Jay Smooth does Project 4

my great love of jay smooth is fairly well-known amongst my friends. i think his video blog is amazing, and i find that even if i disagree with his position once in awhile, his arguments are often funny, well-articulated, etc. he has several videos i find particularly useful for thinking about rhetoric: like this, this (ESPECIALLY, because i think the distinction between what we do and what we are is often crucial in controversial discussions), and this.

this video isn't exactly recent, but if you listen you'll have little problem picking out the pieces of a proposal argument. also, notice how he is able to cite evidence for some of what he's arguing, and how he moves from one part of the argument to another.

Problem: Jay-Z and Beanie Sigel were fueding in 2009. Well, Beanie was (cites examples of Sigel talking trash about Jay-Z, and Jay-Z's lack of response). Then 50 Cent got involved, taking Beanie's side.

Neg consequences: It's sad. It's embarrassing. It's a distraction. He insinuates it could negatively impact Beanie's otherwise good career.

Solution: Jay-Z needs to just respond, just as an act of charity. (To some extent, Jay-Z becomes his audience here.)

Positive Consequences: Maybe if Jay-Z responded, fans could watch Jay-Z and 50 Cent beef, which would be amazing. It would provide some closure for the participants (mostly Beanie). We can all (musicians and fans) move past this.

how to lose badly

one of my friends, who is an ardent, zealous obama supporter, had a link to this on his facebook page yesterday. it's not something i support, honestly. people should win, or lose, gracefully, and i don't think it's fun to watch a bunch of people who genuinely believed in a candidate come to terms with their loss.

but it's convenient. had the race gone the other way, one of my other friends might just as easily have linked me to a similar site with liberal tears. and i wouldn't have approved of that either. it's petty. although i'd have probably read it either way. i never met words i wouldn't read.

so it's petty, but it is also...informative. interesting. other i-words. there's something about twitter that seems to bring out the worst in people. it's like they forget this is a gigantic stage and many people can see what they say. and because so much of twitter is built around getting attention, getting followers, getting re-tweeted or responded to, it encourages people to engage in behavior they might not otherwise engage in.

some of the tweets i saw were actually really great:

• Chins up, conservatives! We still have boundless blessings to count & secure. Can't afford to give up fight. Ever.
•  We lost this battle. Tomorrow, we continue the war to take America back. #sayfie #ssnalerts
•  Last night demonstrated that the Dems have an incredibly strong coalition. Republicans must grow theirs.
•  Hey conservatives, get real — it wasn't that Americans was stupid, it was GOP failing to defend and define its vision.

these all seem like legitimate responses. count our blessings. mourn and move on. acknowledge the strength(s) of our opponent and the weakness(es) of  ourselves and prepare for next time.

but i also saw a lot of, well, sour grapes. things that insinuated that the country is full of whiners, union lackeys, godless liberals, alarmist green-freaks, and so it wasn't worth winning anyway. people attacked voters, attacked michigan and ohio, attacked the president, etc. some of the more memorable tweets were these:

• So it turns out that screaming "racism" for four years IS an argument. #whoknew
•  First time Obama won I was able to watch his acceptance. Not this time. Such a vicious, divisive, cynical, small man.
•  As Rome burned & society crumbled the sarcastic self indulgent threw epithets at those struggling to hold civilization together #tcot #tlot
•  Everyone who voted for Gary Johnson in FL: you betrayed the limited gov't principles you claim to support. #hypocrites #deadtome
•  I’m torn. Do I watch Obama’s speech in case he leads off with the Muslim call to prayer? Or do I just ignore it? #levity
•  Sad truth, conservs: We thought America would be smart enough not to fall for the small-beans issues and attacks. We were wrong.
• This election is a total sham and a travesty. We are not a democracy! (this last from the Trump)
  
  alright, so what? why am i sharing this? and again, had the democrats lost, we'd be seeing equally offensive comments, from some people. this is by no means a slur against the entire party, only some members.
  
  the reason for bringing this up is that in project 4, a lot of my students will need to deal with opposition. they'll need to explain why their solution is better than the solution of some other person. they'll need to explain why all the people who say (or might say) that their solution isn't right are mistaken. and they'll need to do that without offending anyone.
  
  so here's what you don't do - above, in that list. you don't say things that make it sound like the people who don't agree with you are idiots, or immoral. you don't say insulting things about their gender, race, sexual orientation, religion, etc in the hope of discrediting them. you don't say anyone who doesn't support you is a traitor (as suggested by those angry at gary johnson's supporters. it shouldn't be a crime to vote your conscience.) you don't attack people instead of attacking their arguments.
  
