4.26.2022

TORDA'S FALL 2025 TEACHING SITE

4.26.2022

4/26/2022

Today we are talking about two topics that seem like they should go together but too often seem to actually contradict each other. For today's post, to begin, please post you reading your reading response to tonights reading.

After you've posted, as per usual, read and comment on your colleague's posts.

37 Comments

Ashley Merola

4/26/2022 03:36:23 pm

Our last set of readings present some interesting perspectives on pedagogical practices that pervade the contemporary composition classroom. Both chapters stress the importance of style - not grammar or voice - as a topic through which writing teachers can improve their instruction and, in turn, their students’ writing.

The chapter on teaching grammar caught my attention due to the abundance of research that seems to refute the design of my district’s K-12 writing curriculum. Williams summarizes multiple studies in which “the writing of students who studied grammar, whether traditional or transformational, was not judged to be any better along any dimension than the writing of students who did not study grammar” (279). In other words, grammar instruction does not make a measurable difference in student writing. It can even have a negative effect on students’ attitudes toward the act of writing itself. While these findings do not necessarily surprise me, they do expose a disconnect in a discipline that has historically prioritized grammar as a path to “good” writing. I have always accepted the latter assumption without any hesitation, as units on grammar appear throughout my school’s scope and sequence maps for English 9 and 10. However, the chapter has caused me to distrust that decision.
The piece of evidence that persuaded me the most was the explanation Williams provides of the connection between reading and writing acquisition. He asserts that, while “students do very little reading,” it functions as an indirect form of grammar instruction that aids their unconscious understanding of usage (Williams 286). As a teacher who requires her students to read independently every day, I agree with this assertion. The automatic awareness they attain from reading a wide range of writing styles on a regular basis allows them to transfer their observations to their own work. Although I incorporate grammar lessons into my instruction as needed, I can attest to the positive effect that reading has on my students’ growth as writers - not to mention they tend to enjoy it much more.

On the topic of voice, I was intrigued, but not completely convinced, by Bowden’s argument against its use in composition courses (227). She sets out to show how the metaphor of voice primarily presents problems for writing teachers. Yet, she claims in her conclusion that “the study of style - much like the study of voice - is complex,” but “important” (Bowden 239). I would contend that, despite the thesis with which she starts, Bowden demonstrates how the discussion of voice has value in conjunction with conversations about style. She further speaks to this idea when she illustrates how “voice can be shaped by word choice and metadiscourse,” as well as “through point of view and tone” (Bowden 237). Since effective writing employs both voice and style, writing teachers therefore need to talk about both in their classrooms in order to improve their instruction.

Overall, the two chapters challenged my past perceptions of grammar and voice as concepts that, on the surface, seem central to composition. I now aspire to offer more writing opportunities that call for a focus on style with the hope of helping my students succeed any time they use language throughout their lives.

Melissa

4/26/2022 03:45:28 pm

Hi Ashley,

I was blown away with the chapter on grammar. I feel conflicted when it comes to grammar. I believe it is necessary in academic writing, yet I believe in decolonizing the classroom. If I adhere to traditional grammar, I may punish the very students I recognize are suffering from institutional academic marginalization. It feels like a no win. Also, I have complete impostor syndrome when it comes to grammar; I constantly feel that I have not yet mastered it, so I should not be thinking about a future in teaching.

Shauna

4/26/2022 03:52:52 pm

Totally agree with you both. Last week I read a paper that completely lacked any grammar ... like at all, and it was borderline insufferable. But I will say that is the first piece of writing this student has completed and submitted to me all year and so learning about his voice and style was a unique moment for me. I also realized that he had not had much access to grammar education because of his experiences in school and life. His relationship with language does exist largely without grammar and so who am I (somebody who also has not yet mastered grammar) to criticize?

And 100% on the impostor syndrome, Melissa. Every single day!

Matthew Cutter

4/26/2022 03:51:22 pm

More teachers need to be exposed to current studies on direct grammar instruction and it's ultimate ineffectiveness. I've always sort of suspected it was ineffective simply based off of my own experiences as a student, but as I've moved through this discipline I've begun to feel more validated in my beliefs based on all of the research I've been exposed to.

