I don’t see myself as really adopting Geoffrey Sirc’s “pedagogy of the box” (121), perhaps because I don’t really want to infuse my “composition instruction with a spirit of the neo-avant-garde,” which is what Sirc wants to do (146). At the same time, however, like Sirc, I want to make my classes more interesting for my students, and perhaps some kind of new media project is the answer. But I don’t want to completely abandon “the essay.”
Sirc rejects the traditional essay point out that “the falseness of a unified resolution gets prized over the richer, more difficult, de facto text” (123). At the same time, however, I see a lot of value in the “traditional essay,” and I think making composition more interesting for students is just as possible with the essay.
My concern with the box pedagogy is that if we adopt it, the entire goal and purpose of first year composition will change, and so must everything else. Sirc asks, “What is essential to composition? What are the inescapable, minimal institutional constraints that must be considered?” (126). And a little earlier he states, “So the two basic skills I focus my course around are practicing search strategies and annotating materials” (122). So, are research and annotating two of the inescapable essentialities of composition? There must be more than that.
Sirc’s composition course is radically different from what we teach. If we all changed to the “pedagogy of the box,” could we still see our courses as composition classes? Sirc wants his students to be “designers” rather than “essayists,” which I like, but will the composition class become a design class instead? So, right now I am not sold on "Box-Logic" "Box Pedagogy" "Box Students" or just plain "Boxes." (I have too many boxes in my garage already. Perhaps I should bring them in to my English 151 class...) Some other "new media" such as the online articles we have read so far, blogs, wikis, etc are, I think, very useful tools for composition. However, Sirc's class is a little too "neo-avant-garde" for me.
"At the same time, however, I see a lot of value in the “traditional essay,” and I think making composition more interesting for students is just as possible with the essay."
ReplyDelete-I agree. Of all the arguments made for incorporating new media in composition, the idea that it is inherently "more interesting" than the essay is the weakest. Essay assignment have just as much potential to be interesting--or not--for students as any other form of communication, depending on context.
I agree with Amanda's response, but I also think that there are ways new media can be used in the classroom to teach certain concepts more effectively, and they can make for a more dynamic pedagogy. I too want to make my classes more interesting for my students; however, I think that Sirc's desire for students to focus on what they love or hate inadequately prepares them for the myriad real world situations that will require them to write (or design) about a topic for which they have little or no passion. But while I don't find Sirc's arguments entirely compelling, I do appreciate new media's pedagogic value.
ReplyDeleteI question the idea of abandoning the essay as well, but I do like Sirc's attention to the "quotidian," or everyday. By infusing the everyday with meaning, composition teachers can expose their students to larger more significant cultural structures and meaning, and do so in a way that is immediate and accessible.
ReplyDelete"...but will the composition class become a design class instead?"
ReplyDeleteThis comes back to my ranting about new media as its own field. How the heck am I supposed to know the rhetorical strategies of design?!