Re: Thinking, Teaching, Writing

Associative thinking: a case study

I've been thinking about this question of what we're modeling for our students. It seems to me an important thing to model involves the generation of ideas: the students should see how an abundance of material presents itself if they stay alert to the seeds around them, the small thing observed or read that can provoke a train of thought, and develop the crucial ability to make connections.

Asking difficult questions

One of the many challenges of teaching composition is trying to stimulate the intellectual curiosity of students, particularly as a motivation for research. Bruce Ballenger (yes, him again) has a lot to say about this in his texts The Curious Researcher and The Curious Reader, as well as his book aimed at instructors Beyond Notecards.

One exercise he suggests (I'm not sure where) is bringing an array of relatively common objects (paperclips, CDs, pencils) into class and having students brainstorm possible research questions. An interesting essay I read recently along those lines, "Design out of a Paper Bag" by Henry Petroski, discusses the development of the design of the conventional paper grocery bag and the advent of the plastic bag (also a good essay to discuss in terms of the comparison/contrast mode).

The problem of rhetorical modes

Majority opinion seems to hold that teaching composition MEANS teaching the rhetorical modes; that certainly is what everybody did when I was a graduate student in the early 1980s. But I have read entirely too many place descriptions about teenage bedrooms, process essays about how to change a tire, narratives about car accidents (or, for the more nostalgic, high school proms and graduation ceremonies), contrasts of high school vs college, definitions of success, and research papers about abortion, the disease of the month, or the death penalty.

I'm not sure to what degree (if any) there's a causal relationship between teaching rhetorical modes and students selecting such deadly dull topics. Or is the problem that students, for the most part, seem to have difficulty handling personal topics (either because they haven't acquired the necessary perspective or they can't summon up the telling details of their lives)? The old form vs content debate.