As I continue to think about my dissertation project, I have at times been overwhelmed with the complexity of trying to analyze and understand the enormity of constantly shifting forces and agents moving through bounded, but always reiterated spaces. I was hoping that the right methodology would lead to the right concoction of various methods which would allow me to wade through the enormity of the data to an eventual eureka moment. Of course, it is one thing to intellectually know this won’t happen, and it is an entirely different thing to have a felt-sense shift in perspective. In this regard, Johnson-Eilola’s mashup of articulation theory and symbolic-analytic work continues the trend in our TPC readings of providing a useful heuristic with which to frame my vague, but still wicked problem. Whereas I was still thinking of the contingency and complexity of my research situation as a problem to be solved, my actual work habits needed to reflect a frame of mind where “contingency is not a provisional window toward some higher meaning, but a simple fact, an aspect of work rather than an inherent characteristic of the system” (68).

Part of actually working in a datacloud, rather than just theorizing it, is acting upon the principle that iInformation is not a tool, record, or plan of work… information is not something to be rigorously controlled and structured; it is not something to be easily understood; it is something to be played with, challenged and confused by, experimented with, and transformed” (68). The upshot for TPC and for Composition pedagogy in general is oddly reflected in my own poor ability to adequately adjust my work habits. Without realizing it, I have developed two different operational modes of work: one for what I perceive to be more traditional modes of scholarship, and one for more “playful” activities. Once upon a time, my teaching and writing were part of this playful mode, but as I receive more and more formal training, I find myself slogging through texts, essays, and lessons alike – from point A to point Z while trying not to miss or forget everything in the middle – linear, neatly framed (ish), and ultimately boring. Further, the harder I try to find solutions to both my own habitual deficiencies as well as to the overly-large research questions I keep tackling, the more I dead-end  

Johnson-Eilola helpfully articulates this trend in terms of traditional vs. symbolic-analytic work in that “formal education often fails to provide the complex environments necessary to teach students [skills for working in information spaces]…their articulation of work in these contexts tends toward routine production rather than symbolic-analytic work” (98-9). The most obvious example for us occurs in our Composition classes. While it is quite common to require students to access and search databases, collect meaningful secondary research, and cobble that research together with their own arguments, we usually emphasize the finished written product over the process. I find it hard to even describe how I navigate various “soft” research skills – quickly running through different combinations of search strings; skimming through lists of search returns for particular combinations of terms; revising and repeating searches in different databases or platforms; manipulating windows for ongoing searches, articles to be reviewed, and those I will definitely include; periodically consulting tertiary materials for relevant background knowledge as well as to hone my search protocols (the list is for my own curriculum development) – much less facilitate the development of student capacities. Johnson-Eilola’s prescient recommendation, which is only recently beginning to shape the lion’s share of composition pedagogy, will become a feature on my syllabi: “robust information work requires support not merely for production, but for the recursive acts of production and consumption” (106).  Further, the four key areas of education he glosses from Reich (experimentation, collaboration, abstraction, and systems thinking) act as a useful heuristic for us to design assignment sequences that naturally build students’ capacities while also modelling a soft-skill process for their own future work.

Ultimately, I am most interested in how Johnson-Eilola discusses the work that his theory does for us: “Articulation theory, as Hall (1983) constructed it, aims to mediate between history and space without either falling back into a simple, deterministic historical narrative or degenerating into pure fragmentation” or what I would otherwise call chaos/unmanageable complexity (102). In the case of my research, I at least have a starting point for describing the “flattening” of social interfaces (e.g. communities become “neighborhoods” become streets, yards, houses, treelawns, sidewalks or so many surfaced interface elements to be navigated in increasingly rigid and silo-ed ways). It seems like I need to add several questions to my research itinerary: How do we define social interfaces? What are they supposed to do? For whom? At what cost? How do we articulate space after postmodernism? …just to name a few.  

“The teacher as reflective decision-maker…” This was the sticking point of the mantra chanted over and over during my time in the Education Department at Baldwin-Wallace College. My professors, all experienced educators, would force us to constantly reflect on the success or failure of our learned theories in practice. I did not know it then, but this cyclical reflection process was aimed at developing the attitudes Bain constantly refers to in his text. Like Bain’s research and the subjects he studied, my professors weren’t so concerned with which techniques or theories we used, as long as they were motivated by appropriate attitudes and supported through reflection upon their effectiveness in our classrooms and with our students. Bain’s study supports this attitude and further, presents it as crucial to the post-secondary education process. I believe his argument hinges on two main concepts, namely that best practice should really be re-coined as best “attitude” and that such attitudes require “expectation failure” for success.

