Alllen's annotated bibliography

My comments on Allen's annotated bibliography:

Allen, these look like good sources. In terms of writing your own annotated bibliography, you should write the summary of the article in your own words, which enables you to capture the main idea but also record particular details or quotes specific to your project.


Borrowing concepts such Basgier's author function and defining the site as a new genre and how it is like or unlike genres described in previous reserach and that exist on the Web can be the bulk of your paper.

I was struck by your summary of the Wired articles where you write the community has the ability to "its ability to spontaneously come together" to influence culture or protest corporations. This seems like a good example of a new form of online social agency.

You say 4chan is not Web 2.0 but you may want to double-check definitions of what counts as Web 2.0. Usually, Web 1.0 is considered static information, or the "one-way" transmission of information from website to user. Once the transmission of information becomes "two ways," where users can interact with the site or each other on the site, it moves into Web 2.0 technology.

Comments on cognitive theories

My comments on Allen's blog, which didn't seem to let me post to his blog:

In the late 70s, early 80s, "cognitive" theorists such as Linda Flower borrowed from cognitive psychology to look at how the individual mind develops writing ability. This seemed a more promising and "scientifically rigorous" extension of early anecdotal process theories of Donald Murray and others. This line of research was attacked by Bizzell and others for its lack of attention paid to the entire context of communication and in particular the social interaction of the individual and community. Later theories, such as "distributed cognition" by Dias et al. try to balance the individual/social binary. The promise of distributed cognition is that the activity of a community can be manifested in its documents and thus gives some creditability to textual analysis as a viable method for understanding the social activity of people (since our field threw out cognitive models in the 80s). Some people still work in the cognitive realm, as evidenced by the Kellogg article I included, another article you didn't mention in your blog ;-)

And for Cagles blog:
I liked your comparison of Flower and Hayes, and Kellogg. They are both looking at cognitive development, but Flower and Hayes are looking at writing process as an act and Kellogg is looking more longnitudinal. That's a good summation.


Regarding your rationale for knowing grammar (grammar 1 is it, according to Hartwell?), it makes sense to a degree. However, I still tend to think its the rules of Hartwell's grammar 4, which are really about style, that move the writer along the basic to advanced continuum. For example, the rule not to end a sentence with a preposition. Ending a sentence with a preposition is grammatically correct in grammar 1, but more of a violation of grammar 4 because it is a stylistic technique to eliminate wordiness.

The models/theories of "distributed cognition" of Dias et al. and genre activity systems of Russell can be contrasted with the "inner directed" theories of Flower and Hayes, Kellogg, and to some extend Ong. "Distributed cognition" are meant to explain the complex interaction of individual and social, but we might question how useful they are to developing indivdiual writers.

9/15 - Comp Studies Origins

"...the advent of composition studies needs to be understood less as a local weather disturbance in departments of English and more as part of a fundamental climate change involving the evolution of general espistemologies animating thought about discourse" - Nystrand et al. p. 273


Part I: Open Discussion

• Read the blog of the person following your name on the ENG 701 blog roll.
• Post a thoughtful response
• Read and respond to someone eles’s if you have time.
• Class discussion

Allen –

• Yancey – more relevant to today, different ways of writing
• Technology emerging issue, more accessible by non-student
• Who is the audience for Jurzwik et al. and whole field of composition studies
• Arose because of problem with literacy and there still exists a problem

Isabel

• Yancey’s new modes of writing “hot topic”
• Adams Sherman Hill – over 100 years ago, but still dealing with same problems today

Cagle

• Didn’t like Yancey – delivery was too experimental, bandwagon-y
• Traditional print literacy vs.  new media literacy

 
Part II: Histories, Problems, and Methodologies

• Do a binary comparison the “old” American college to the “new” research university, including how writing instruction faired in both systems.
• Identify the main elements of the Harvard model of composition? (curriculum, philosophy, leaders…)
• What are some alternative models?
• What is the rationale for English A given by Hill?
• What is the significance of Hill’s piece to the history of composition studies?
• What is the "domain" of composition studies?
• Development of literacy, teaching of writing
• Symbolic interaction, written discourse
• Core vs. margin
• What are the areas of research in the field of rhetoric and composition?
• What are the research methodologies used in composition studies?
• What larger intellectual movements influenced composition research?
• What is unique about composition studies?
• What is the relationship of composition to literature and English departments?