Sarah

4/26/2022 04:10:53 pm

I weirdly LOVE grammar instruction so I've been slow to believe this undeniable research, Matt! The most impactful thing for me this semester was the readings on error as disrupting meaning, which this article highlights. It frees us to join Shauna in reading for student meaning and celebrating their insights, but it also gives us space to show students how to better communicate their meaning to a broader audience. I teach a set of super-practice grammar rules that students incorporate into their writing. I don't know if that's antithetical to this research, but I have all kinds of students with more confidence to share their ideas not just with me, but with one another, than they did before learning them. I also love the illustration created by Hofstadter about "four errors in this sentence" (310). I think I'll try it with my students and see if they "get" it and its implications for how meaning is as significant as mechanics.

4/26/2022 03:52:38 pm

There is a connection here to make with Mina Shaughnessy. She writes that student error often occurs because they are not readers--they do not understand "what writing looks like on the page." I think about this a lot and wonder how to operationalize it in a classroom of, say, college freshman. I use complicated, rich texts in my class. I read outloud to my students (this is how I get at style and, despite what Bowen says, voice). But I tend to look at big picture issues--where is the thesis, where is the evidence, how is the writer making choices about where to put what, what word to use. But I often wonder what would happen if I spent time going sentence by sentence to see how a writer constructs a sentence--besides boring them to death. Which speaks to another point the reading makes: students have to be ready to do the work of grammar for rhetorical purposes. It's not the first issue in becoming a better writer. I often think that we simply don't have time to get to this level of care with writing--you'd need a whole semester in a students senior year of college. Or they could write an honors thesis.

Sarah

4/26/2022 04:12:35 pm

I realized I commented without reading yours! Forgive the repetition!

Melissa

4/26/2022 03:37:01 pm

How is the use of voice in writing valuable? How is the use of voice in writing problematic? Bowden may claim that voice is a metaphor, an abstract concept that limits our perceptions as writers, but the truth is, voice is a concrete pedagogical tool in education (voice is also concrete outside of education). Voice then becomes a proverbial double-edged sword; slicing through colonial English traditions or slicing through a student’s self-expression –– it all depends on who is holding the sword. The movement for voice parallels the process movement, encouraging writing that exhibits emotion, passion, ideals, and a writer’s inner self. Writing becomes expressivism as activism, positing meaningful prose over mechanics, and as Elbow suggests, writing one’s text leaves an identifiable imprint of who they are, promoting their rhetorical power and legitimizing their contextual product. Voice in writing can be an act of resistance for those suffering marginalization, the sword, when in their hands, leads to a survivance of their narrative over the dominant power. As Macrorie suggests, one’s “truthtelling voice” is authentic of one’s inner being, meaning the vocal truths coming from groups outside of the colonial normative are authentic narratives challenging Eurocentric ideologies surrounding their existence. The written voice, when it comes to oppression, may then transcend rhetorical power, and create literal power –– a tool of discourse that lends itself to movements looking to dismantle institutional imperialism.

However, there is a school of thought that believes there is no space for voice in writing because it is not academic. It’s no surprise that those against voice tend to align with Western ideologies. Western thought wants to oppress voice for the very reasons it oppresses populations, because then it controls lives, resources, narratives. Plato believes writing is inferior to speech, claiming there is no give and take in writing. Is that because it is easier to silence the speech of those under the subjugation of the West? Is it because nondominant populations give and dominant populations take? That might be why Derrida deems voice not definable, there is no place for voice in deconstruction because voice is inherent to self, reclaiming its authority from others, not “othering.”

In Bowden’s article, there is an argument from Western thinkers that using voice in writing plays into the dominant –– that voice insists on the silence of readers, which in turn devalues the readers voices. The belief is that voice in writing forces other voices into silence. For those from colonial dominance, this argument is beneficial. It means that the White patriarchal narrative remains in a place of power, denying those it oppresses an opportunity to dispute inaccuracies of identity, keeping them as “Others,” and devaluing their worth. However, if you flip the script, and the “Others” rightfully claim their written voice, then the act of silencing readers becomes central to promoting agency. That’s probably what the West is afraid of when it comes to voice in writing, whether academic or beyond. That’s why as educators, we need to encourage voice. Place voice front and center; it may encourage students to “speak” up for themselves, to write their truths, and in doing so, to deny the inaccurate colonial voice hoping to maintain its dominance.

