8 Feb 2022: Meanwhile at Bridgewater

2/3/2022

The title of this week's Discussion Board post is misleading, but only a little. You may not know this, but Bridgewater is the third oldest Normal school in the country, and the only one still in operation in its original location. BSU was founded by Horace Mann in 1840 as a "normal" school--or a school that was not a university. Normal schools were Mann's idea for how to train the vast number of teachers that the new fangled-idea of public schools very much needed. Back then, BSU was known as The State Normal School at Bridgewater.

In the field of Composition and Rhetoric, the standard History (capital "H")--that you read some of last week and will read about (again) in the Crowley reading from this week--identifies Adam Sherman Hill Class A at Harvard as the start of what we have come to know as Composition, and that's not wrong; however, the Fitzgerald reading for this week suggests an alternate way to consider the history of literacy instruction that stems from the Normal School curriculum--and, thus, one that stems from K-12 education.

For this week's Reading Response: remember the central purpose of the Reading Response assignment: What is the central argument or arguments you can trace through the readings for this week? But, as you do this, react to this idea: What is the relationship between K-12 education and First Year Writing, commonly acronym as FYW or FYC (for Composition)? What does the relationship seem to be, historically, and what kind of unicorn, fantasy, perfect world relationship could there be?

As you write, consider your own experiences in first year writing classes--if you had them.

NOTE: I realize that this question seems to ignore the Asao Inoue reading for this week, and please feel free to write about that introduction too. I know that it might be the thing many of you are more interested in writing about. But because you will have the chance to write extensively about Inoue in the coming weeks, I wanted to give us a chance to close out our discussions that attempt to position the field of Composition and Rhetoric historically--both in the University and in the wider world.

9 Comments

Sarah Bond

2/5/2022 05:29:44 am

Every English teacher faces the reality that their curriculum and methodology will never meet the countless expectations surrounding them. We must both individualize instruction in composition and ensure that all students are ready for the “next” thing. This week, both texts express concern with how we understand success in composition. Normal school teachers recognized student background as an explanation for “poor performance” and sought “to make [each] student conscious of his own speech, and to create self-activity” (180). In short, success was found in responding to students’ prior knowledge and preparing them for future goals. According to Crowley, the universal FYW course has a far different purpose: to train students to “join the community” in their ability to “behave, think, write, and speak as students rather than as the people they are” (9). I see value in both systems. For instance, poor performance may very well be the result of a student’s background or the failings of his K-12 education, but it is still “poor” if the student is unable to read, reflect, and write clearly, not merely as an exercise in personal reflection, but more significantly, as part of a greater academic community of which he is now a part. Crowley speaks about “students” and “the people they are” when they enter school as mutually exclusive; however, anyone who enters an academic institution elects to become part of a new conversation – one that requires essential tools of literacy.
As I read, I noticed a continuum, where K-12 teachers recognize the diverse backgrounds of their learners while connecting them to new voices in literature and the vast ways in which language can be used, understood, and purposed, and the First Year Writing teachers then enter these students into academic conversation. Of course, I do not miss Crowley’s cynicism about FYW courses and the lackluster approach taken by many universities to staff them. Readers of literature and writers of composition become teachers of literacy by default, and their goals are forever being redesigned. Let’s assume, however, that as readers and writers themselves, they are able to move students into academic discourse, which then empowers them to join other conversations, not merely as “the people they are” when they enter the university, but rather, as emerging thinkers and workers and leaders, who must also be communicators, lest they not be heard or understood. Even in a broken system, there is value in a FYW course that directs students to communicate effectively. Is it humanistic? Political? Pragmatic? Perhaps it is all or none of those things, but literacy skills are transferable and inherently valuable.
In my perfect world, students take a required composition course that serves them the tools of language – its rules, structure, and systems – which can be taught in a myriad of ways. With literacy tools, students can then express themselves privately or publicly; they can write stories, books, cover letters, or social commentaries. Of course, a composition course cannot do all things related to language, nor can I, but as teachers, we can equip students to use language according to their own interests and goals, which surely marks success.

