Oct 13th 09
Posted by justin in CCR601
Rumsey, Suzanne K. “Heritage Literacy: Adoption, Adaptation, and Alienation of Multimodal Literacy Tools.” CCC 60.3 (2009): 573-86. Print.
In this article the author discusses “heritage literacy.” Rumsey defines this term as, “an explanation of how people transfer literacy knowledge from generation to generation and how certain practices, tools, and concepts are adapted, adopted, or alienated from use, depending on the context. It is lifelong, cross-generational learning and meaning making; it is developmental and recursive; and like all literacies, it builds over time or “accumulates,” as Deborah Brandt phrased it in her article “Accumulating Literacy.” Heritage literacy, then, describes how literacies and technology uses are accumulated across generations through a decision-making process” (575-6). As communities and contexts change, members of communities either adapt to the changes, adopt the changes or alienate themselves from the changes. Heritage literacies also take into account “codified sign systems” that include non-linguistic forms of expression – such as quilts, glyphs, etc. So, in other words, heritage literacies are multimodal. Heritage literacies also accept the learner as active in the literation process. This is an auto-ethnographic piece.
Roozen, Kevin. “From Journals to Journalism: Tracing Trajectories of Literate Development.” CCC 60.3 (2009): 541-72. Print.
In this article Roozen investigates the private and public writing practices of a Mexican-American woman from the middle grades years through her graduation from university. In so doing, Roozen argues that researchers should take into account private forms of writing (journaling, etc.) because these forms of writing inform the identity of the writer. While he acknowledges that this sort of work requires a huge effort on the researcher’s part, the ways that text, person, and practice recursively create public, personal, and academic work is what’s at stake. This is an ethnographic piece.
Jeyaraj, Joseph. “Modernity and Empire: A Modest Analysis of Early Colonial Writing Practices.” CCC 60.3 (2009): 468-92. Print.
I liked this article. I suppose this piece is a rhetorical history. . . or at least a history of rhetorical practice. By investigating early examination writings from the colonial period (1820s-1850s), Jeyaraj makes the argument that some Indian students in the colonial system actually used Modernist philosophy (that was embedded in the curriculum of early Indian universities) to disrupt the traditional Brahmanic social codes (castes) that existed in India for over a millennium before colonial rule.
Nowacek, Rebecca S. “Why is Being Interdisciplinary So Very Hard to Do? Thoughts on the Perils and Promise of Interdisciplinary Pedagogy.” CCC 60.3 (2009): 493-516. Print.
Early in the article, Nowacek identifies an “activity system” as being composed of: a subject, either an individual or a collection of people; an object of attention and the motive (official or unofficial) that drives activity in the system; and the mediational tools (cultural and discursive as well as physical) used within the system.” (494). After illustrating multiple activity systems, the author acknowledges that interdisciplinarity is actually recognition of multiple activity systems and their interwoven and overlapping components. Interdisciplinary studies draws on multiple disciplines and “integrates their insights” whereas multidisciplinary studies simply acquaints the student with different systems. There are numerous difficulties that can arise in co-taught/interdisciplinary courses. I’ll list a few:
a. In activity system speak, courses can have different motives.
b. There can be conflicts in the meditational tools in interdisciplinary classrooms.
c. Students can encounter “double-binds” wherein they receive “two messages or command which deny each other – and the student is unable to comment on the messages.”
Yet, these double binds can be a place where really productive things can happen. Yet, interdisciplinary studies are really difficult to teach because of the double binds that instructors themselves face. The motives, in activity theory speak, are different in each discipline, hence, what is expected from the student is also very different. Yet, in a Burkean consubstantial moment, the interdisciplinary classroom can be an exercise in identification – through which the shared similarities of academic investigation and writing are productively emphasized.
Peckham, Irvin. “Online Placement in First-Year Writing.” CCC 60.3 (2009): 517-40. Print.
In this article, Peckham describes how placement into his 1st year comp course at LSU needed tweaking. Instead of relying on the ole’ ACT/SAT score or manual assessment during the first week of class, the writing program used the iMOAT automated online system to allow students to “challenge” their placement. On average, students challenged about 7.5 percent of the time. Of those that challenged, some were reassigned. Overall, the study argued that more work needed done; however, the new iMOAT challenge system seemed to be an improvement over the SAT/ACT model. Data heavy analysis here.
Oct 5th 09
Posted by justin in CCR601
Communication as … Perspectives on Theory. Minneapolis: Sage Publications, Inc, 2005. Print.
Introduction: Taking a Stand on Theory
St. John, Striphas, and Shepherd
I thought this was an interesting introduction. While much of the scholarship in rhet/comp does actually engage in the “buffet” method, St. John et.al. make it a point that all theory is not created equal. They recognize that there are a lot of different explanations about what communication is (cultural, symbolic, material, ontological, etc.); however, they don’t necessarily see them all as equal. They also see that communication theory matters – which is a nice way of saying that it’s relevant.