4/26/2022 03:55:26 pm

I'm not entirely sure that Bowden's argument is that there is no room for voice in an academic argument. As I read it, I feel like what she is saying is that you can't teach voice. Part of me agrees with her. What does voice even mean for a first year student in college? They don't all have an actual "voice" in the metaphorical sense--they don't know what they believe or why they believe it. And so sometimes I worry that our insistence on students having a voice is just as oppressive as teaching them what we imagine appropriate academic writing is. I really struggle with this--as in, what is my actual job in helping students be better writers?

Melissa

4/26/2022 04:04:16 pm

I agree that I came on strong with my opinions on voice. I believe it's because I spend so much time academically on matters of marginalization. I so badly want the oppressed to learn how to represent themselves and to be represented by others. I think the best way of doing this is through voice. With that being said, I agree that voice is pervasive to understand and teach.

Maura Geoghegan

4/26/2022 03:39:04 pm

Grammar seems to be something that people expect students to either inherently understand or quickly grasp. It seems to almost be a paradox in which so much focus is given to it, but little instruction is given to students or preservice teachers. The last time I explicitly remember being taught grammar is for a short period in the 10th grade and in college I was never taught how to teach or approach grammar with students. I appreciated reading Williams’s chapter and learning that several research studies have shown that no significant differences were found in the writing of students that received more grammar instruction compared to groups that received no explicit grammar instruction.

The very first article we read for this class, “Why Johnny Can’t Write,” connects with several points made by Williams in his chapter, “Teaching Grammar in the Context of Writing.” As Williams points out, “whenever politicians take notice of writing skills in our schools, they blame poor writing on the failure to teach children grammar, and they nearly always propose a “back to basics'' program that will force schools to teach even more grammar” (269). Politicians and people such as Adam Sherman Hill and Merrill Sheils only focus on students’ deficits. They expect students to become masters of a formal standard English and when students do not live up to their (often impossible) standards, they view grammar instruction as the solution, correlating strong writing with a strong understanding of grammar. However, “when we ask students to write an academic paper, we essentially are asking them to use a dialect of English that they have rarely encountered and therefore have not mastered” (282). As Williams shows, the focus should not be on increasing grammar to help students with their writing, but should instead focus on elements of usage in writing such as word-choice, punctuation, agreement, and tense. Focusing on these areas, instead of grammar rules that are complex, confusing, and sometimes contradictory, students will be able to build upon and improve specific skills in their writing. This shift in thinking is also helpful since “language is always in a state of flux that can result in changes in what is deemed grammatical” (284). A recent example of this that comes to mind is the accepted use of they/them as singular pronouns now.

There are several sections of Williams’s chapter that can also connect to Inoue’s work, but the most prominent section was “Nonstandard Dialects.” Earlier in his chapter, Williams discusses how students have already internalized grammar from their experiences at home, so “by the time students enter school, grammar is already embedded in their brains” (282). However, “few children grow up immersed in a language environment that consists of formal Standard English” (288), so there is already a large gap between what students are familiar with and what they are expected to use in school. Inoue builds on this point by showing how non-white and non-English, specifically non-SEAE, speakers are continuously put at a disadvantage when their backgrounds and dialects are not valued in writing and assessment. Williams also highlights the fact that there is a double standard at play since it has become “commonplace” to hear students and faculty using a range of dialects and nonstandard speech on university campuses. Both Inoue and Williams want more people to acknowledge these double standards and unnecessary practices when it comes to grammar and writing assessment so that students can learn more effectively.