  often, in a proposal, your audience is people who are uncertain, or who disagree with you. after all, how much sense does it make to aim a proposal at people who agree with you on everything? so many students will be talking to the enemy, or at least the potential enemy. how you treat the people who disagree with you, and how you talk to those you've not yet won over will reflect on you. politicians and public figures who handled this defeat well and generously, my hat is off to you. you give me hope for a bi-partisan future. the rest of you...well...thanks for providing me with a subject for this blog, i guess.

the good man speaking well

rhetoric has a reputation for being nothing but lies and empty words. it's one of the things i try to emphasize in the classroom -that this is what we associate with the term, although this use is fading, but that it isn't true. dr. P likes to say rhetoric is like the force, and it's your decision which side of that war to be on.

this may be the case. but i've said in another blog i keep that maybe that argument isn't good enough. the sophists got kind of a gleeful kick out of saying truth is subjective and that rhetoric is neutral. and some days, i get a kick out of that too.

but today i read this.
and it scares the hell out of me. because i got one of his mailers. and i've said about a dozen times in classes in the last week that it's not our job to fact-check with project 3. using statistics is a logos appeal even if they're lies. the presidential debates proved that. some candidates lied/misspoke more than others, but damn. there were a lot of numbers being thrown around that the audience had to more or less take on faith. and chances are good that when the candidates couldn't agree on a number, the people watching believed the candidate from whatever party they identify with. how many people go read a fact-checker's report? especially if they like what they heard?

as i said, i got one of the bridge mailers last weekend while i was in cleveland. i came home to this slick appeal to deny the bridge. and if i were a different person, it would be persuasive. he makes appeals to logic and emotion, asking don't i want the state/city to spend money on police, teachers, roads, etc, rather than this bridge, when he (ethos humanitarian appeal) is willing to build this bridge? it's good. i like teachers, police, firefighters, roads, etc. i would love to have consistent lighting driving through my city. i'd love never to pop another tire on a pothole i didn't see. i'd love never ever again to narrowly miss a manhole with a missing cover. i believe with my whole heart that education is a public good, and i'd like to see detroit students get the same sort of technology, teachers, and supplies that their counterparts at places like DCDS get.

so it's persuasive as hell.

it's also mostly lies, or kindof-lies. (i don't say this because of my political convictions, which i'll lay out on the table. i think capitalism is a heartless, fundamentally flawed system, and the longer we pretend it isn't the longer it takes for us to search either a) for an alternative or b) for a way to make capitalism work without doing so much damage. i'm not picky about which one we get.) yeah, it makes my skin crawl to think of a single individual OWNING and thus CONTROLLING a bridge between two countries. sure. but that doesn't change the fact that it's not exactly true. this doesn't really cost the city a damn thing. canada foots the bill, and they keep the tolls (on this bridge only) until our half is paid off, at which point we (canada and the US) start splitting the tolls. call me crazy, but that sounds like a good deal. but he's planted the idea that it will be michigan money. and it's possible enough people will believe it. and the fact that it's based on lies, or spin, or whatever you want to call it, doesn't make it less persuasive.

aristotle said that rhetoric (a technique) was insufficient without practical wisdom to guide its use. augustine exhorted his readers to study rhetoric but let god guide them in the use of it. quintillian said rhetoric should be the art of the good man speaking well. it's not coincidence that he put the good man part first.

we teach good research methods in class, and we fact-check, and we run papers through safe assign. but i'm not sure how well the message gets across that this is bigger than academic honesty, and Doing The Work Yourself. the greeks believed it was important to study rhetoric in order to speak well, yes. but they also believed that a man who didn't study rhetoric, who couldn't recognize when his emotions were being appealed to, and weigh that in his mind, would be vulnerable to those who wanted to take advantage of him. famously, in one of plato's dialogues, a man brags that because he speaks well, he can convince people he knows more about what's good for them than their own doctors. it sounds laughable when we read it, but it really isn't. this kind of thing happens all the time.

we vote in a week. we decide the future of this country in a week. i want to believe we will elect the good person speaking well. but my fear is that we will elect whoever had the loudest voice, or told us what we most wanted to hear, or who spent the most money. and really, all of this is bound up, or ought to be, in those classroom discussions about good research, and accurate sources, and Doing The Work Yourself.

sample outline for advice from a princess

this post refers to two of the three videos from this series:

Their Argument(s): Movies like Beauty and the Beast and Snow White are about love conquering all, and how good will triumph. 