Chapter One: Communication as Relationality
Celeste M. Condit
Condit’s argument is that all communication should be conceived of in relationships. In other words, all “subjects” (not autonomous mind you) are constituted in a 4 dimensional weave of social relationships. These relationships are what define us as individuals. Hence, to study communication, one should look to the way that relationships are working. This theory rejects a couple of different positions. First, it rejects the idea that words relate to things (Saussure). Next, it rejects essentialist definitions of anything. Finally, it rejects post-structuralist critiques of presence. In Derridean deconstruction, the metaphysics of presence, or the existence of a transcendental signified (TRUTH) are shrugged off in favor of the existence of absence. Relationality disrupts this idea by stating that all communication and all things are both present and absent. To some degree it’s very kairotic in that it is a constant process of emerging.
Chapter Three: Communication as Transcendence
Gregory Shepherd
Shepherd’s explanation of communication sounds strikingly like the relationality that Condit discusses in Chapter One except that Shepherd’s theory of communication is much more pragmatic. As he mentions in the first line of his essay, “Communication is the simultaneous experience of self and other. That’s what I mean by transcendence” (22). After grounding reality as experience of the self and other (again, communication as a kairotic becoming or being-together), S. notes that communication is a miracle, if a mundane one. S. next connects communication and freedom by noting how communication and its potential is always dependent on one’s will to communicate. Hence, communication is something that happens because of you, not in spite of you. Finally, as communication is the definition of who you are, I can’t reject you based on previous notions, but on the experience of you through communication – on other words, you are not an essential self but emergent in the act of communication. If we all adopt sympathetic approaches to communication as an act of becoming, then communication is the act of democracy because of its possibility. Again, very pragmatic.
Chapter Eight: Communication as Embodiment
Carolyn Marvin
I had a really hard time getting into this chapter at first. The author’s contention is that the world has, and to some degree will always be, a division between the textual and the bodily. While much scholarship has placed an emphasis on the importance of the textual (think Eisenstein and Havelock), the bodily is usually neglected in conceptions of communication. After grounding the act of communication in the bodily through the gesture – the earliest of human communicative tactics – the author makes the argument that textualization (covers up the body in media) counteracts dramatization (the things we do to enhance the communicative nature of the body – clothes, makeup etc.). Where Marvin’s argument gets interesting for me is in her discussion of Capitalism and the textual/bodily tension. Essentially, she makes the argument that the Reformation made the first shifts away from the body to the text. As such, as literacy spread, the body was considered the vulgar and the textual was more respected by ruling elites. This textual preference led to the breakup of socialist/communist/labor oriented actions because collective bodily action was eschewed in the interest of promoting the notion “of well-behaved ‘independent-minded’ literates as the only fit civic participants” (72). Because of this preference for the textual, the bodily class (read lower socioeconomic classes and all the ethnic/race issues that entails) became detached from the political process – and rendered invisible. Pretty neat argument.\
Chapter Nine: Communication as Raced
Judith N. Martin and Thomas K. Nakayama
This chapter makes the contention that communication, as a discipline, is raced. The authors use three premises to illustrate their argument.
- Racial histories and demographics inform and reflect communication behaviors – This states that communication, as a discipline, has always been raced. From as far back as the ancients, communication and participation in the polity was an endeavor for the white elite ruling classes of ancient Greece and Rome. As such, this tradition has, for the most part, carried on into contemporary communication.
- The conceptualization and study of communication is raced – historically and contemporaneously.
- The field of communication is raced – Using stats from academic studies, the authors demonstrate that the field is racially white – roughly 87% so. As such, whites tend to study the communication they are conversant in – white communication. The authors wonder what effect this is having on communication as a discipline and also speculate that, if nothing changes, the rapidly changing demographics of the university will make communication as a white enterprise basically irrelevant.
Chapter Ten: Communication as Social Identity
Jake Harwood
This article makes the contention that looking at the communicative practices of social groups can let us in on some of the reasons why certain social groups do what. I think this article is more of an invective or indictment of the current communication field rather than a positive claim piece. The author makes reference to how in the West, we concentrate on social identities in negative situations (rioters) instead of all intergroup relations (rioters, riot police, bystanders, etc.). By looking at the goals and communicative acts of “ingroups” and “outgroups,” communication scholars can gain a far broader understanding of human behavior. The author hopes this shift from the individual to the collective identity will be adopted as it can yield a lot of useful and enlightening research.
Chapter Twelve: Communication as Dialogue
Leslie A. Baxter
Some familiar territory here. I’ll hit these in list form.
- Words are not originary with the speaker but are laced with the interplay of meaning-traces from prior conversations and from prior utterances within the same conversation
- Utterances respond to anticipated reactions – addressivity.
- Language use is also highly situated (or chronotoped). Words are uttered at a particular cultural epoch by interlocutors who occupy particular social locations.