4/26/2022 03:59:09 pm

I love, love, love, that you are connecting this back to our very first writings. Grammar is absolutely the way everyone talks about good writing if you ask them what good writing is--they say error free writing. They say "proper grammar." Students say it. Teachers say it. Politicians and policy makers say it. It's the most easily measurable way to assess student writing. But when you actually ask any of the above groups to talk about what they want to see in a piece of writing they *never* say "good grammar." They say things that look an awful lot like "voice" or "style". They talk about "having a point" about "real evidence." The trick is bringing these two conversations together.

Kayleigh Holt

4/26/2022 04:03:34 pm

Hi Maura,
In thinking back, I can not remember when was the last time I was explicitly taught grammar in school, but it honestly may have been in middle school. And I definitely never received any instruction on how to teach grammar to my students now. The program I teach with has a grammar topic that is paired with every reading that we do. Some of the topics are helpful to the students and do focus on elements of usage in writing, but at least half of the topics are things that I know are not actually helping my students improve their writing at all - I don't know who is going to stop my students and demand that they identify a verb mood, but it is a grammar topic three separate times over the course of our year, so they are ready! Being able to focus more on the type of grammar topics that are actively helping students to improve their writing skills is something that we can hopefully see more of in the future.

Matthew Cutter

4/26/2022 04:03:43 pm

The only time that I remember being taught how to teach grammar was in a course several years ago here at BSU. It focused on teaching grammar in the context of writing. That through engaging with academic texts and writing their own, students will learn so much more about grammar than through specific exercises. So my own instruction relies heavily on revision, reading and writing. I find that most students grasp grammar afterwards.

Shauna

4/26/2022 03:47:22 pm

My experiences with grammar as a student were dismal during secondary education … I quite literally don’t remember ever being told how to write or use punctuation. Everything I learned about grammar came from reading and writing a bunch. Then later on when I came to BSU for my undergraduate degree I was in a class with Dr.Carson and he ripped apart all of our papers and gave us all F’s and proudly proclaimed that we couldn’t write and I felt like my time in high school and in my associates program had failed me. Dr.Carson, however, did something new for us that I had not yet seen before. He had us take out our marked up papers and he turned on the projector and showed us 10 examples from our own writing of the same grammatical error, and he told us how it was used incorrectly in each piece of writing. He then instructed us to look for a symbol in the margins of our pages and sure enough each place there was that symbol was the same grammatical error and he informed us that every single one of us made that mistake at least once in our writing. After that he took the time with us as a class and individually and with his TA to help us learn and grow from that grammar problem. Ever since then I have felt so much more confident in my grammar as a writer.

In our Writing and Teaching of Writing Class during undergrad Dr.Torda informed us all that she felt strongly about marking grammar on papers as being a fairly useless practice, because students will rarely (if ever) learn what that error was. She told us that if you can’t take the time to sit with the student and discuss the error then you shouldn't bother marking it on their paper, because the only way they are going to learn is if you intervene directly and discuss their own authentic work. This put my experience with Dr.Carson into perspective two-fold, because it had worked on me and so I knew that would work with students. I’ve since taken that lesson from Torda and Carson and put it to the test in my classroom. All last year I marked the grammar of my honors students and conferenced with my CP students … whose grammar improved? The CP students of course! It was a magical experience.

Yet I still never feel confident enough to implement my own grammar lessons really. I suck at differentiating between active and passive voice and my word order and sentence structure would probably give most grammar lovers a heart attack. But I genuinely think my voice and style of writing lends to my work and makes it more palatable to read completely despite my grammar. I try to instill this in my students as well, because I would much rather read a paper riddled with grammar mistakes that has a unique voice and style than the paper of a grammar god with the voice and style of a robot (not to say you can’t have both but I hope you all get that).

Olivia L

4/26/2022 03:54:59 pm

I also feel like my time with grammar was so lost in the wind. I know it was an elementary school thing and it is repeated throughout schooling, but there are so many other standards that it is hard to have time to even reteach comma usage, for example, to my students. That's such an interesting experience you had! I have had similar and I am embarrassed to mess up on simple grammatical errors in work and college classes, but I feel like I wasn't prepared enough. At the same time- do we need to be? It seems as though highly educated people still make simple grammatical errors too. I just feel like the focus should be on the student voice and getting them to write.