Melissa Batty

2/7/2022 03:48:54 am

One may argue that the creation of the basic tenets for First Year Writing Seminars are first, to separate White patriarchal dominance (being White male students) from all those who higher education labels as “Others,” second, an attempt for academia to maintain its imperial grasp over education and pedagogy, third, a means of stripping autonomy and identity from freshman –– in an effort to weed out the “desirables” and “undesirables” attending post-secondary institutions, and fourth, predicating the sole responsibility of scholarly writing upon the shoulders of those within the English department which eliminates literary obligations to those within other post-secondary academic fields. Fitzgerald and Crowley argue that the creation of normal schools is an attempt to appease elitist institutions from having to admit students they gauge as less than, when in fact these “Other” students may experience sub-par educations in comparison to their peers who attend historically exclusive institutions of higher education. Fitzgerald and Crowley center their arguments for normal school pedagogical practices by stating that “student’s errors are the natural outcome of a combination of academic teaching and incomplete learning,” and that compositional literacy works best when teachers and students work in tandem, not in opposition, abolishing the textbook as the sole proprietor of compositional literacy.
The freshman English class or First Year Seminars rely heavily on the ideology that students must master writing before they move into other academic disciplines. If first year seminars fall under the umbrella of imperial systemic repetition, then what purpose do they serve? Crowley argues that FYS’s posit themselves as institutional motivators and not rhetorical ones –– creating a course that acts as mimicry and not as a safe place for students to engage in academic discourse. This intentional action leads to the removal of autonomy and agency in a student’s ability to individualize their academic success, or as Clark points out through Arnoldian humanism, a place where systemic and imperial institutions can safely weed out the “Other” –– promoting oppression in groups suffering from educational marginalization. Fitzgerald and Crowley argue this imperial pedagogical education is prevalent in K-12 classrooms a priori to post-secondary academia. That withstanding, Fitzgerald argues that normal schools and their educators apply pedagogy that stimulates the relationship between student and teacher. The normal school pedagogy fosters equitable learning experiences for students throughout their educational career –– creating better writers who are not hung up on the grammar and composition one finds in textbooks. Rather, the positioning of educator knowledge as implicit in providing a holistic writing approach, is a normal school pedagogical method that determines the individual needs of each student and how educators may implement lesson plans which meet crucial writing skills. Clark suggests following a more pragmatic approach to composition; where the focus on active learning suggests that students who are participatory in their education, become compositionally adept and are likely to ensure their own individual success. Overall, normal schools advocate “teacher rather than text-intensive pedagogies,” which assists elementary, secondary, and post-secondary educators activate the integration of both compositional theory and practice.

Olivia L

2/7/2022 02:08:02 pm

Throughout these texts, it seems that history shows we are not good writers by the time we get to college. Our idea of writing before entering college is very different. As I mentioned in the previous week's reading, we are taught one process in K-12 and there is no room for individuality, research, or imagination essentially which is provoked in first year writing courses. In a perfect world, we would all be amazing writers by the time we get to our First Year Writing courses. This is clearly not case as argued in many of these articles. It surprises me because of the importance of writing essays for applications, entrance exams, etc. Logically, it seems like we are prepared if we get accepted into a university.
In my first-year writing course, it was research based. I had no idea what I was doing. I had only ever done one research paper in my high school career and it was about 3-5 pages long. Now I was required to do extensive research and come up with a 15-20-page paper. I was beyond stressed. My professor did give us a ground for research. He showed us how to access our school's digital data base and gave an overview of how to cite our sources. I still felt extremely unprepared and honestly thought to myself a number of times, how did I get into college if I am struggling to do this? K-12 school's in my opinion do not properly prepare us for these courses. This also makes me wonder what sort of planning goes into them. In Crowley's study, he mentions that most professors are thrown into first-year writing courses the night before and are handed a syllabus. If they aren't even to plan for their own course, how can they know how to teach it?
If first year writing classes are determined by previous skills, it is automatically unfair that there will be students who are not fully qualified. Others will then move on to be advanced because of their background or economic status really. Crowley said, "Normal schools were established in a completely different social and educational environment from the elite schools on which historians have primarily focused so far, and normal schools had access to an intellectual tradition completely outside of rhetorical theory-" (p 2). Therefore, even then, there was a different basis of education depending on where you studied before.
Finally, it seems that in the end, they are always blaming the teachers, and now textbooks, for poor writing skills (p 7). In the "Four Fundamental Propositions" for teaching grammar, each one starts with "The teacher must..." (p 11). How must the teacher do anything if the learner is not given an expectation as well? At the end of Fitzgerald's article, she mentions that the Harvard men are again being put down for their writing. They were "vulgar", "illegitimate", and "slip-shod" because of their inattention to grammatical correctness (p 9). It seems to me that most student errors come from disinterest in the subject matter. So, going back to Crowley, should first-year courses adhere to our specific study?

