous and does not require instruction; of language as words used as labels, of meanings as a one-directional, one-dimensional attribute; of the human mind as an adaptive mechanism” (pp 336).

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Bruffee, Kenneth A. “Collaborative Learning and 'The Conversation of Mankind.'” College English, 46.7 (1984): 635-652. Accessed via https://www.uni-bielefeld.de/exzellenz/lehre/docs/Bruffee_Collaborative_Learning.pdf

Through the process of explaining the rationale behind collaborative learning, Bruffee posits in his article that instructors, many of whom may be unsure about the implementation, will come to see the intrinsic value of collaborative learning. He starts by providing some background and context for the “nature” of thought and knowledge by citing Michael Oakeshott and Clifford Geertz, who believe that human thought is connected to social conversation: that is, our private thoughts spring from our public interactions with others, which isn't dissimilar from Berthoff's beliefs expressed in the previous article. According to Bruffee, scientist Thomas Kuhn says that knowledge is not "merely relative," or "what any one of us says it is. Knowledge is maintained and established by communities of knowledgeable peers" (pp 640). Similarly, Richard Rorty believes that to understand any kind of knowledge, "we must understand how knowledge is established and maintained in the 'normal discourse' of communities of knowledgeable peers" (pp 640).

Bruffee aligns himself with these thinkers. He reasons, "To think well as individuals we must learn to think well collectively--that is, we must learn to converse well" and adds, "Not to have mastered the normal discourse of a discipline, no matter how many 'facts' or data one may know, is not to be knowledgeable in that discipline" (pp 642). Our task as teachers, therefore, according to Bruffee, must be to engage students in conversations with each other and to encourage their conversations to sound like what Rorty calls "normal discourse." This means a conversation which everyone in the discourse community would define as "rational."

He sees the collaborative learning classroom as the perfect environment which will provide the kind of social context where “normal” discourse can occur. Bruffee argues that, for instance, in a peer writing group, the editing that students are doing isn't what's important, it's the conversation they have while they work, a conversation about the assignment, about writing in general, that matters.

With this point, I'm reminded of Berthoff's call-to-arms, above: In a way, when we ask students to “act naturally,” we're allowing them to perform the act of writing within the comforts of abstraction. Often, when we ask students to engage with texts (often with their own texts as well), we expect them to follow a set of rules or meet X-number of requirements in order to do a “good job.” When imagination takes over, however, perhaps more productivity can result?

In addition to providing a place for “normal” discourse, Bruffee also admits that it's where the equally important "abnormal" discourse can occur. Abnormal discourse can be seen, according to Rorty, as "kooky" or "revolutionary" depending on whether the speaker can persuade others of his or her ideas. Abnormal discourse is important because it helps us challenge the authority of knowledge that may be unproductive; it helps us change when we need to. As instructors, Bruffee claims, we need to teach the tools of normal discourse while at the same time leave room and permission for abnormal discourse to occur. As Bruffee puts it, we must be both "conservators and agents of change." (pp 650)

Using collaborative learning may be an uncomfortable pedagogical shift for some teachers who are used to being the expert because of their content mastery. Bruffee claims that in a collaborative learning environment, instructors, instead, have to view themselves as experts in how to think, speak, and write in a discourse community. Our ultimate charge is to help our students access our discourse community, and to guide them through the "reculturation" process – where they figure out how to place this new community in the context of the rest of their identities – as they do so.

I would argue that it's necessary to continue to move away from the autonomous model of teaching/thinking about writing; in fact, "pure" collaborative learning is difficult to maintain, I confess, but in order for students to enjoy all of the benefits of growing through writing, as a teacher, I have to give up a lot of my power so that they can have power over their growth.