Composition Theory

In honor of the last week (and two days) of the quarter ... it’s the final countdown! :-)

We conclude where we began ... 

The central question that shapes this course, “what is composition studies,” guides our thinking, our composing, and our discussions this quarter. As we move forward, we’ll see that how it’s been defined and the trends that have helped to define it, shape how we view and understand writing and composing. Thus, for this opening post, I want you to do some quick-n-dirty research to try and define composition studies and composing. Who seem to be some important theorists or figures shaping the field? How do they define it? What are some trends that you see? How has composing, the way it’s done and the way its defined, progressed with technology and digitality?

The above paragraph was the one that opened your responses within your CompNotebook, and we are coming back around to some of those questions for your last composing. Your last readings, in a lot of ways, do a similar thing by circling us back to issues, trends, and questions we’ve been exploring for nine weeks. So to conclude please take some time rereading what you wrote in that opening response and then reflect over what you’ve learned since then. Write a response that explains/explores/defines how you now understand composition studies -- what it is, what it represents, and where we might be headed in the future. 

In connection with the readings for Tuesday, this week’s Music Monday comes from the 90s group, The Fugees’, which was Lauren Hills’ group before she went solo. The song, a remake of “Killing Me Softly,” is a clear statement of strength and continued evolution, and at the time, it was proof a female led hip-hop group could dominate a male-dominated genre such as hip-hop. Also, the message behind the lyrics ... incredibly powerful, a testament to the idea of the power of language. 

Enjoy! 

The last couple readings have directly and indirectly related to language, and one of the readings over the weekend, speaks to a student’s right their home language.

A few years ago, a scholar in rhet/comp blogged in response to the question, “is academic writing white?”  In other words, she was wondering whether or not writing in/for the academy favored a “white” language. She concluded that while it began that way, it isn’t any more and she used Adam Banks’ CCCC Address as a pivotal example of how it’s not. We might argue that both pieces suggest otherwise for what it means to write inside the academy today. However, it is, of course, not that simple. And that’s what I want us to think on and respond to for this post. 

And whatever happens, keep experimenting what what you want to say and how you want to say it. -- Carman Kynard 

These ideas—funk, flight, and freedom—speak to the role I believe composition and communication can play in the academy—to who we be; to how we go about the work we do; and to what work we see ourselves having come here to do. -- Adam Banks

In a way, what I want you to do builds on our digital journey because it moved around the ways in which language/words can be and are perceived of and used. And it definitely connects to the conversation we’ve been having. 

So using all of this, plus the two readings as context, please create a spoken text using your own, home language in response to a time you felt marginalized  in an academic setting. It could be because of your language; it could be because of your gender; it could be because of the color of your skin; it could be because of who you are as a person. The words you use to create this text should be natural for you, they should represent who you are as a writer, but more importantly, as a person. 

Also, because of the genre I’m asking you to compose, we will be sharing these in class on Tuesday, 

After the interview with Yancey, please do 2 things in your Comp Notebooks: (1) a reflection exploring what you learned, impressions, connections, and so on and (2) a list of quotes/ideas from her that you’ll most likely be using in your Keyword Article. 

Sometimes, you just need a happy song ... for no other reason but to dance it out!

Enjoy.

Where/how does technology, digitality, and multi-modality fit into comp theory? How does new media/digital media change how we compose ... or does it? 

Given the topic, you are not going to be responding in your CompNotebooks, you are going to only be responding via Twitter -- the STs do not count as part of this homework as per normal, they are their own separate Tweet. 

Guidelines (please read all the way through before beginning!): 

You, as a class, are going to create a digital story via Twitter based on the 2 readings. This digital journey is going to follow you, as an composer (so individual), and you, as students within this course (so a collective you), attempting to come to some understanding and/or awareness about the questions above. Thus, you are going to create a version of a “fold-over” story though obviously we will all be able to follow along so it’s not actually a blind story. 

To help keep things easier, please follow this order for Tweeting (meaning the same people follow each other each time:  

Kt (yep that’s me! ;-) Kira Rhys Emily Kal Molly Andrea Nicolas Kelby Kat Kendall

(Anyone else notice all the “K” names we have in this class?! :-)

Specific Guidelines:

1. You have to respond 3 times -- this means you can’t be that slow person and/or posting late. The whole response depends on everyone participating together. 

2. It’s due by class time on Tuesday, February 20, 2018, which means Kendall will be the last one posting/concluding for us!

3. It can be creative; it can be critical; it can be creatively critical or critically creative. But ...

4. It must directly respond to 2 readings and the questions above yet still somehow tell a “story.” 

5. You only get ONE tweet PER turn. This means your Tweet can’t be longer than the character length (but it can obviously be shorter!).  6. It has to include our hashtag #comptheory2018

7. It has to make sense in the context of the readings and the questions. In other words, that’s another way it’s not like a true fold-over story because those don’t always make sense. 

I will put the opening line up tomorrow night ... and then we’re off! 

