User:Jesselargent

A Post-Human Approach to composition
To live in western society today is to live as part of a complex and multi-leveled network. People have become more aware over time of their placement within the various physical and social systems of the world, but have also become aware of the degree to which they themselves are a complex network of systems: The nervous system interacting with the circulatory system interacting with organs. However, instead of becoming a homogenous society of unimaginative clones, we are opened up by the diverse possibilities of being Post-Human. The idea of a privileged human consciousness as the seat of control of the personslips away, and makes room for other ways of viewing our interaction with the world to come into the picture. So what does being Post-Human mean for composition? For one it means a conscious placement of our writing within a conversation. We do not exist as solitary beings, writing in the dark for ourselves. Other people’s voices influence and are connected to our writing just as our writing engages with various systems itself. Writing itself is part of a system but is also a system in itself. As writers we engage in a diverse range of practices, and no one process of writing is necessarily the same as the other. The key is to recognize that writing, to borrow a term from Guiles and Guttari, is like a Rhizome, growing out in many directions. Writing is becoming, not ever in a fully perfect and finished state. Our essays do not suddenly just appear as a finished product. Each writer must engage in the process of writing and discover for themselves what systems allow for their expression to grow. Because of this, it is important for instructors of composition to approach writing as multi faceted process and make students aware of not just the ways they as writers will be interacting, but the ways that their writing with interact within network as well. The teacher should provide many different ways for the student to approach their integration within the writing networks that they place themselves in and not limit the class to any one process or approach proposed as the best way to write. As writing is a process and a system it is through examination and practice that writing is best allowed to develop. Students should be given an ample amount of diverse reading material that provides examples of the various networks and how other writers have chosen to interact with them. This will also show them the various voices that are used and will allow them to begin to produce their own voice as a writer. This expressive voice will also be developed by giving them ample opportunities to write. A composition teacher should have students write in every class period, in some form or another. These daily writing exercises should include, but not be limited to, things like brainstorming, journaling, formal responses and creative work. Because writing does not simply exist in a vacuum it is important for the instructor to develop the student’s understanding of the system of the class as a discourse community. This can be done in several ways and while peer reviews and group work are the most likely choice there are other options such as individual conferencing with the teacher (so as to develop the writers understanding of that particular system [Teacher – student circuit]) or having them go out into the community and do service learning projects.

Noise versus Pattern
While any writing is able to transmit some sort of information and for some the most simple message may be the best, it is the messages ability to integrate the patterns of writing most relevant to the network it is involved with that make it good writing. To do this a writer has to take several different things into consideration, as there are many different levels of systems and form found within writing. While some are more crucial to good writing then others, an understanding of all of these systems and how the interact with each other in a larger network is necessary. Just because you know how to put the key in the ignition and start a car, doesn’t mean that you know how to drive. At the most basic level, composition teachers must make sure that the understanding of the linguistic code of the system that the writing is created with (The language we choose to write in) is good enough that other participants in that system can understand what is being said. This is essentially having a working sense of the grammar of a language but it should be noted that this is just a basic understanding. At this level, the code of the system undergoes an almost constant change and is highly malleable between discourse communities. Using the examples of the English language, we find that any sort of definition of “good English” is extremely hard to pin down. Composition teachers need to recognize that they are using a particular form that is held up by most Academics and that it differs and can even be jarring or cryptic to the general public. Most common forms of writing (novels, letters, articles and more) use a simple form of grammar that allows for a focus on information and tries to not be distracted by what are often seen as arbitrary rules and encryptions. These various levels of code or grammar should be acknowledged in the classroom and assignments should reflect the diversity of potential tones. It is ridiculous for composition teachers to assume that every student who takes a composition class is going to become an academic. Many students will go on to become writers in a much more public sphere with a very different grammatical system to its discourse community. Once this basic set of codes is understood, an understanding of the structure of words and sentences within a language system can be developed. This ranges from how word choice affects a sentence to how sentences interact with each other in a sequence, to the overarching structure of their argument and paragraphs. Most students are familiar with the 5 paragraph essay and find it hard to escape from its comfortably simple pattern. Being stuck in this pattern or any one particular pattern will inhibit an ability to communicate and interact with different networks. The 5 paragraph essay may be great for a basic essay in a high school or college writing course but it may fall short when applied to complex arguments or mediums such as newspaper and magazine articles. This concept can be applied to word choice as well, as certain dialects and Jargon, even if very formal, are not always appropriate and can be detrimental to an argument. The teacher needs to develop a sense of how the argument of the paper and its organization directly affect each other and show how multiple options are available to the writer. While it may be tempting to teach specific formats for specific arguments, they should be presented as just one out of many possible choices. Within the same vein of argument, the format or layout of the page is another system that is important to consider when writing. While there are the traditional views of what the page of an essay should look like, these views do not take into account the writings placement within a discourse community besides an academic one and often fail to take other helpful forms of media into consideration. It is important to open the doors to diversity and show how the student’s writing interfaces with the page and the technology that creates it. This consideration exists in the simple aspects of writing as well as the more complex network interactions within writing. The simple side of this includes things such as teaching students the various tools at their disposal when writing with a word processing program or how certain styles of headings may help a reader navigate the information on their paper. On the complex side, composition teachers should encourage students to consider what strategies they are using depending on the medium they are presenting their work in, whether it is a paper, a web page, a PowerPoint or some other form of technologically mediated discourse. From here the writer is able to place their work into the network in a way that allows for their message to be clearly received by potential readers. Considering how writing interacts with the social systems of the world is a crucial step in examining the process of writing. Composition teachers can do this by making students aware of the various discourse communities that exist and how the various ways they may interact with them via their writing. The teacher may present themselves as an audience but should also point out the academic setting that the teacher is placed within. They should then include other potential audiences and have the students consider what sort of systems (cultural, economic, gendered, political) these audiences find themselves in. Even the term audience warrants examination in the composition class as it may imply that only a specific group of people may be viewing our writing. What sort of over-arching conversation is their writing being placed within? How is the audience going to be receiving their paper and what forms of reading will they consider. Audience is a part of what comprises the network of a discourse community but is only some of what needs to be considered by a writer.

