If we, as rhetoricians, can't agree on a cause, then how can we reach a collaborative solution to our educational short comings. We, and many of our authors, agree that 1.) collaborative learning is a valuable pedagogy, and 2.) our general educational system is deficient in some ways. However, Bruffee, Trimbur, Harris and others can not completely agree on the etiologies of our educational struggles. Brooke's comments on the changing 'underlives' that we implore for power of identity. Bruffee identifies immediate social discourse and each participant's interpretation of those interactions, while Trimbur compares and contrasts Bruffee's narrowed view of 'situation' and Myers shotgun view of 'society' (734). Rorty examines 'communities' and the joining and re-joining of them, a notion that suits Bruffee (Timbur 737). While a treatise on the various ideologies of our concepts today, and that of the Norton author's concepts of yesterday, is beyond the scope of a blog, I wonder if each theory, or if any theory, should be accepted has broad-sweeping. Instead, I would like to see each author's criteria applied, and tested, against a specific field of study or expertise.
For example, Bruffee's social-constructivist ideals, more narrowly focused on a given situation, is best applied to medical learning in a traditional problem-based setting, while Harris' discourse communities, where words with opposing and antagonistic foes garner more meaning, might be better suited to legal venues. Brooke's theories, of course, would likely fit well within the educational system's discourse, and Myers (through Trimbur's description) may better analyze the world of politics.
Perhaps using the proper analytical tool to study and evaluate each profession's nuances may expand our inquiry in different, further reaching directions, while at the same time focusing more tightly on specific fields of study. Just a thought!-R
So, Brooke's idea that students must redefine themselves as practitioners rather than "teacher-pleasers" really intrigued me. Reading your post on Bruffee reminded me of the example from medicine, where medical students work together to build diagnoses. These students are not "acting like" doctors for a grade, they are being doctors!
ReplyDeleteBrooke argues that we must get students to redefine themselves as practitioners rather than students. How do we get students to redefine themselves as writers? It seems to me that we must find a way to make writing less performative (as Dr. Kemp has suggested) and more relevant. In TC classes, teachers often do this by assigning students real-world service-learning projects. These projects are time consuming to set up and difficult to run in TC classes, which are more advanced than composition classes. How can we do this in a writing class, when none of the writing matters "in the real world?" Sorry- no answers here! Just lots of questions.