Maura Geoghegan

4/26/2022 03:55:29 pm

Hi Shauna,

I love the experiences you share here and how well they connect with the two chapters! I also mentioned in my post that I vaguely remember receiving direct instruction on grammar, but it wasn't very memorable and definitely wasn't very enjoyable. Reading often and being exposed to a variety of texts has helped me more as a writer than any direct grammar instruction I've received.

I love how you were also able to experiment with your own students and prove the truth behind your experience with Dr. Carson and the advice from Dr. Torda. Conferencing with students about their writing is so valuable, but also so difficult to fit in with short periods and a large class size.

Melissa

4/26/2022 03:59:43 pm

Grammar, (with my fists in the air)! I agree that my time as an undergraduate was more formative regarding my understanding of grammar. I had a similar experience with Dr. Ferrante. I was so proud of the first paper I turned in to her and I was shocked at how many errors I had made (note, I wasn't even an English major at that time). The key is that Dr. Ferrante approached my errors, not as horrific, but commonplace. She also praised my style and voice, presenting me with a balance of what worked and what could be improved upon.

4/26/2022 04:03:21 pm

I'm honored that I made the list! Ben and I certainly do have different ways of dealing with grammar issues. I must admit, I do mark up my first year student papers. But then, yes, I meet with them to talk about what is going on in their papers. And I do a bit of what Carson does too. I pull sentences and talk about them in class with students. I try to do it on days that students are turning in papers. I invite them to go back through their papers during class to see if they. can see any of the kinds of errors that we were just talking about and see if they can fix them. I make a point of congratulating students when they figure something out this way. Also, I do a lot of "this is something that will help you in every paper you write" and I also talk about things that you'll never need to memorize and can just look up--but that there are times when you gotta really look it up and not just wing it. That's the step I don't think students really get.

Kayleigh Holt

4/26/2022 03:48:30 pm

As I began reading Darsie Bowden’s chapter regarding “Voice and Style” I paused and tried to define, even if only internally to myself, what voice is. In my own teaching I, like Bowden, have found myself talking about voice and tone and at times stumbling to find the words to explain the difference between those two things. When we are discussing voice in my classroom I often feel like it is not a clear concept and it is something that can be difficult to articulate. Voice, to my mind, is the quality to an author’s writing that is distinctly them, some combination of diction, syntax and tone that comes together to create their voice.

The concept of voice in writing seems like such an intrinsic part of both the pedagogy and the writing process itself, that it was startling to me that voice was not widely discussed as a part of writing until the 1960s - 1970s. Something else that really stuck out to me while reading, was how nebulous the definition of voice seemed throughout. Every person who was referenced in the chapter seemed to have a different idea of what voice is and how we identify it. By showing how ambiguous the nature of the concept of voice is Bowden reinforced her assertion that “Voice is a metaphor - a very powerful one” (p. 228). That connection, between voice and metaphors, really illustrates how abstract and far-reaching both can be.

Ashley Merola

4/26/2022 04:01:40 pm

Hi Kayleigh,

I also had difficulty defining voice while reading Bowden's chapter, despite using the word so often with my students. Your characterization of voice as a combination of diction, syntax, and tone really speaks to the connection between voice and style. It seems as though the two concepts must work in tandem to produce effective writing - which is quite the challenge for students who are still trying to figure out who they are as writers (and as human beings).

Maura Geoghegan

4/26/2022 04:04:53 pm

Hi Kayleigh,

Talking about something as abstract as voice can be challenging, especially with students who may have trouble grasping abstract concepts. I like the way you've defined it here and how you also highlight that even the scholars mentioned struggle to create one singular definition for voice.

I was also somewhat surprised that voice wasn't used or discussed in composition studies until the 1960s-70s, but it made sense that it would come about during the process movement and be associated with the "expressionist school" (Bowden 228). Voice focuses on a more personal and individual aspect of writing that the process and expressionist movements provided more space to focus on and discuss.