The Network of the Classroom
It is important to not forget the very concepts we have applied to writing when we are looking at the classroom itself. The networks of classroom are as diverse and varied as the networks of writing. There are the interactions between the teacher and students, students to students, and even students to the physical location of the class and students/teacher to their larger college setting. These various interactions create the environment of learning and thus it is important to make sure that these channels of communication are open and explored. What place respective roles do teachers and students play in the class? Keeping in mind that we are part of a network of learning, the teacher should act as a resource, whose information has been compiled from experience and their own research. The temptation to say “Truths” about writing, and demand that the classroom network focus on the teacher at the front of the classroom is to re-enact the Liberal Humanist perception of identity being somehow separate from the world around it and privileged even when it does interact. Teachers do not simply impart knowledge from their mind to the mind of the student. The exchange is one that goes back and forth between teachers and students and for the teacher to be the sole example speaker or expresser in a writing classroom is to ignore the vast and vivid breadth of the potential forms of expression within the students. It would be misleading to suggest that this philosophy suggests that anything having to do with the individual is bad. While writing and learning is placed within a network and is not an island to its self, this does not make the parts of the system somehow homogonous. There are gears, sprockets, levers, electrodes, diodes and much more to be found in this organic machine. There is something to be said for the expressive approach to writing. We must know our self before we can hope to be honest in our interactions with the world. When we ask our students to write and find their voice we are asking them to find their particular placement within the system of the class and within writing.

Technology in Composition
As technology develops, our culture and the ways we navigate our lives change. Communication and how we deal with information are a large part of this. Technology and writing are thus intrinsically linked. While many students may not have computers at home, the campus area they are a part of will have computers and they will undoubtedly have an email address that the school uses to send them information. As much as they might think they are not affected or can avoid the ever changing world of technology, they have entered it by writing and even by enrolling in post secondary education. In a composition class it is important to address issues of technology and bring the students up to a competent level in their use of various communication technologies. In many ways, this use of technology will give them practice for professional settings. Papers will be turned in electronically and when possible writing exercises will be done in computer media classrooms where work can be written, explored and manipulated electronically. The use of PowerPoint and other media for presentations will be encouraged as a way of expanding their strategies for persuasion. As new forms of media develop along side acts of composition, what we traditionally think of as writing and the essay will change. Internet blogs have become an extremely popular form of writing and a community of writers has begun to spring up around it. Text messaging has effects both the speech and writing patterns of many younger students and the internet has had quiet in impact in issues surrounding composition (such as plagiarism). To ignore the effects of technology in the networks of writing is to leave our students effectively writing with a stone tablet and chisel.tutrles:Example.ogg