I really enjoyed revisiting Selfe's "The Movement of Air" piece, and also to follow the dialogue that her article initiated. This is not my first time reading Selfe's piece, and the dialogue between Hesse and Selfe mimics some of my own internal dialogue and experience teaching a music-themed English 101 course. Allow me to explain.
Patty Ericsson first introduced me to "The Movement of Air" to help me frame the C's proposal that our panel was working on for March 2013. Once I read it I also wished that I had known about the article when I was creating justifications for my music-themed English 101 class. I was, and still am, struck by Selfe's argument that the language arts, popular culture, music, sound, speech (any/all forms of aurality) help students gain a better understanding of rhetoric, writing, persuasion, and all the issues we discuss in FYC, and that NOT exploring these modes create a limited version of writing, rhetoric, argument, etc. Way back last year, when I was taking English 501, I remember wracking my brain trying to think of a way to approach FYC in a way that my students would enjoy. In other words, an easier way to "make the medicine go down," while also increasing the odds (*crossing fingers*) that my students might learn something. I remember the epiphany like it was yesterday. Right before I was about to put my head to the pillow, inspiration hit: if I focus on a music theme, I will be able to use something with which students are familiar (music, popular culture) and blend it with "academic stuff" and something potentially relevant to their intended major (economic, social, political, gender issues). I remember running around the apartment looking for a pen and paper, and just taking as many notes about potential research topics as I could think of. The possibilities were endless! I was stoked!
And I am still fairly stoked. Although, as Lindsay pointed out about her multimodal project in class yesterday, the way an idea looks in the brain definitely shifts depending on available means, resources, student ideas, etc. Hesse's hesitation about the ways in which aurality will function in the classroom, and Selfe's exploration of how writing is still a large part of aurality, and how to define both, theoretically mirror issues I've faced. Despite my intention to include more multimodal learning opportunities, such as listening to songs and music videos, and analyzing them rhetorically, my students still conduct WRITTEN rhetorical analyses of a song. And the works cited page lists Youtube links rather than the live videos themselves. This fact always makes me a little bit sad: in my head I envision more sharing, linking, perhaps even blogging. Side note idea for future: I think next time around I will have students set up blog accounts and post videos/analyses, so others can watch and respond. I've wanted to do discussion forums on Angel, but in all honesty, Angel is still a bit yucky/confusing for me, but I am getting used to it.
As far as Selfe's positing of the question "What is the proper subject matter for composition classes?" (606) via Hesse's question "rhetoric/compositing versus writing/composing" is a question that I find relevant to what I was pondering when initially trying to figure out how to teach English 101. In terms of my themed English 101 class, I felt that the subject matter it discussed was proper, and I also felt that the means of getting to those proper subjects -- through issues about music -- was a new way to blend familiar with unfamiliar for my students. This goal seems to hold up: every semester, students come up with really innovative, creative, and invested topics. Some students are even musicians or music aficionados, and have an easier way to carve out their opinions on a research topic. That said, I am still somewhat dismayed that some awesome topics, to which I thought students might gravitate, remain untouched in favor of "how has technology changed music throughout the decades" or "is marijuana use connected to musical talent." So I guess this loops back to the bias about what kinds of topics are proper in terms of academic standards. Discussions of music can deviate into heavy, explicit content, but my students handle all topics tastefully, and I think, get a lot more out of research, analysis, and writing, because they get to start with something familiar.
No comments:
Post a Comment