Shauna

4/26/2022 04:05:08 pm

Kayleigh, you bring up an interesting point when you define voice: "Voice, to my mind, is the quality to an author’s writing that is distinctly them, some combination of diction, syntax and tone that comes together to create their voice." It makes me think about famous authors and the voices that we rely on to teach literature, and how so many of them never used "proper" grammar. Faulkner, Joyce, Kerouac, Cummings, Stein, all of them to some degree ignored the basic rules of punctuation and grammar. Faulkner himself told readers that to get through The Sound and the Fury they should read it FOUR TIMES. These are, of course, extreme examples of what it is you are saying, but rules are meant to be broken.

4/26/2022 04:06:54 pm

I commented on this above: I've come to see a lot of talk about "voice" as counter productive, mostly because it feels pretty ephemeral. And for the students I work with, they aren't confident enough in what they are thinking or saying to feel ownership over their ideas. You and Melissa both hit on the ways that voice is a hold over from the earliest conversations about process pedagogy: this idea that we need to let students be as free as possible to write what they think. (Peter Elbow's Writing without Teachers). But, of course, it's school. There are teachers. So then what?

Olivia L

4/26/2022 03:48:59 pm

In Darsie Bowden's "Voice & Style", I feel that we are again relating back to genre and audience. The author's purpose usually determines what their tone and mood will be in their writing. Bowden references T.S. Eliot's essay in which he mentions writing as one "voice". He says, "...the way it sounds when you read it to yourself...for it is yourself speaking." (p 228). With a focus on grammar and mechanics in writing, it is difficult for teachers to help students find their "writing voice". This is a really good point that Bowden brings up. We are not geared at teaching students to actually write. Writing for them is just an assignment as I also found in my ethnography case study. It is difficult to assign them something that they can truly connect to and even then, it must be built upon. They should be writing to find their voices. We need students to understand that we should "hear" their writing. It does not have to be so straight forward and dry. It should be something personal. With this, we can help them grow in their writing even more. Bowden also mentions that good writers are "authentic writers" (p 230). They are "authentic" because they are able to tap into their "inner-self" and write a piece where their voices are heard. Writers can also create a voice when making characters and in fictional writing. Emphasis on the writing process helped this in classrooms historically (p 232).
With this, we are left with the question of how we can incorporate grammar in the classroom without losing focus on the student writing as a whole as well as growing their own voice and style. Thinking about the conversation to text aspect that Williams mentions is interesting. Many of my students use conversational sentence structures in their writing and now more than ever I see slang as if they are texting. The incorporation of grammar in writing is so important to me, but at the same time, sometimes I just want my kids to write and if they do that even then I am lucky. I also again move back to that idea of student writing being "authentic" and I feel like it can't be if they are focusing on grammar. As mentioned in the article, grammar is hard and can be confusing.

Brian Seibert

4/26/2022 04:02:06 pm

Hi Olivia,
I liked that you mentioned good writers are able to tap into their "inner self." That is so difficult for teachers to bring out in most students. It's difficult for them to be authentic because they are not motivated. Like I have observed in my ethnography study, many students just sit there when it comes time to begin writing independently. It's not that they are incapable, they are just not motivated. If I write a model essay with them, they are great at copying what I write. However, it is discouraging the writing output from most students. Like you said, it is just some assignment for them.

Matthew Cutter

4/26/2022 03:49:05 pm

I found Bowden's writings on voice and style super interesting. Something I tell my students all the time is to "write in their own voice", but the term voice is something that Bowden actively tries not to use in her courses. Bowden states that voice is ultimately a metaphor, and that the importance lies in how we frame that metaphor. If we frame it the wrong way, Bowden argues, it could severely limit our perception of what voice in writing is.

One particularly interesting point that Bowden makes is to encourage students to write in their own voice, but to also teach them the importance of certain stylistic choices. Bowden talks about a potential persuasive article in which the writer simply rails against something in a passionate and argumentative style. Bowden writes, "...he'd need to make stylistic choices that would be most effective in persuading that audience that change needed to be made. In this case, a more formal, and even dispassionate tone might make him sound more objective and enhance his credibility" (236). Bowden is not advocating that the student abandon their voice. Instead Bowden argues that we should frame what we might originally critique as an issues with the writers voice, to that of an issue with stylistic choice instead.