My Argument: Although they seem harmless on the surface, I argue that Disney movies like Beauty and the Beast and Snow White send harmful messages to young girls and reinforce negative cultural ideas about women.

Topics supporting my argument: (The movies...)

• Show women engaging in unsafe behavior
• Show women in abusive/oppressive situations
• Reinforce ideas about physical beauty being the only value women have.

Support for my topics:

• Unsafe situations: 
• Snow wandering around, going into strange houses, talking to strange women. 
• When she does these things, she seems to have no notion of how unsafe they are, and is incapable of rescuing herself.
• Abusive situations:
• Belle held captive by the Beast 
• He threatens to starve her
• He is violent and frightening. 
• (In Snow White she is forced to be the housekeeper in her own home, and then to a bunch of strange men.)
• Physical beauty: 
• B&TB is "about" how we should look past the surface
• But Belle is beautiful (the movie tells us repeatedly) 
• Her beauty is why Beast keeps her, and *then* he sees her kindness. For him, she sees his kindness first.
• Physical beauty 2: 
• Good looks "save" Snow.
• The huntsman who can't bring himself to kill her. 
• The dwarfs take her in. 
• The prince kisses her awake. 
• Beauty is so important to women it's worth killing over: the queen is so jealous of another women being prettier that she's willing to have her murdered over it.

genres of graduate work

This is, I apologize, unfinished. But you get the general idea. And I substituted the QE preface for my prospectus, because the prospectus is 6 pages long, which is outside the parameters of our P2 assignment.


#1

Qualifying Exam Preface

I propose a qualifying examination in the field of rhetoric and composition, with a concentration on rhetorical theory. In particular, I will be arranging my study of rhetorical theory around treatments of the concept of techne. Techne is traditionally defined as having to do with production, and is often paired with or contrasted to phronesis, which deals with doing rather than making. My emphasis for the examination will be on critical/literary theory, with a significant portion of the texts dealing with questions of politics and/or labor. In a post-Fordist world, labor is increasingly concerned with doing, as production jobs vanish and more and more workers find themselves in service and communication jobs. As joint components of this study, therefore, techne and labor complement one another.

The courses I have taken which prepare me for this emphasis include Eng 7034 (Globalization) with Dr. Chandra, and Eng 7065 (Writing Machines) with Dr. Pruchnic.

#2

WRITERS: Virtuosity and the Work of Writing
In his 2004 Grammar of the Multitude, Paolo Virno describes post-Fordist working conditions using the virtuoso, the figure who stands in contrast to the traditional manufacturing sector worker. For the virtuoso, the performance is the product, and to put the virtuoso to work is to put to work our capacity for communication and cooperation. Although Virno refers to this in particular as the virtuosity of the speaker, the communication and cooperation that the post-Fordist economy puts to work are just as much about the virtuosity of those who communicate with sound, images, or the written word. Moreover, his use of pianist Glenn Gould as his primary example of virtuosity suggests a certain conscious facility with the skills being utilized in the performance. My objective in this paper is to examine Virno’s virtuoso with an eye not toward the speaker or the pianist, but toward the writer and more particularly the writer as worker. A number of workers, especially in the information and service economies, would appear to fulfill Virno’s explicit qualifications for the virtuoso, but lack the conscious facility of the concert musician. These workers seem to stand, if not in contrast to the virtuoso, at least to the side of it. To what extent do Virno’s theories of virtuosity apply to them? Perhaps more importantly, do Virno’s hopes that ‘servile’ virtuosity can be turned a more actively resistant form apply to those whose work centers around the production of written communication?




Every now and again, when I tell someone I'm getting a PhD in rhetoric, they'll say "So, you like to write, huh?" To me, this feels like asking Kobe Bryant if he likes to shoot hoops sometimes. And yet, it's a common moment - like the time my mom referred to my 200-page dissertation as "That paper you've got to write." The dissertation, though, is a mainstream concept, and even if the people around me can't always appreciate the difficulties of it, they at least have some notion of what it is. The real challenge has been explaining the *other* types of writing to the people in my life. Before I decided to go to graduate school, it was just papers. Simple. Uncomplicated papers. The moment I began to fill out applications though, I found myself writing Personal Statements, Teaching Philosophies, Letters of Intent, precis, proposals, abstracts, exam prefaces, qualifying examinations, the prospectus, multiple syllabi, (more) seminar papers, paper proposals, conferences papers, etc. This doesn't even touch the writing you do that you're hoping to get someone to publish. To say that someone in this line of work "likes writing," is obviously not saying enough about how crucial writing is to both our academic careers and our senses of self.