Some fun gifs in honor of Valentine’s Day ... enjoy! :-) 

“Sometimes, you know, you have a moment." Kathleen Blake Yancey

As we continue to read and progress forward our understanding of comp theory/comp studies/composition, we continue to see the various ways in which you, the student, learner, and writer, can take charge of your own education -- by becoming an active agent within it. You become an active agent by not simply being someone who is fed information, but someone who questions, explores, muses, theorizes, and reflects ... and that is exactly what you've been doing in various ways with your composings, Tweets, readings, discussions, and so on. 

To continue to challenge yourself and to continue to encourage yourself to be “active,”  I want you to develop four moments in which you describe, explain, explore, theorize, compose, design, and create what you’re learning as part of this course that relates to you as a student, learner, and writer. Draw connections inside of the classroom and outside of the classroom. 

Another way to look at this would be as a way to “catch your breath” so to speak by bringing together the last seven weeks to figure out what you have  in fact learned ... but not just about the course itself but about yourself, your writing, your composing, and your learning. 

Please feel free to use whatever means necessary to complete these “moments” using word, image, color, design, etc. 

One of the hardest things to do ... free your mind. 

As we are reading about, entrenchment is real and hard to break from. Sometimes, we don’t even want to break free from it because it’s easy and comfortable. This week’s Music Monday offers music/lyrics about passing judgement on a person based on the color of their skin, what they wear, and so on, but the truth and the idea behind “freeing your mind” holds true for almost anything, and often times, we pass judgement on learning, our own and those around us, because it’s different, goes against what we “normally” do, and it’s uncomfortable. 

So, this week’s Music Monday is meant literally and figuratively: free your mind and the rest will follow! 

For this post, you are going to create a threshold concept similar to what you read throughout the book, Naming What We Know.

Please follow *all* of these guidelines:

(1) Use the lens of “naming what you know.”

(2) Create an actual threshold concept, this literally means beginning the post with a title such as “Reflection is Critical for a Writer’s Development.”

(3) Create a concept that you believe is important to know, understand, and master within the field of composition studies. This furthers our thinking from where we began the course (in one of the opening posts, you defined what composition studies is/means).

(4) Use at least 3 of the readings (you can include this book, of course, but it doesn’t have to be one of them) from the course to ground and evidence your concept.

(5) Be reflective, think about what we’ve been reading and discussing for the last six weeks. Don’t be afraid to “theorize” a bit (my philosophers might really like that! :-).

(6) Be critical, what do you believe is important in composition studies and why? That’s a good place to start.

(7) Be creative, composing/composition isn’t just about being critical and that’s it, there is an element of creativity that lies within the threads of this field.

Good luck! I look forward to seeing what you can come up with!

Writing/Composing for Tuesday, February 6, 2018

Please use what you read about reflection & silence as well as the meaning & understanding behind Paul Simon’s “The Sound of Silence” (the two videos posted for Music Monday) to contextualize the two composing activities below. 

These will be used for your “attendance” for today and both are DUE by midnight. 

(1) In your CompNotebooks, please think of a moment where you were “silenced” in some way (could be in response to *anything* something very serious, something not so serious, or something in between) and how, if at all reflection, played a part. Perhaps reflection didn’t play any part, so one thing you might respond to is how being more reflective might have helped you in that situation or how it helps you now reflecting back over that moment/experience.

(2) On Twitter, compose a Tweet that somehow captures the essence of reflection and silence within composing practices. To help, you can think of your own composing practices (which we have looked at in a few different ways this quarter already) and think about where/how they fit in and the magnitude of what they can offer you as a composer. 

The goal of these two composings is to grapple more deeply with two important keywords that not only apply/affect your daily lives outside of the academy but also inside your composing practices. 

One of the keywords you read about was “reflection,” and as noted by many of the keywords, reflection has been defined and redefined many times throughout the years. In the early 2000s, one scholar even defined it as “silence”; thus, today’s Music Monday directly connects with this idea of reflection and silence. One of the things the theorist argued was that as a culture, as an American culture, we are fear silence, we don’t know how to embrace what we might learn within the sound of silence. 

Paul Simon wrote “The Sound of Silence” in 1964, but two years ago, Disturbed remade it and it became a hit for them as well. The versions are different but they both offer an interesting response to the idea of reflective “silence.” 

Enjoy!

Hello darkness, my old friend I've come to talk with you again Because a vision softly creeping Left its seeds while I was sleeping And the vision that was planted in my brain Still remains Within the sound of silence

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"Fools", said I, "You do not know Silence like a cancer grows Hear my words that I might teach you Take my arms that I might reach you" But my words, like silent raindrops fell And echoed in the wells of silence

And Disturbed’s remake: 

In a more “traditional” type of post, please generate a list of “connections” or “disconnections” between Naming What We Know and Keywords. You can just do a bulleted list for both (they be anything!). Once you have a list, generate a quick reflection over why you see these as connections or disconnections between the two texts *and* why these two texts might help us define composition studies. 

DUE by class time on Tuesday, February 6, 2018.