Maura Geoghegan

2/7/2022 03:18:07 pm

The expectation for the relationship between K-12 education and the First Year Writing (FYW) course seem like they should build on each other so that in FYW students are refining their writing skills while being introduced to more sophisticated writing styles and strategies. However, scholars and teachers seem to notice that there is a disconnect between K-12 education and FYW. Professors, even at Harvard, are complaining about their students’ writing abilities by the time they get to the FYW course.

Both Crowley and Fitzgerald make note of a paradox that exists between FYW course expectations and students' experiences in K-12 education. The FYW course seems to be rooted in elitist practices that use deficit-thinking when discussing students’ abilities. The goal of the FYW course is “to teach students how to write” but this goal is more focused on the mechanics of writing as it pertains to academic writing (Crowley 7). When asked about the FYW course, professors from eastern colleges “uniformly complained of student inadequacy” (Crowley 7). These professors focused on what their students could not do instead of explaining what students would be able to do by taking this course. In contrast, normal schools and K-12 education focus more on the student as a person who has the ability and potential to succeed, whereas universities are primarily focused on the textbook and mechanics of writing. If all students are expected to enroll in a FYW course, then clearer expectations should be shared with K-12 schools for the skills that students need, especially since not all students come from similar backgrounds or educations.

Both Crowley and Fitzgerald also note that composition studies and the FYW course are viewed as inferior to other courses. Even though the FYW course is a requirement, “composition is still not widely regarded as a legitimate field of study” (Crowley 5) and within the English department, composition “suffers prestige because of its association with teaching, [devaluing it] as a mere service to students” (Fitzgerald 187). The fact that composition is viewed as less prestigious simply because it’s associated with teaching shows how little teaching as well as composition is valued. As was seen in the readings for last week as well as this week, composition studies struggles to clearly define itself, establish itself as a field worthy of study and research, and be viewed as a serious, valuable course. There is a disconnect between expectations for writing in K-12 and the FYW course, but there is also a disconnect between the perception of composition studies and the requirement of the FYW course.

In a perfect world, the FYW course and composition studies would be viewed as a valuable course to take that strengthens students’ writing skills and prepares them for the academic writing expected at the college level. This course would also help establish a base for students to work from as they enter more discipline-specific courses and areas of writing. However, the perception of composition studies would need to shift and expectations would most likely need to be made more concrete in order for this to happen.

Ashley Merola

2/8/2022 01:48:34 am

Crowley and Fitzgerald both consider the past and present roles of composition in the context of the first-year writing (FYW) classroom. While their discussions diverge on the topic of the field’s foundations, they both favor the contemporary interpretation of composition as an area of study that should prioritize student-specific pedagogy over the one-size-fits-all content of textbooks. They also aim to bring the lack of respect composition teachers receive to light, as the social problems within their profession often prevent them from fulfilling this promise. Crowley in particular argues that this attitude toward writing instruction persists in K-12 education, but becomes less prominent at the post-secondary sphere due the departmental connection between composition and humanism. Although I did not take a first-year writing course during my undergraduate experience, one of the twelfth-grade writing courses I teach serves the same purpose: to strengthen students’ writing skills and prepare them for the numerous contexts in which they will need to use them in the future. As a result, I found that the pedagogical approaches the two theorists analyze - Herbartian pedagogy in Fitzgerald’s case and humanist pedagogy in that of Crowley - each explain how K-12 education can function as an effective bridge to first-year composition (FYC).