Some of the genres listed above become familiar as old friends to a graduate student moving through the program, whereas others will only need to be tackled once. All of them, though, will be somewhat puzzling and intimidating the first time they're encountered, because even though many of them would seem to be trying to accomplish the same purpose, there are crucial distinctions in audience, tone, placement of the author, format, etc. For this discussion of writing genres at the graduate level, I have chosen two pieces that while doing similar work, do it in very different ways: the QE preface, and a conference paper proposal (or abstract).

The preface and the proposal, on the surface, are both previewing a forthcoming piece of scholarly writing. Both are intended to explain to an audience exactly what they can expect from a text which exists somewhere in the future -in the case of the preface, the examination essay or essays the student will eventually write, and in the case of the proposal, a 10-12 minute presentation to be delivered at a conference. Another feature that both genres share is their dependence on an audience of judges, people with the power to accept or reject the writing being previewed. Although these judges aren't identical (one is a committee of instructors as the university, the other a committee of faculty members from numerous institutions but connected to the conference), both sets of judges are made up of academics, who will judge the author of the pieces as a fellow scholar.

There are, however, crucial difference, even with regard to this audience. For one thing, in the case of the preface, the committee will include the writer's advisor or director, who will be "on her side" when it comes time to judge. With the proposal, the audience is made up of strangers, who have no reason to care one way or another. Etc...

P: Tone. Both are scholarly, and both are required to justify the work. The preface at the end suggests why the topics are relevant ones for the modern world, and similarly the proposal asks questions about the state of teaching today.

P: Tone: But also, there are differences. The preface is statements. This is important. This is the impact of these changes. These categories of texts do make sense together. The proposal, on the other hand, asks questions. The tone is less one of confidence and more one of exploration. It's a tease. I'm going to answer these provocative questions -don't you want to see how?

P: Both pieces require the author to build an ethos -to prove themselves- but do it in different ways. The preface includes references to coursework the student did to prepare them for the exam they wish to take. The proposal includes references to theorists. Both show the author has "done the legwork" but in different ways.

P: Conclusion.

plans and situated actions

i went running tonight in spite of the rain. normally i run on treadmills, because by the time i was 19 i'd already busted my knee twice, and every year about this time it reminds me that no matter how young you are, permanent damage is still permanent. but i spent the day getting caught up on grading and emails, and reading 80s composition theory for a conference paper, and i needed out.

i often use exercise as part of my writing/reading/grading process. i grade 2 papers, then do pushups. i promise myself a run if i read one more chapter. the breaks help keep me sane, and i think they help me process material. i come back to a paper i'm not sure what to say about with a clearer head after 10 pushups. i've planned classes on the treadmill, or untangled arguments while lifting weights. the thing many writers forget, and that less experienced writers have trouble believing, is that writing is a physical, situated thing. i often find that students write one way in class, and another way on papers they did at home. they write yet another way in a collaborative setting. if you've always sat down with music, and panicked your way through a paper - get up. go somewhere else. see if you write better with the buzz of starbucks in the background. see if you write better with pen and paper or with a keyboard. turn the music off, or on. shake things up. if you always sit in the same place, doing the same things, it's too likely that you'll keep writing the same way.

the point, though, is that while i was running i thought of two genres i might put together to work up a sample of the genre analysis for project 2. one is an abstract for a conference paper, and the other is the prospectus i had to write for my, well, prospectus exam.

before i even think about an analysis of these two pieces, though, i feel like it's worth saying something about how i wrote them. they were both completely new genres for me. i had learned to write a paper abstract as an undergraduate, and that sounded...kind of like a conference abstract. same word, right? so i wrote one of those the first time. it got accepted, but as i grew more experienced, and started seeing abstracts written by my peers, i realized i hadn't quite done it correctly. usually an abstract like i wrote takes place *after* a paper is written, and summarizes the argument for a prospective reader. that abstract lets them know whether it's worth their time to read your article. the kind of abstract i was *supposed* to be writing doesn't summarize the argument. instead it hints at the main questions of the paper, and suggests the importance of the argument that eventually will get made. it's a vague promise.