                As Bain claims, student centered learning does not make professor or student performance its primary concern. It begins with the attitudes he describes; those with which we approach and determine the particulars of our classes. I admit, I first subjected my students to the tortures of short-term-memory-recall teaching. Only after encountering Maggie Chernick, my cooperating teacher, did I focus on engaging my students in the quest(ion) or process of learning i.e. understanding the greater significance, context, and application of the knowledge that we teach, and then help them in the struggle to synthesize that understanding into their established schemas. Practically speaking, this means I had to start with the end in mind. My learning objectives began to show how the knowledge I taught would increase or shape my students’ understanding of the discipline, their lives, and the world at large to some meaningful end. “How” here implies action, thus knowledge in action, or skills. In essence, I was using my course content to teach students skills and then helping them to apply those skills in practical ways. Maggie showed me the benefits of acting as part content expert, part learning facilitator – and I argue that Bain would support her conclusions.

                Crucial to the success of a student-centered classroom is the “expectation failure” Bain describes. It seems almost intuitive when you stop to think about it. For instance, when I wrote my first essay, built my first stud frame, and even when I learned to drive, I and most everyone else, had to be corrected on mistakes made during the process. If a student is to truly learn, he or she must be expected to do something with the knowledge we have imparted. It follows that we certainly cannot expect them to do those things perfectly, but must work with them through those failures to achieve success. This must be an attitude set up during the first days of class, for it will take time to sink in and prompt students to act. On the first day I passed out the “3 axioms of Mr. Susak’s class:” 1. This will be the hardest English class you have taken 2. I expect you to fail 3. I care! Students were noticeably disturbed by my axioms. Each axiom had its own explanation that not only soothed their fears, but also represented a contractual agreement between myself and the students. The second (the axiom of failure) communicated that I expected them to fail repeatedly while trying to work out the best way to move forward. The axiom of failure was my promise to help lead them through those failures and into excellence. Also, my students were glad to hear me admit that even I would fail at times. Once I demonstrated this attitude in practice, it produced an atmosphere of confidence, eagerness, and expected achievement. My students wanted to do and be the best they could. So, in conclusion, I ask “How can we practically and appropriately manifest student centered attitudes in all or most of our classroom activity?” and “Is expectance failure crucial to learning?” If so, then “How do we go about introducing and practicing this attitude without discouraging or ‘freaking’ students out of our classes?”

Please, stop reducing this ongoing tragedy to just sound bytes, or clipped reactions, or shots of teargas canisters and protesters. Please stop trampling all over the humanity, solemnity, and serious consideration this situation demands with your childish avoidance, inane 1-liners, empty vamping, and willful ignorance. PAY the respect that is DUE to the lives and lived histories of ALL the people enmeshed in the murky past, weighty present, and fearfully uncertain future of Ferguson.

You are NOT free to carelessly cast about your shallow emotions and obviously oblivious opinion about this matter. This is NOT Monday night football you’re chatting about over coffee, that is NOT a SportsCenter highlight clip you’re pulling up on your phone. You and I are able to do just that and then go about our stupid and infinitely little lives because we are hundreds or thousands of miles away, or because we are privileged enough to be able pick what we will stuff our face with at lunch, or because we are privileged enough to not have to worry about walking down our street, or because we are privileged enough to not need explanations and reminders about preventing police targeting and brutality, or because we are so privileged to have so much access that we scoff at the suggestion of privilege altogether… But you and I don’t have to silently support such a sickening and disrespectful circus. We don't have to be perfect or sorry, or even ashamed either. Those feelings are worthless.

Instead, we can give this our attention – we can *pay* the dedicated attention that is long overdue. This is not your Comedy Central attention, but your REAL focused fucking attention. Regardless of the particulars in your life, you and I, at the very least, can recognize, question, and discuss the situation in Ferguson for the infuriating, devastating, heartbreaking, and revealing complexity it really is. At the very fucking least, we can carefully read the grand jury proceedings wherein Wilson was questioned. We can solemnly read Mr. Brown’s autopsy report and listen to the opinions of the coroner. We can *invest* some of our time into learning the historical context in Ferguson, listening to the narratives of its people, trying to understand the culture of its communities, framing and tracing the relationships between its citizens and its public servants - all of this before we come to the increasingly troubling conclusions that pepper our media sphere today.

We owe a deep and terribly incurred debt of serious attention and critical reflection to all of those beleaguered people, and we owe it our closest friends, and to our neighbors, and we owe it to our co-workers, and to our children, and to their young friends, and even to our ourselves a little. We don’t have to be patrons jeering in the media coliseum – we can be better if we want to be.