The concept of progress as a pedagogical pillar of composition establishes this connection between K-12 education and FYC throughout the readings. Fitzgerald and Crowley both describe a writing curriculum that does not define proficiency, calling back to our previous conversation about how process pedagogy centralizes the process over the product. For Fitzgerald, Normal school teachers mastered this strategy through their use of Herbartian pedagogy (178). By writing lesson plans for the pupils in front of them, they recognized a lack of student success as “the natural outcome of inadequate teaching and incomplete learning” - not of the individual’s character (Fitzgerald 180). Additionally, these teachers “credited students with the competence to monitor and alter their habits,” thus trusting them to take ownership over their growth as writers (Fitzgerald 180). Similarly, Crowley claims composition “typically focuses on the processes of learning rather than on the acquisition of knowledge,” as well as “change and development in students rather than on transmission of a heritage” (3). Teachers of these classes are “interested in texts currently in development as well as those that are yet to be written” (Crowley 13). Despite the passage of time, these practices remain relevant in composition classes, including FYC, today. Their resiliency demonstrates how pedagogy that regards progress as a positive result can prove powerful, and that belief begins with kindergarten.

Ideally, the relationship between K-12 education and FYC would reflect the type of scaffolding English teachers implement in both settings. In reality, some students’ literacy skills still seem to fall short when they transition from high school to college. Instead of abolishing the requirement of FYC to remedy this issue, as Crowley suggests, we should want to find a more productive solution. We should aspire to align our pedagogy through practices such as Asao Inoue’s antiracist approach toward writing assessment. Lastly, we should see the historical roots that formed the field of composition, whether they stemmed from Normal schools or institutions like Harvard, for their worth in improving writing instruction and helping it flourish in the future.

Megan G.

2/8/2022 05:50:03 am

In an ideal education system, each year of reading and writing instruction would be a complete steppingstone towards a first-year writing (FYW) course. But the reality is these steppingstones often have cracks in them or have pointed students in a different direction, meaning they often arrive at their FYW course like a fish out of water expected to breath seamlessly on their own by the end of the course. In our readings this week, Crowley and Fitzgerald address K-12’s impact on student’s writing and the disconnect between FYW faculty and the rest of Academia who expect experienced writers to be produced from this course.
Inoue, Fitzgerald, and Crowley acknowledge there is a long-standing practice of students being blamed for their inadequate skills. Crowley views the FYW course function as shaping students to “behave, think, write, and speak as students rather than as the people they are, people who have differing histories and traditions and languages and ideologies” (9). This brings forward a central theme of all the readings: the system of teaching writing is prone to trying to fit students into a high-achieving box which remains unattainable to many.
Each student has the potential to achieve, but the failure of this practice is influenced by the current methods of teaching and structure of the education system from K-12 to undergraduate. Fitzgerald supports this by stating, “Students’ errors are the natural outcome of a combination of inadequate teaching and incomplete learning” (180). How can we blame students for their lack of writing skills when the system is not consistent in providing the tools for them to develop these skills? No matter how skilled or dedicated FYW teachers are, they do not have the time or resources to completely reroute the student’s prior knowledge of writing methods.
Both Fitzgerald and Crowley stress the need for Academia to become more involved with FYW courses if they are going to expect it to yield valuable results. They must remember that composition is not just about grammar and proper formatting. It allows students to become critical thinkers which is an essential skill in any career (Crowley 6). This skill is particularly valuable to cultivate in students when creating an anti-racist classroom. Inoue’s introduction focuses on structural and institutional racism, which is undoubtedly part of the structured FYW course and other writing/reading classrooms. The evidence of racism’s – in the educational structure demonstrates that the changes to FYW course are not only important to improve academic writing but also to create more inclusive learning environments. This type of environment would demand the active use of critical thinking and allow students to practice the skill in multiple ways.
None of the articles demand a complete tear down of the FYW course, but instead acknowledge the problematic components of it (and its perception) in the past and present. In fantasy land with perfect writing education, anti-racist learning environments would be the norm and prepare students to use their critical thinking skills in higher education. Students should be active participants in their learning and develop their own writing process once all the tools and techniques are provided to them. The FYW course is valuable and with the proper collaboration between K-12 and Academia colleagues, it has the potential to have a greater impact on each student personally and professionally.