and just about the time i thought i'd got the hang of the whole abstract thing, i showed Dr. M my abstract for the Thomas Watson paper, back in May. he took a pen to it, and immediately started crossing things out "don't use the virtuoso and the techne frame here, keep it simple...don't invoke this many theorists -you sound insecure..." etc. it was a bit of a shock, but a reminder i probably needed that i'm still learning how this works. i'm still making the transition from self-conscious, apologetic student to confident peer.

the prospectus, again, was something i'd never written before. it's a short description of your dissertation, which you first defend in an exam, and then file with the department and the graduate school. what i knew going into it was 1. most of the people who will ever read it know nothing about your field, and 2. these lunatics wanted me to summarize a 200-page argument i hadn't even started writing yet?! so i did what i normally do under these circumstances. i collected 5 or 6 of them from people who'd already written one, and i modeled mine on theirs. the prospectus values being very clear (because the 4 people on your committee will exam you on it) but not too technical (remember all those OTHER people who know nothing about your field who are going to read it?). so i wrote a draft, which immediately seemed stupid to me. too short, too vague, too uninteresting. i let my fellow student, MLM, read it and suggest changes. i made them, and then emailed the draft to Dr. M. who promptly changed everything back to more or less the way it was before MLM got his hands on it, and told me to submit it (he was dead on when he said i'm still insecure, or maybe i'd have trusted my original draft).

the point here is that anytime you're writing in a new genre, there's a certain amount of anxiety. it's like going to a party where you don't know anyone. that's normal. so is the trial and error of not getting it quite right the first time, which is why we think of writing as a process, something that happens over a series of steps. but maybe the biggest takeaway is that the first step for writing in a new genre is finding samples of that genre and examining them with the panic of someone whose academic career is riding on the outcome. this can't be done in a vacuum.

i already *knew* this, but apparently i needed to be getting hit in the face with cold rain before i thought about how useful it might be to articulate those experiences and say it explicitly. thank you, lupe fiasco, for your part in this epiphany.

talking about genres in a discourse community

 this is an edited transcript of a Gmail chat conversation i had with a lawyer i am friends/go dancing with, who asked me what's the difference between a discourse community and a genre. because our two fields have a lot in common (law, and rhetoric), we actually have more than a few of these conversations looking for the places where the different things we do all day intersect.



me: discourse communities use genres, but the two are not the same thing.
P: alright, that makes sense. like a star wars fanfic DC uses the genre of fanfic.
me: sure.
P: actually there the genre kind of defines the DC.
me: not really. fan fiction has subgenres. and most of those people gather in communities of some sort. which means fanzines, print or electronic, are in their orbit. so are forum posts, blog posts, workshop-style responses.
P: which are all also genres.
me: and as fans they probably participate in critique or review of books and movies involving their particular fandom.
P: so this is what you want your students to do tomorrow?
me: no. i want us to be able to identify a genre, and identify features of the genre. although that genre may share features with other genres.
the first question is what are we reading/seeing/listening to?
the second question is how do we know that?
if we can get there, next week we'll get into what are the values built into those features?
P: what kind of values are there in a genre like fiction or fanfic? I'm not used to thinking about values embodied in forms.
me: what is a genre you use?
P: I use legal persuasion... I guess that's a genre.
me: what on earth is legal persuasion?
P: I write a thing that talks about facts, and statutes, and old court cases, and what seems fair/commonsensical, all to try to persuade the judge to rule for my clients.
me: no, what is the thing you write?
P: legal brief. that's the title of the thing.
me: drawing on old court cases is a logos/ethos move. what seems fair is a pathos move. legal brief is a genre.
what are the features of that genre? how do you know you're reading a legal brief and not a rental contract?
P: hm. a number of features.
there's a pretty set format.
there's a stated audience.
there's a case caption at the top.
the lawyer asks for something from the court, and signs it at the bottom.
and of course the content is particular to that genre.
there's a statement of what's being asked for, then a statement of issues, then a statement of facts and procedural history, and then the legal argument/analysis.
me: those features saying something about what the genre privileges, and what the community that uses it values. that formality is important here, that it's better to be redundant and overstate than risk something going unsaid, that the history of a thing must be part of the current decision, that similar decisions should be a factor in making this one.
i will wager there's more ethos and logos than pathos in this, so emotion is not valued as much. or only certain kinds of emotions.
P: pathos is very devalued, except in certain kinds of legal claims that are specifically about "what's fair."
me: and fair is supposedly a rational thing, not a compassionate thing.
P: I don't know. that's an area where the appeal is really to an innate sense of right and wrong. I'm not sure logic really penetrates that far. I'm also not sure it's simply emotion.
me: i know it's not simply emotion because it's a male-dominated field.
take a legal brief in comparison to a commercial asking people to donate for children who need medical care, or victims of a world disaster. they both urge people to make a just decision, but one is laden with compassion, and the other is not. there are obviously other differences. but still.
P: oh yeah. no pictures of crying children in (most) legal briefs.
you'd better believe that a jury trial has that though.
me: a jury trial is lawyers speaking to average people. maybe there's a sense that the average person is duped and swayed by emotion. and sensationalism.but lawyers don't use that with one another.
P: duped =/= swayed
me: okay.
P: but yes, emotion gets used less when it's just the judge on the bench.
me: it says something about how the speaker views his audience.
and the point isn't specifically how the legal community views emotional appeals. it's that genres are value-laden.
P: common=emotional. legally educated=rational.
me: well and that legal briefs are matter of fact things, and jury trials are performances.
if you understand these things about a genre, you don't accidentally misuse it.
P: I'm starting to see how the different genres there could incorporate value preference.
me: which is the point for a writing class. good writing is not a static, all-purpose thing.
P: so that you don't start a monologue in the middle of a business letter. or something.
me: or write a biology article as if it's a anthropology article.
or invite people to your traditional muslim wedding through facebook.
P: that last one might be fun/tense.