A repost from my practicum days, but a good place to start nevertheless...

I usually march into my composition class with a general outline, a handful of illustrative examples, and a dry erase marker – all aimed at solving a problem or completing a task associated with the latest project I’ve assigned. My students seem to prefer this method: splitting the project into a series of scaffolded steps and working through them in small groups or as a class. I don’t mind it either, since it cuts down on my lecture time and offers students a chance to develop “a flexible writing process” while engaging their critical thinking skills. Groundbreaking stuff, I know... However, this routine took an interesting turn one day when we were working through the steps of a rhetorical analysis.

Admittedly, I am an improvisational teacher (probably due to my background in theatre). So when I’m confronted with a room full of those blank stares and raised eyebrows that we all know so well, I can usually shift gears or backtrack quickly enough to recover most of the class before losing them to Facebook. However, on this particular day it seemed that no matter what I tried – different angles, examples, lead-in questions - my class could not work through a rhetorical analysis of the articles I had assigned for homework. Personally, I think it was more than failing to grasp the rhetorical situation and use of appeals to logos, pathos, and ethos. Maybe they were just bored and un-invested. Perhaps they had failed to complete the assigned reading (despite the required wiki post).  Regardless of the reason, the class session was quickly coming to a screeching halt, and I was all but ready to chalk the day up to a loss. In a last ditch effort, I put myself on the chopping block and asked students “what about this class… What about the way that I teach? That’s a communicative event, so we should be able to analyze that rhetorically.”

As soon as I said it, the hair stood up on the back of my neck. Why did I say that? Of course, I had nothing to worry about. It was February and most of the class was still too shy to comment in class without prompting, much less openly criticize their instructor and his rhetorical technique. After breathing a quick sigh of relief and cracking a joke about my “cosmic rhetorical powers” (the laughs broke the tension), I decided to plow through brainstorming the “obviously fictitious” case of my own rhetorical ineffectiveness. After a minute or so, I could see the genuine interest and surprise register on students’ faces. Despite my thick sarcasm, I was actually delivering an honest critique of my own teaching and expecting them to not only agree with the example, but to (respectfully) extend the criticism as they saw fit.

Now, I will be the first to admit that this particular improv session could have been disastrous. Rhetorically speaking, I was attacking my own ethos in front of a group that depended on it and encouraging their complicity to boot. However this example produced some immediate and interesting effects within the class. I’m not sure if it was the chance to “stick it” to the instructor, or the fact that I was bluntly critical of my own performance, but as I mentioned above, students were surprised at my gesture and quickly engaged in the class discussion. It became much easier for my students to make connections between the rhetorical techniques of my teaching and the effects they produced in my targeted (student) audience since they had a uniquely tangible example with which to work. Further, they were thoroughly invested in this activity (for obvious reasons) and worked hard to reason through the brainstorming session with positive results. In fact, several students who had yet to volunteer a comment in class were offering solid ideas without any extra prompting from me.

While reflecting on my first college teaching experience these past few weeks, I’ve come to realize that my improvised example was a crucial juncture in the development of the class. Practically speaking, it was easy to repurpose this idea for each of the major assignments in the course. My teaching practices and other general classroom business provided ample concrete examples for students to analyze in relation to the definition, evaluation, and proposal arguments. I needed only to hearken back to the initial critique, apply it to the specifics of the assignment, and students would generally make the necessary connections. Further, after demonstrating that I had indeed listened to (some of) the criticism by adapting my approach accordingly, the stakes involved in these sessions became increasingly clear. As a result, students invested more effort and thought into class activities, and more trust in my teaching and critical comments. Taking a cue from my own openness to criticism, students felt more at ease in offering their own ideas, which opened the class up and produced some interesting (and at times heated) conversations.

 In essence, putting my own work on display established an atmosphere of mutual respect, self-criticism, and practical application of ideas that only ripened as the semester progressed. I have even had a handful of students ask for public critiques of their own drafts – something I never expected from English 1020 students. More importantly, this running example allowed me to continually steer the class towards sustained meta-discussions about class objectives, activities, and outcomes – a practice which arguably produced the most genuine learning experiences of the semester (a good thing too,  since I lacked the foresight to build formal reflections into my syllabus). Ultimately, this less than ground breaking improvisation ended up being one of the best educational choices I made all semester. So next time you are searching for some relevant example to use in class, try a little good-natured self-deprecation. It certainly worked for me.