Box-Logic?

I do not want to sound like I am old fashioned or a kill-joy, but I guess I would be considered a traditional composition kid. I am sure that begs all types of questions of what is the traditional way to teach writing, but I guess what I mean by traditional is I am all for traditional essays. I understand the need to bring in multi-modal forms; most students will deal more with other types of writing than academic writing in their career life, but at the end of the day, I favor the essay model above any other.

Because of how I feel about composition, I did not like the “Box-Logic” article by Geoffrey Sirc. This article, along with a lot of other multi-modal pedagogy, seems to reject the idea that students should be taught to write essays. I do understand there are students like Sirc’s student, Greg White that was obviously not an English major but who could still articulate thought about a topic, but what is wrong with teaching him to write a paper? One of the things that I’ve always had drilled into my head, and that I have passed on to my none English major friends, is that no matter what your major, you will have to write papers; that being said, every student, even Greg White, needs to understand how to write a proper essay in an academic setting. While I see the benefit in the activities Sirc lists and what they teach, I think that they should either be an option in a course or an advanced course, not an introduction to composition course.

I do not want to write off multi-modal teaching because I am getting mad that multi-modal seems to write off traditional writing. I do think that Sirc’s article shuts out the idea that some students might prefer to write an essay. Speaking from personal experience I would much rather write than do anything else. If I am ever given an assignment where I have the option between a paper and a presentation or anything else, I am going to choose to do a paper. I am aware that this is not a typical student, but I think the traditional essay does need to be taught.

I did have a difficult time dealing with the concept of the box-logic. The descriptions of Cornell’s boxes seem to only be a beautiful thing in a world where the television show “Hoarders” does not exist. I do believe that as writers, students need to have a plethora of things at their disposal as possible topics to write about, and in this sense, various forms of media to use and I like how Sirc mentions that Cornell never really sealed his boxes as a way for him to return to his ideas later as a metaphor for the way students need to return to their writing over and over again (120). I suppose I just wish I could be more invested in this way of teaching; perhaps it is not an issue with the pedagogy, but with me being able to connect with it.

One of the things I did like about Sirc’s article was when he spoke about “students-designers, now, not essayists” because it opens up the idea that students are creating, and I think that this can go for essays and projects (121). I think that there is some kind of stigma that’s been put on writing papers that needs to be lifted by composition teachers. I think that supporting the multi-modal pedagogy does not mean that we have to neglect the traditional essay model of learning. 

Shipka and English composition

The idea of the subject of communication going head-to-head against the subject of composition was a major moment of contention in Shipka’s book, and it reminded me in a lot of ways of the battle between composition professors and literature professors. In this case, however, composition teachers are the ones being too judgmental and trying to control the communication department. This divide between how Freshman English is taught and how it should be taught is something that I suppose every college department is going through, especially with the changing writing climate. Shipka explains that the main issue with Freshman English is that “traditional English course’s lack of…unified course content…[is] one of its fundamental weaknesses” (24). The fact that no one can seem to agree, even within an English department, on what English Composition should look like shows how unwilling some professors are to step outside of what they were taught as students and adapt to the changing world of writing.

            Shipka quotes Briggs about the major difference between communication teachers and compositions teachers:

                        A key difference between teachers of communication courses and traditional                                 freshman English courses is that the former tends to exhibit an “experiemental

                        attitude”…meeting routinely to exchange information and solicit feedback on

                        the way their courses were designed…Clyde Dow notes... “there is a tendency [in                         many of the newer communication courses] to disregard tradition and to

                        substitute an attitude of ‘I don’t know, let’s see.’ (25).

It makes me wonder what the road block is for composition professors. I would think that an English professor would want to make writing as accessible to others as possible because it is such an important skill for everyone to have a strong grasp on, from English majors to scientists. The fact that communication professors are more concerned with this is surprising to me. I understand that, obviously, communication includes writing, but by the time a student gets to a communication course, I would think that they should already understand how to be convincing with their writing, which is the job of the freshman English department.

            Even though I am an English major, I am in support of the communication approach. According to Shipka, there are multiple advantages to this communications approach to teaching freshman composition:

 A communications approach to freshman English…[is] grounded in social

l scientific theories of discourse [which] would underscore for students the            connection between the social and personal dimensions of communicative

practice…A communications approach…would examine how writing relates to

the other modes and media of communication…[and would ask] students to

examine the communicative process as a dynamic, embodied, multimodal

whole- one that both shapes and is shaped by the environment [meaning]

students might come to see writing, reading, speaking, and ways of

thinking and evaluating as “a function of place, time, sex, age and many

other elements of life” (26).

To me, this is exactly what writing should be today. We can no longer expect to interest students with worn out teaching techniques, such as mapping sentences, when there is so much more to writing. Making students interested in writing has to extend into their personal lives; if someone cannot relate to something, they cannot learn to understand or like it. I think that the communicative approach makes it easier for students to say “I like to write” or at least “writing is not scary to me, because I do it every single day.”

            This integration of writing into everyday life is indicative of the textbook my group analyzed for the presentation, Everyone is An Author. Both want to introduce the idea that writing is not this elitist camp that only the sacred few can enter into. I think there is nothing more important to teach students than that writing is an accessible task. How can English professors expect their students to want to go into the English major, or to even succeed in college, if they put a cloud around writing that makes it foreboding. Keeping up with the times is something that has to happen in college since the students walking through the doors are right in the middle of the changing media climate; students have smart phones and Tumblr accounts, and to not be aware of how everything they know impacts writing is a form of ignorance that needs to be remedied if English professors expect their students to push themselves into writing with enthusiasm.