When evaluating my own student's writing, I am always trying to suggest better stylistic choices instead of demanding a change in voice because ultimately a writer's voice is their own. I have no influence over that.

4/26/2022 04:09:53 pm

This is sort of a comment on what you write and what Olivia wrote. This is why I try to talk about "style" rather than "voice." I don't know what voice really means for my students who don't really seem all that passionate about anything--and it's school so why am I demanding that they pretend to be so invested? Olivia talked about genre and audience and for me that is how I get at discussions of style--as Bowden talks about, stylistic choices. Because different occasions of writing require different kinds of choices. I talk a lot about fashion, which is a whole other thing, but I talk about wearing a prom dress to your grandmother's funeral. They get that. That's a style choice.

Brian Seibert

4/26/2022 03:55:08 pm

Grammar is one of those tricky aspects of English class. Many students go through elementary school with a focus on grammar. When they get to middle school, however, it seems like they have forgotten most of what they learned. The reasons for this are mostly unknown. In chapter 8, "Teaching Grammar in the Context of Writing," James D. Williams says, “Even though grammar is a central concern in writing classes, few teachers receive much training in the subject”(269). In my personal experiences, I agree with Williams. I never received any formal training on teaching grammar, or other specific skills for that matter. On-the-job training was the only training.

Although the teaching of grammar begins in the elementary school, it takes a back seat by the time students reach middle school. I disagree with Williams when he claims that grammar “Instruction begins in the 3rd grade and commonly doesn’t end until the completion of 10th or 11th grade” (269). While grammar is addressed at the middle school level, it is not a main focus. Whether that is good or bad is up for debate, but there are so many Curriculum Frameworks Standards to cover in the school year before the almighty state standardized tests, and grammar accounts for very few of them.

I believe that voice and style are becoming more of a focus. Every year students are expected to write a variety of essays and responses. When I was in school, I was mostly expected to write boring expository essays. Today students write narratives and argument essays as well. Although there are guidelines and restrictions, they are able to be more creative and craft their voice through their writing. All types of writing we practice is important but I have definitely seen better student output when it comes to narrative writing.

Megan G

4/26/2022 03:57:08 pm

In "Voice and Style", the section “Self Expression in the Writing Classroom” talks about students learning to write in the 1960s and 1970s. Bowden discusses authenticity and the freedom to express one's thoughts. They note the liberate experience of these students, in a time where traditions were being challenged in every sense.
“No longer would they be forced to replicate the stilted prose of the status quo, writing on topics that might have been ‘good for them’ but about which they had no interest and could see no relevance. Instead, their own lives and words were validated. The classrooms were to become their own”
I resonated with this quote because I truly fell in love with writing once I recognized it could become an extension of myself. A way to express, articulate, and share my thoughts. No matter what course is being taught, I believe there are prompts that will get students invested in their writing and encourage them to show their unique identities.
All classrooms are traditionally seen as being directed by teachers. But in a writing classroom, there is even more opportunity for students to shift the direction of the course by expressing their passions in a creative and academic fashion. It is in these open classrooms where they can truly develop their own voice and style, along with having a solid foundation of grammar.

Olivia L

4/26/2022 04:05:13 pm

I love this! I completely agree. I think that there are prompts that can get students interested and connected to their own writing. During my ethnography this came up. I also wrote about the "authentic" writing.

Alyssa Campbell

4/26/2022 03:58:13 pm

Despite the fact that it is the year 2022, that the things that were normal in 2012 are no longer normal, despite the fact that our world and mindset has changed and I have grown and matured (or, I like to pretend I have!) I will always associate the word grammar with being called a "grammar nazi." Now, though this term was equal parts reductive of the Holocaust and inaccurate to who I was or what I stood for, it was associated with me because I liked ELA/English class, reading, and writing. When I shared my thoughts or feelings, I usually shared them fairly eloquently because I thought through how I wanted to respond to a question in class before I raised my hand to speak.

