The question and debate
I’m working on my question for the preliminary exam portfolio. I’ve received some really good constructive feedback from one particular faculty member (in two parts) on this that has helped/forced me to think about why the heck I’m writing this essay in the first place. It needs to be more than a lit review (what the first comments focused on), although the nature of prelim exams in general and our old system of prelims seemed to be coming to an understanding of the field in a lit-review-ish way. Since the new prelims format is still new, I guess I was thinking more in terms of showing what I know and beginning to move a dissertation topic.
So, here’s the question that prompted the initial feedback:
Working from the four competing aims/concerns of Composition as outlined by Smit in The End of Composition Studies and Berlin’s taxonomy of rhetorics used in writing instruction–
(1) writing as a body of knowledge and a fairly narrow set of skills people use to communicate with one another (objective rhetorics, CTR);
(2) writing as a form of personal liberation (subjective rhetorics);
(3) writing as part of a larger set of social or cultural practices (transactional rhetorics);
(4) writing as a way of participating in a civic culture, local, national, or even world culture (transactional rhetorics),
–how do new literacy & new media studies and participatory culture address these aims and rhetorics? What gaps in the field of composition and rhetoric might they address? And, what gaps lie between NLS, NMS, and participatory culture?
In response I added:
I guess, right now, I’m at the point where I would say that the teaching of new media literacies in the writing classroom requires, or in the least should include, aspects of multi-modal literacies and media literacy and, more importantly, share New Literacies’ sociocultural approach in that it should be seen as teaching what Henry Jenkins’ identifies as “core social skills” for a participatory culture. This thinking initially arose from thinking about what I wanted my students in 201 to get from learning to use blogs and other multimedia software and the discomfort I felt as I began to draft my syllabus. Many of the assignments tended to focus on individual creative expression and less on these literacies as social practices.
And the question I received was “who are you in debate with on this? That is, who do you see disagreeing or being unsatisfied with the claim . . . ?”
Now I can see that if I step back from my claim to a position that asks who would not see the value of teaching new media literacies, I might then move into what can/should be taught in this type of writing course.
But if my question becomes geared towards a debate of regarding the use new media, at this second (having just received the feedback and not having giving sat down to think about quite yet–beyond this blog) I don’t have a clear answer.
[Add: After meeting with one of the faculty, this question seemed focused enough and more than simply a lit review. It still is in rough form, but I don’t need a final draft until mid-January, and I’m sure it will change as I work over the break: In what ways do new media literacies and participatory culture fulfill/add to the aims of the field of Composition? Or not?]
Maybe I’m wrong and just misreading things, but it seems that part of the question (at least, in terms of your approach to the answer) requires you to address this: what is a writing classroom/writing course? Maybe that’s where the disagreement comes into it. Or maybe I’m just spewing out the weird associative-type stuff (specific to me) that my friends in undergrad referred to as Katy-logic.
Comment by k8 — December 6, 2006 @ 5:28 am
I think you are right. It does beg the question, but I wonder if it might be addressed by framing it with Smit and Berlin’s taxonomy of rhetorics. I can see how I might begin with the “aims” other scholars have identified and then move into new media literacies. How brief or extended (in other words, satisfying) this aspect is would probably depends on the reader.
Comment by Rick — December 6, 2006 @ 1:35 pm
Another way of framing a “who are you in debate with” is not to see it as a binary (i.e., those who don’t understand new media) but as part of the larger conversations in circulation regarding new media. It is not difficult for different concerns in composition or media studies or critical theory to disagree over the role(s) writing plays in media, nor is it difficult to see their conversations as relevant to one another (even if they are not speaking directly with one another).
Comment by jeff — December 8, 2006 @ 3:11 pm
I agree with you, Jeff; I absolutely want(ed) to avoid setting up a binary, and that’s why I drafted the question at the top of the post to come off more like an exploration of relationships and conversations. And, as I was leaving this most recent conference I realized that, even as productive as I feel this meeting was (new ideas, sources, etc.), my question [in bold] ended up the same as it was at the start.
Comment by Rick — December 11, 2006 @ 1:26 pm