Matthew Cutter

2/8/2022 07:51:24 am

For this week, our readings traced the history of composition classes, and their effectiveness. Composition classes have the biggest opportunity to lift people out of oppressive situations and give them independence to navigate the world. In both the Crowley and Fitzgerald texts, for example, there was a focus on the ways that composition gave women paths in life that were not merely marriage. They furthered their education and became teachers. Putting off marriage and the other typical things that women were expected to do in society.
Crowley also brought up how composition classes were some of the first courses of study that privilege practice over theory. Composition classes explore the best ways to express your thoughts, ideas, and arguments in writing. Composition should be motivational, not merely just copying what you see or hear, or just following a formula. If all writing comes from a place of motivation then students will write more and ultimately become better writers for it.
In Asao Inoue's article, Inoue explores the idea that current and traditional writing assessments are racist. Her idea makes sense to me, since the modern form of composition assessment and teaching has hardly changed, and was designed for a white, upper/middle class audience. As she states, “I realize that race and racism are different things. Race is a construct. It’s not real. But there are structures in our society and educational institutions that are racial" (4). Race may not have a biological basis, and Inoue acknowledges that, but race is still very real in our institutions and the way we have structured power to keep those institutions intact.
One of the biggest institutional issues with how we assess student writing comes from our insistence on penalizing students when they do not use “academic language”. We often do this when we haven’t even fully taught students what we mean by the phrase. Inoue has this to say on the topic:
We live in a racist society, one that recreates well-known, well-understood, racial hierarchies in populations based on things like judgments of student writing that use a local Standardized Edited American English (SEAE)1 with populations of people who do not use that discourse on a daily basis- judging apples by the standards of oranges. (6)
Using our understanding of academic language to penalize children who have never used this discourse before is racist and problematic. I do not believe that we should abandon the expectation for a more academic language in papers, but I do not believe that kids should be failing just because they neglect to use it. Let’s build these kids up to a place where they are comfortable with this discourse, not excluded from it.
There needs to be a stronger relationship between k-12 schooling and first year college writing programs. I think that there needs to be more PD between college writing teachers, and public school teachers, so that these teachers understand the theory and current research behind composition. Most teachers teach the same way they’ve been teaching for many years, and are often unaware that their pedagogy is problematic. In an ideal world, we should expect and encourage these teachers to change their practice, while giving them all of the tools and support available to do so.

Brian Seibert

2/8/2022 11:54:58 am

In this week’s readings, there were a few trends that I noticed. They discussed how composition or first year English courses fit into the college or university structure. The authors of these readings argued the importance of those courses despite the lack of desire from full time, accomplished professors to teach those low level courses. That aspect was further developed in Crowley’s “Composition in the University.” Crowley explained that since the early twentieth century, the responsibility of the teaching of composition courses has been placed on part time teachers instead of full time. This was done because, “Full-time faculty realized that there was no professional future in teaching a course that produced no research” (4). The lower level English classes, required by all students regardless of discipline, were and presumably are left for less “qualified” faculty to teach. Crowley claimed that, despite that fact, students were still getting quality instruction, “Given these circumstances, it is remarkable, to say the least, that the quality of instruction in required first-year composition is as good as it often is” (6).