I didn't really care about grammar; I knew the general rules, I knew what a verb and a noun and an adjective and adverb were, but I wasn't going to be someone that really hounded others about what they typed wrong. Until, of course, they said "Your so nice" or "Their going to the party." I think this mentality and people instantly shutting down with spelling, grammar, etc. if they did something wrong shows the shift to thinking of writing and grammar as somehow still intertwined, like someone cannot express ideas in a thoughtful way without knowing all of the principals of grammar.

This entire introduction of my own feelings aside, I found that in the Clark chapter, hints of this phenomenon peek through. "At the end of the second year, students who had studies transformational grammar not only disliked writing more than their counterparts did but also felt that English was quite difficult" (p.279). I just keep thinking about the discussions we have had about how someone needs to know and understand the rules before they are able to break them, but I am not sure that this logic applies to this situation.

Megan G

4/26/2022 04:09:22 pm

I agree that we place too much importance on the structure of our sentences or the placement of an apostrophe. It is good to learn the basics in elementary school, but I believe as we go further in our learning it is more important to focus on concepts, voice, and style in writing. As long as the main point gets across, that is all that matters!

Sarah

4/26/2022 03:59:57 pm

Believe it or not, as I read Bowden's article, I kept thinking about American Idol. Even though music is all about style and voice, it takes time, practice, and personality; more importantly, in order to develop as musicians, we imitate, practice genres we may not personally prefer, and at times, try to blend in with others. The American Idol winners, though, are the ones who can take a recognizable song and make it distinct -- something only their voice can create. But they still have to follow some rules. Bowden expresses concern about the overemphasis on "good style" with its "heavy emphasis on grammar rules and small units of discourse" (238) as diminishing student voice, but I disagree -- I think. I loved learning rules that gave me parameters for experimenting with voice as I matured (ie, as I grew into that voice). Student writers on the university level are still finding their voice, and as long as they are given permission to do so, will grow into it. So there you have it, my philosophy on voice and style and writing (in a sentence fragment, because I can).

Regarding authenticity, we can sound different in our writing than in our talking without denying our "truthtelling" voice, as long as we are representing our "inner selves" (Bowden 230). Elbow contends that freewriting exercises is the best antidote to stiff, impersonal writing, and I certainly see its value. I'm not sure I agree, however, that we all have a "natural breath" in our speaking. Some students take more time -- in speaking or writing. I personally struggle with freewriting; it frustrates me to finish a thought sloppily that I know will need to be revisited. Elbow says that people are inauthentic in their writing because "it makes them feel exposed and vulnerable" and they are "running away from their power" (250). Maybe that's why every student I've ever taught wants to begin every claim with "I think", so as to not offend other thinkers.

I am running out of words, but I am also interested in Pace's discussion of style as more than "just a set of colonizing rules" and his concern for a "plurality of styles" as a democratic way to teach style in writing (262).

Alyssa Campbell

4/26/2022 04:08:40 pm

Sarah-

Thoughtful commentary will follow this, but I have to say that I LOVE that you thought to connect it to music; I tell my students all the time that music is just poetry with instruments. There is an inherent connection between the way we write and the way we express ourselves musically.

On your last point: I agree that it is too simplistic to label constraints of style as pure colonization, and that allowing students to abandon all sense of academic writing so as to adhere to their definition of style is not the way to go. However, on the other hand, we need to teach students about the multiplicity of style, how writing style coincides with the demands of audience, and how good writers use both to push their most authentic selves forward.

Shauna

4/26/2022 04:09:32 pm

Funny you say that Sarah, because as I was reading I was also thinking about music! My husband is a musician and so what came to my mind first was his process of writing lyrics and how I can't help him ever because our voices and styles don't match at all. People can tell if I write a line in his songs because it just changes the voice and style altogether. I love that you also made this connection!

Kayleigh Holt

4/26/2022 04:15:32 pm

Hi Sarah,
The connection that you made between voice in writing and voice in music is not one that I had thought of, and it makes so much sense! I might borrow that idea when I'm talking about voice with my classes in the future. Also, that quote from Elbow about how writing "makes them feel exposed and vulnerable" is a great point as to why many students are not confident in their writing.

4.26.2022

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