- Tensionality – what is deemed a problem in conventional comm. Theory – is key to the dialogic because it is a site for productive happenings.
- Communications is not an expression and replication of the self, but a fluid social interaction that is shaped by interlocturos, context and history.
- Communication shouldn’t be about a study of individual minds but the “between” practices of joint interlocutors.
Chapter Fifteen: Communication as Complex Organizing
James R. Taylor
Taylor’s mission in this article is to find out where the concept of “organization” comes from and how that concept relates to communication – or, how communication constitutes organization. Taylor’s contention is that communication – even between two interlocutors – constitutes the beginning of organization because all creatures capable of learning follow patterned, redundant ways of behaving in order to exist in a hierarchy. What is confusing is how this organization changes from a micro to a macro level. Taylor attributes “organization” on the macro level to the meta-authoring of texts-as-agents in large scale communication communities. The use of narrative as meta-authoring structure by individuals in macro organizations is paradoxical because the organization is a unity made up of single agents authoring single texts to create unity on the macro level. As Taylor notes, “An organization-in-the-large is thus a complex mix of segmented – potentially fragmented – local conversations that are loosely joined by an ongoing metaconversation out of which the identity of the organization and its network of agents emerges” (139).
Chapter Twenty: Communication as Social Influence
Frank Boster
To some degree, this seems like a straight-forward theory, but it’s pretty interesting nevertheless. Boster is making the argument that social influence is the goal of ALL communication. Social influence is usually, according to Boster, referred to as a “change in belief, attitude, or behavior or some combination of these three factors. The author defines those terms thusly:
- Belief – the acceptance of a proposition or fact
- Attitude – the manner in which persons evaluate concepts or objects
- Behavior – the putting of belief or attitude into action
The author takes the Spinozan idea of action as a ready acceptance of what is said then a quick evaluation to see if it works or not. This evaluation may occur incredibly quickly. The reason we study this is because the change from belief to attitude is a great predictor for actions.
Chapter Twenty-Four: Communication as Articulation
Jennifer Daryl Slack
This was a great read. Slack’s premise is that articulation – as espoused by cultural critics like Stuart Hall – is the best way to envision communication. Articulation is composed of two parts: 1) the context (values, feelings, beliefs, practices, structures, organizations, ideologies, etc.) and 2) how the conjunctures of #1 make some sorts of movement possible and others not possible. The author then uses this articulation of articulation to explain the development of communication as a field. Finally she ties these conjunctures to a social justice imperative. What would be especially useful is to perform an articulated analysis of rhet/comp history. Finally, there is a tendency to ignore some of the context from the first part of articulation in the interest of finding results that you want to find, so be careful!
Chapter Twenty-Six: Communication as Communicability
Briankle G. Chang
Communication isn’t perfect. The act of sharing implies division. When you share, you divide the original message before sharing because sharing implies division.
Sep 6th 09
Posted by justin in CCR601
Coming to Voice: Publishing as a Graduate Student
Paul Kei Matsuda
Writing for Scholarly Publication: Behind the Scenes in Language Education
This article discusses the when, how, and why for graduate students considering publication during graduate school. Matsuda confronts a lot of important questions in this essay – notably
The length was intimidating, but even more frightening was the amount of reading I would have to do just to find a suitable topic. I didn’t know enough about the field to identify important issues, much less to contribute new knowledge. I didn’t even fully understand what constituted a significant contribution except that it had to be new, original, and interesting. . . . Had someone asked me “What do you want to do with this project?” I would probably have said, “I want to publish” (41)
In addition to working through these initial concerns as a grad student, Matsuda implies in this essay that “publishing for publishing’s sake” is exactly what’s wrong with the field. Instead, Matsuda argues that we should always pursue scholarship with an eye toward how it will enrich, extend, and complicate the field. In describing his professionalization, Matsuda recounts how he found rhetorical authority on a list-serve; however, he eventually found that this forum was too constrictive in the sense that folks responded with negative argumentation instead of posing any real questions or complicating evidence in thier critiques of Matsuda’s claims. As such, Matsuda eventually waded into academic journal publishing as a means to find a responsible and more accountable audience.
Matsuda also discusses epistemic privelage in this reading by noting that he had questions/concerns about entering into teaching that centered around L2 learners considering he was originally an L2 English learner himself. He came to embrace this position and it richly informed his work.
Matsuda also discusses “theory” and it’s creation in the piece. Finally, Matsuda notes that in graduate school he
continued to write all my seminar papers with the goal of publication in mind, but my motivation had changed. My goal was no longer just to publish but to respond to the conflicts, gaps, and discrepancies I perceived in the professional literature by contributing my perspective, which is informed by my inquiry, be it philosophical, historical, or empirical. I was no longer simply trying to express my ideas or present the data I had collected but trying to engage in conversations with people in the field through my writing. (49)
