Brooke’s discussion on style and perspective in the “new postmodern lifeworld” has several intriguing points that speak strong to me. No matter it is his juxtaposition of Ihde’s micro- and macro perceptions with Lanham’s idea of looking at vs. looking through, or the unexamined absence of “the rigid structures evolved in our macroperception” from microperception, or the triangle of perspectives he suggests in the article, they all strike me as references, or precisely, back-ups that are capable of verifying some of the teaching philosophy or praxis we see today, Sirc’s methods and methodology of teaching included. Being more aware of our demonstration of perspectives in a writing classroom possesses great significance in the quality of teaching in my point of view. Brooke elaborates on this problem in his article; Sirc doesn’t quite touch it too much.
The more I teach, the more I found myself emphasizing the idea of perspective to my students, reminding them the various views they employ in their oral or written analysis so that they could reach to further understanding of the idea of writing as recursivity and its complexity. I didn’t think of talking about perspective in this very term as a linguistic subject to my students; instead, I followed terms used in the writing guide assigned to me, lecturing to students about the importance of alternative views, critical thinking and dialectic examination while some of them have few idea of what those words mean. Even if after several times of practice and introspection on the effectiveness of their own analysis, some students may be informed of the ineffectiveness of their writing in a general sense instead of the complexity they are leaving out. Assisting them in positioning themselves as readers, writers, and interpreters of all things they see is at the center of this issue. As Brooke points out, it is beneficial and necessary for readers to realize the position they are looking from with a text before a genuine “looking through.” Sirc’s primary goal of teaching resonates with Brooke as he attempts to show his students “how their compiositional future is assured if they can take an art stance to the everyday, suffusing the materiality of daily life with an aesthetic” (117). This seems to be the answer if teachers want to help their students in comprehending appropriate, accurate, concrete, and beautiful writing. In other words, this is a must-do if we instructors took up “the poetic effect” of composition as the ultimate goal of our teaching (Sirc 114)—to transform students into “designers” who are able to use words, pictures, movies, sound, and so on so forth in articulating certain mood or vision (121). This approach speaks well with both Brooke and Sirc’s attempt of fighting against the trend of “mathematic perception” or strict analysis which simplifies reading and writing, especially with the advancing new media and technology.
Brooke and Sirc a beautiful theoretical dynamic for the practice of perspectives. However, it is Sirc who gets me into questioning the kind of feminist pedagogy he suggests in his article and the activities he designed. In meeting his goal of developing the “associational logic of linkages” in the classroom( 123), Sirc comes up with a series of projects and ideas that can help students become designers. In thinking of similar activities in which students are asked to form collections of non-verbal elements in illustrating certain vision, how far does such kind of projects go then from the practice of writing? How effective is this kind of “life lesson”?
I agree with you, SiYang. Sirc's pedagogy is appealing. Although I have my reservations about his theory and pedagogy, I find his revolutionary rhetoric, and the way he is trying to wake up writing instructors who have become part of a rigid structure at the university, inspiring. I like the idea of thinking of students as designers and artists. Sirc certainly thinks of his students as creators and savvy thinkers who are capable of making connections.
ReplyDelete"Sirc’s primary goal of teaching resonates with Brooke as he attempts to show his students “how their compiositional future is assured if they can take an art stance to the everyday, suffusing the materiality of daily life with an aesthetic” (117). This seems to be the answer if teachers want to help their students in comprehending appropriate, accurate, concrete, and beautiful writing. In other words, this is a must-do if we instructors took up “the poetic effect” of composition as the ultimate goal of our teaching (Sirc 114)—to transform students into “designers” who are able to use words, pictures, movies, sound, and so on so forth in articulating certain mood or vision (121)."
ReplyDelete-This helps me understand Sirc's point better than the Sirc article itself did. Thank you!
Hi SiYang,
ReplyDeleteRe-reading your conclusion, I think I asked a similar question in my post:
"In thinking of similar activities in which students are asked to form collections of non-verbal elements in illustrating certain vision, how far does such kind of projects go then from the practice of writing? How effective is this kind of 'life lesson'?"
I am wondering particularly what we lose when we move towards those non-verbal elements and away from the traditional essay?
@ Matthew,
ReplyDeleteI keep having this struggle although I'm fully aware of the benefit of new media elements in teaching writing. I think the discussion we had in the last seminar answered my questions in a sense--that neither pure non-verbal elements nor pure texts are the most competitive materials of teaching writing. A combination of both is able to open a much broader and richer world of writing and new literacy to students. I remember that Rebecca, a former graduate student we have here, gives great lessons in 151 when she teaches here. Her writing assignments cover a variety of new media writing, including web-design and making movies, which achieves great success. In contrast with this, the problem I'm having is rather about instruction and assigning projects to students that drift away from writing itself, although such assignments do have their value. The first activity Sirc introduces is one of the examples that are basically asking students to draw rather than write.