reflecting on dissertation

this afternoon i have a meeting (i think?) scheduled with my dissertation director. he's kind of minimalist at the best of times, so i'm honestly not entirely sure i've had this meeting confirmed. nonetheless, in the expectation of spending an hour justifying the fact that i missed my deadline for the next chapter, i spent part of the weekend going over what i've written and trying to make sense of it.

the last time dr. M and i spoke, he said i needed to lose the citizenship stuff, because it was too confusing. i had given him drafts of my first two chapters, and a page or so of what i thought might be chapter 3. originally, when he said lose the citizenship stuff, i thought he meant go in another direction entirely, so i spent what must have been 2 weeks reading Iris Marion Young, Martha, Nussbaum, Ahmed, and City of Rhetoric. then i spent another week or so in despair because i couldn't figure out how to answer one of the questions dr. M asked ("what do you want people to do?") without using the citizenship thing.

then i went back and read the stuff i originally thought would be chapter 3. and it's got to go. it's an overview of How We Define Citizenship, but it relies heavily on Marshall's definition, and it's driven by categories of citizenship. in retrospect, i'm not actually sure how i was going to get from there to talking about anything. if i'm talking categories of citizenship, i've basically promised to either 1) propose a NEW category (which i'm not doing) or 2) use those categories to argue for something (which i'm also pretty much not doing). so now here's what i don't know: did dr. M mean get rid of the citizenship question entirely, or is he a genius who already knew that what i had written wouldn't fly, but i can still talk citizenship in other ways?

then i did some writing, because if all else fails, get words on paper. i stopped worrying about where this was going, and just tried to do some writing based on the research i had already done. and when i sat down and looked at that this weekend, i realized my writing so far falls under 4 umbrellas.

A - How things get sticky
B - We normally see citizenship as national or individual. One is too large, the other two small.
C - Buy-local movements would seem to solve the problem of a citizenship that's too big, but they don't, entirely, and they definitely don't solve the problem of one that's too small.
D - How Nussbaum and Young are in conversation with one another.

as might be obvious, some of those things fit together, but not all of them. i think i can get from A to B pretty easily, and the transition from B to C is obvious. but how do i get from C to D? and if i'm talking about both Young and Nussbaum, how does that change my project as a whole? i know what Young's solution to the citizenship question would be. and i know Nussbaum's possible objections to it. what i don't know yet is what would Nussbaum's solution look like? is it better than Young's? and if i can figure out what Nussbaum's would be, is it going to mean i can no longer write my 4th chapter on Occupy Detroit?