The importance of normal schools and, in particular, composition classes were discussed at length in Kathryn Fitzgerald’s paper, “A Rediscovered Tradition: European Pedagogy and Composition in the Nineteenth-Century Midwestern Normal Schools.” She highlighted the importance of those schools in contrast with academic focused institutions. Normal schools gained popularity because they prepared teachers to teach as well as other professionals. They had a real-life, practical outcome. Both types of schools included first-year English classes, however, the two institutions took different approaches to them. Fitzgerald explains that, “the different ideologies of the institutions - that the normal school’s overt mission was to extend opportunity to the common populace, not restrict it - may have encouraged teachers to work with rather than against their imperfect students” (180). That was a very important notion that extends to the K-12 grades of school. Today in education, most classes are structured to offer differentiated instruction to help all students access grade level materials and skills.

The approach to teaching students is not the only connection between composition classes and K-12 education. Writing is a large component, and usually heavily weighted in K-12 English classes. Massachusetts Framework Standards focus on the development and production of three main types of writing: Expository, Narrative, and Argument. Every student in the state is expected to take the MCAS each year (with a few exceptions). A large portion of the assessment is the writing portion. Therefore, most classrooms in Massachusetts dedicate large chunks of time to those types of writing. To my knowledge, composition classes at the collegiate level also diversify the writing they expect of their students. Even though not every student in college is an English major, they are all expected to be able to communicate in their field. Crowley points out that, “Ostensibly, academics in all disciplines want the required first-year course to teach students how to write” (7). Ideally, students would learn and refine their writing ability in the K-12 grades and extend those skills in first year English or composition courses. In my experience, that does not always happen. Writing is a difficult skill and can be even more difficult to teach, especially to those who are unwilling to put in the effort.

Kayleigh Holt

2/8/2022 02:25:11 pm

Composition studies has seemed to suffer since its inception from a lack of autonomy. Truly, it is only in the last few decades that composition programs have begun to separate from the general English department of a school and become their own academic subset. For years, composition studies have been limited by their inherent connection to the First Year Writing (FYW) course that colleges and universities began requiring in the late 1800s. The FYW course itself has gone through many pedagogical changes over the years, but throughout it all the course has seemingly been viewed as a “necessary evil”.

If students don’t know how to write, then they must be taught before they can be allowed to continue on to the more pertinent classes. This view, that the composition course is just a box that must be checked in order to “shape students to behave, think, write, and speak as students rather than as the people they are…” (Crowley, pg. 9) is particularly frustrating. It is also an extremely patronizing way to view students. In Fitzgerald’s article, she discusses how one of the main differences between normal schools and other educational institutions is the “faculty’s views on students’ linguistic competence” (pg. 179). She goes on to provide the example that the faculty at some “elite” colleges and universities had been known to connect a student’s lack of grammatical ability to “character deficits like stupidity, laziness, or moral turpitude” (pg. 179). Normal schools, on the other hand, viewed a student’s lack of writing ability as only an indication that they had not yet received the correct instruction, but that they had the ability to improve.

In Fitzgerald and Crowley’s papers, both authors discuss the classist and elitist attitudes that contributed to the undervaluing of composition studies. In her article, Fitzgerald says that “composition in English departments suffers in prestige because of its association with teaching, devalued as a mere service to students” (pg. 187). Those issues I can see crossing over into how writing is taught in the K-12 grades as well. Writing pedagogy in K-12 has been subject to many of the same rationales as the FYW course, as different schools of thought took precedence the way that writing is taught, as well as the reason why writing is being taught, would change with them.

In an ideal situation, the FYW course that is completely disconnected from any formal course of study and is just viewed as a bump in the road during each student’s freshman year would be reimagined into a course (or courses) that would be more specialized and beneficial for each student. As Crowley noted “Ancient rhetoricians knew that students learned to speak and write most efficiently when their work was motivated by some compelling cultural or professional urgency” (pg. 8). There is no one set way that every student needs to be able to write to be successful in their chosen profession, and for there to be a course that was touted as being able to teach students everything they would need to be able to write as “academics” is absurd. Learning to write and finding your specific style and voice takes time and practice. Writing should be something that is incorporated throughout a student’s academic career, not relegated to one semester during their first year of university.

8 Feb 2022: Meanwhile at Bridgewater

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