3 possible ways to start project 1

i told myself i was going to start early on this draft, which i then (of course) didn't. i started thinking it over yesterday, and did some writing this morning. i told my classes that i find introduction the hardest, although it wasn't as difficult with this project as it often is. possibly this is because we talked wednesday about ways to start the paper, although it seems just as likely that it's because this is a topic near to me personally and i find it easier to write about. 

i even made a couple different starts, just to see how they felt. 

there's the "Look How Scholarly I Am" approach, where you drop some names: 

 When scholars like James Gee and John Swales talk about discourses or discourse communities, they have a tendency to focus on language use, which might lead those new to the concepts to think that highly physical activities –like soccer, yoga, or dance- don’t really qualify. As a dancer of four years experience, however, I can say definitively that this isn’t the case. …

i like this okay, although it feels a little abrupt. it probably needs something at the beginning -why am i even telling people about gee and swales? i need something to get me from zero to discourse. and probably some of what this paper would need to do is keep talking about how gee and swales defines DCs and make sure that i'm making a case for dancing being included.

 or the "This Paper Is Obviously Aimed At My Classmates and Teacher" approach:

The community I chose to write about is the swing dancing community, which I have been a member of for four years now. A friend showed me the basic step and two turns for East Coast Swing at a wedding in Kentucky, and I was immediately hooked. As soon as I could, I found the nearest group of swing dancers and started taking lessons. ...

in spite of my somewhat smirky title for this approach, it works fine, i think, for this paper. it won't work for later ones, obviously, but i think it can work for what is essentially a chance to introduce yourself, and explore language use, in front of classmates.

and then there's what i think i will call the "Anthony's Sink Or Swim" Approach:

We came to an awkward stop on the floor and my practice partner, Rich, said, “That’s not working.” “Yeah,” I agreed. “We’re losing the tension we’d normally get on the one-two, so there’s nothing to carry the swing-out. We need something else.” Rich considered this, and nodded, “Okay. I’ll throw in a couple crazylegs to get us situated.” Four years ago, the first time I went to a dance lesson, I could never have imagined a time when this would be a normal conversation for me. But although language might not be the first thing you’d think of when someone mentioned swing dancing, it’s become like a second language for me.

In some ways, I mean this literally. There are many dances under the umbrella of “swing” –the Charleston, East Coast (the Jitterbug), West Coast, Carolina Shag, Lindy Hop, Balboa, Boogie-Woogie- but for the most part they share a common set of terms that refer to specific moves, or types of moves. Most dancers will understand what a basic, a whip, a swing-out, a sugarpush, a tuck turn or a pop turn mean, even if we don’t always do these moves in the same way. Similarly, most of us know things like crazylegs, tacky annie, and shorty George, very specific moves from the swing tradition. But when I say that swing dancing –or, to be more specific, Lindy Hop, has become a second language for me, I mean something more subtle.

this is the introduction i ended up finishing. reflecting on it, i'm realizing a couple of things. 1) i'm not sure how well i've thrown people into my group. the incident i'm trying to recreate for them might be too long. am i going to lose everyone's attention in the 5 sentences i'm taking? is there anything i can do about that? could i just shorten it somehow to rich's sentence about the crazylegs (not one of my favorite moves)? and then 2) i'm at the end of my second paragraph and not a thesis statement in sight. does this matter? i'm not convinced it does. i think this paper can be a place where the rules are a little more relaxed. and i've done some of the major work, right? DC identified. language mentioned. one example given. i think as long as i don't leave people in suspense too much longer i can get away with it. 

BUT. i don't think delaying as long as i have with this third example would have worked with the first two. those introductions lent themselves to more formal statements of argument. which might be why i liked this one so much -i don't usually get to write a casual, let's-see-where-things-take-us sort of argument. if i can tighten up the very beginning, and get rid of some of my scene setting, this is probably the one i'll go with.

reflections on project 1

i was very pleased for the most part with the responses my classes gave to picking their own discourse community to write about. most people, even those who were confused after the first reading, seem to have a good grasp on what a DC is. people also seem to be able to able to articulate the values or goals of their communities.

the problem comes, for most people, when trying to show how language use expresses those goals. it's much easier (for me, as well) to either talk about my group and how we use language, or talk about my group and its values. it's getting those two things in the same room, so to speak, where the problem comes.

whatever else we do next week, this aspect needs to be addressed. and this needs to be included on the rubric for scoring this paper as well.

lots of work. lots to think about. but in spite of that i'm more excited about this bunch of papers than i normally am, faced with the prospect of reading 50 ad analysis papers. not sorry to see that paper go.

"he's okay, but he's not leading with his body"

it's not really all that easy to narrow down a single discourse community i would want to write about. DCs are about recognition, but they're also about how i see myself. which community would i choose to best represent me? various people know me as a teacher, a student, a southerner, a born-again detroiter, a baker, a homebrewer, a comic book collector, a sci-fi fan, a runner, a dancer, a foodie, a feminist, an advocate of class issues, a sometimes-member of Occupy Detroit, a critical theory fan, etc. it's not that often that someone knows me as all of those things. and it's a little paralyzing to have to choose just one.

i still think, maybe, that dance is probably the thing that i think of most (after teacher and student) when i want to describe who i am. it takes up the most of my free time. it certainly takes up more of my disposable income than other communities i belong to. and in terms of dance, i would probably say not just dancer, or even just swing dancer (because that's actually a lot of different dances) but lindy hopper. i *can* Charleston, Balboa, East Coast Swing, Blues Dance, etc, but i do Lindy Hop the most, and i get most excited about learning new things for it.

in terms of what we value or believe in. we believe in learning new stuff -a lot of us go to exchange dances all over the country. when we do this, we usually end up sleeping on the floor or couch of a total stranger. we let people sleep on our floors when the exchanges are near us. we're big into being social. we say hi to new people, we ask new people to dance. we try to be welcoming, because that's important to us. some groups, like tango, are really hard to break into. not lindy. we value people who can fit their dance to the music. we value style. styling is really important. you can be a technically very good dancer, but it'll be your styling that makes you great. i'm sure there are other things, but those come to mind first. 

i'm not sure what all i could use to talk about this community. maybe my DETLX shirt from a couple years ago, which is funny...but only if you dance. i also crack up *every time* i watch this video, which i suspect is incomprehensible to a lot of people, and uses a lot of the terms that LH dancers use. i want to use something other than the etiquette page i showed in class, because that's sort of designed to help new people become part of our group, and these two examples are more things you'd have to be in the group to "get."

oh, Gee

My first thought, on assigning Gee, was that he's easier than Swales. Of course he is! He's easier!

Okay. But now when I go back and read him again, I'm actually unsure about that. I think he is easier in terms of being more readable -vocabulary and stuff. And I think his project is more interesting. But I'm no longer convinced that this makes him "easier" in the sense that my students might understand it.

Swales is pretty straightforward. We've got this term, discourse community, which he feels is being thrown around willy-nilly (awful phrase) and he wants to clear up two things. 1. Are discourse communities really just the same as speech communities (or whatever he calls them)? and 2. What are the characteristics of a discourse communities. Once we get past the posturing, the lit review, the setting up his project, Swales boils down to a list, and I have no doubt that most people can latch onto that and let the rest go.

But Gee. When he says Discourses are "ways of acting, interacting, valuing, feeling, dressing, thinking, believing with other people and with various objects, tools, and technologies, so as to enact specific socially recognizable identities engaged in specific socially recognizable activities" my brain is like "Right? Right???"
But I wonder if that's my grad school showing. What I do want people to get out of him, though, is that idea. That Discourses use language, obviously, but they are more than language. They are ways of valuing/doing/believing.

Gee can also be kind of long, but I like his examples. He talks about his own experience as a teacher, bird watcher (seriously, who bird watches?) and video gamer. I think it's a clear example that is helpful for people struggling with these ideas. The Indian and Law School examples are longer, more complicated. But they can maybe still assist. The point is that being part of a Discourse is a way of recognizing and being recognized. I am reminded of a guy who danced with me at a blues event in Chicago -he said, "You're a lindy hopper, right? I can always tell." There was something in how I moved, the way I responded to his leads, and the way I improvised, that "spoke" to him and allowed him to "recognize" me. Lindy Hop has ways of doing and ways of valuing that are similar to, but not the same as Blues Dancing.

I told students they didn't need to bother with the acquisition and learning section, although part of me hopes they do. I realize that's me beating my own dead horse though. Gee needs those terms to talk about his ending (perhaps major?) point, which is about Discourse and schooling and social class. He is arguing ultimately that some families (largely middle/upper-middle class families) that prepare their children to speak the Discourse of education, of schooling. By the time those kids are in school, they're comfortable with it, and that Discourse is reinforced at home as they move forward. But Discourses are ideological, and a secondary Discourse (like academia) might be at odds with (one of) our Primary Discourses. How can we teach students to get by, he seems to be asking, without colonizing them, forcing them to adopt the importance of what this secondary Discourse values, although it may disagree with what they value at home?

Gee's Discourses, in spite of what he says, are usually not about being a video gamer or a bird watcher. They're about my social class, my religion, my ethnicity, etc. I think that's good to know. I think it's useful for us to discuss how Discourses are ideological (in the sense of determining my imaginary relationship to the world). But, long story short, I suspect I owe everyone an apology tomorrow morning for having told them (and myself) that this was easier.