What Is English?

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            This is my fourth year teaching a course called Pre-Teaching Secondary English, for first and second year students who are considering becoming middle or high school English teachers.

            Each year, one of the first orders of business is to define English as a field, which is a surprisingly difficult task.  We begin by reading an article called “What Is English?” by H. A. Gleason, which was published in 1964 but that raises many questions that remain remarkably relevant more than fifty years later.

            I begin by asking the students to define English as a field, and then to list all the relevant subfields of the discipline.  Gleason never provides a neat and tidy definition, but you can extract one from his conclusion.  I would paraphrase it as “The understanding, manipulation, and appreciation of language.”  His subfields are simple—literature, composition, and grammar.

            My students come up with more varied and interesting definitions, and collectively their list of subfields is tremendous.  Here’s the list they came up with this year.  (Mind you, this is their list and not necessarily mine!):

·      Literature and fiction (including poetry).

·      Drama and theater.

·      Creative writing (including poetry slam).

·      Composition/writing.

·      Rhetoric/speech/communications.

·      Grammar/linguistics.

·      Journalism.

·      Reading.

·      Pedagogy/educational methodology.

·      Language arts (spelling, vocabulary, phonics).

·      Translation/literature in translation.

·      Comparative literature.

·      Culture studies.

·      Film study.

·      Visual literacy (including the fine arts).

·      Digital literacy.

·      Media studies.

·      Literary criticism/analysis/interpretation.

·      Gaming/game theory.

In our discussion, the students liked Gleason’s shift toward the use of Language as a term to replace English, and emphasized that the field should include the consumption, interpretation, and production of language (much like Gleason’s emphasis on understanding, manipulation, and appreciation).  But unlike Gleason, my students wanted to explore the idea of text and what constitutes a text.  Perhaps this is the influence of their digital literacies, but virtual texts and visual texts and performance texts were, to them, as valid as books, and as worthy of study. 

They also were interested in the way language is used—for communication and persuasion, of course, but also as a source of personal and cultural identity (which itself can be defined many ways).

By the end of that second class, I think they were both overwhelmed and excited by the breadth and possibility within the field.

The thrust of my argument to them was that—as Gleason points out early in his piece—the field of English has never been static.  In fact, it has been perhaps the most dynamic of what we might consider the core disciplines of current education (math, science, English, and history).  But because of this dynamism, this volatility, the field is also vulnerable to outside forces.  In short, either we define our own field or we let others define it for us.

I think this point, so valid in 1964 but at least as valid today, must be taken very seriously.  Legislators, journalists, and so-called education reformers have all been guilty in recent years of defining our field as one necessary to create productive workers who can help large corporations compete in a cut throat global market place.  But even if we accept this as a necessary element of the discipline (and I hesitate to do so), where does such an emphasis place poetry?  Or film study?  Or the fine arts, or creative writing, or literary criticism, for that matter?

Several years ago, the Department of Modern and Classical Languages redefined itself as the Department of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages.  Currently, many English Departments are discussing changing their undergraduate majors, and one basic decision that needs to be made is how to define themselves.  Will we continue to emphasize a traditional focus like literature and maybe composition, or do we choose to make much more significant changes?

One very real and valid concern is that this discussion is being driven more by market concerns and misplaced fears than by a real need to redefine the major.  While I respect that concern (and I do think that the apparent fear among many undergraduates that the English major is not marketable is being driven more by yellow journalism and political careerism than by reality), I do think we should think more broadly and creatively about our field. 

At the very least, the discussion is healthy and necessary because it gives us that important opportunity Gleason emphasizes to take control of our own field.  I’m curious what your definition would look like.

College Readiness And The Teaching Of Writing

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This Saturday I participated in the first meeting of the Connecticut College Readiness Project, run by the Center for Academic Excellence (CAE) at the University of Saint Joseph.  This year’s focus is on The Teaching of Writing.

CAE Director Jess Skoppetta and Writing Center Administrator Amanda Greenwell organized the program, which included writing aktivitas administrators from USJ, UConn, Central, and Manchester Community College, as well as high school English teachers from Hartford, Manchester, Rocky Hill, and Avon. There were sixteen of us, and for the middle part of the day we were joined by nine college students from our schools.

In short, we had a great day—six solid hours of discussion about writing instruction and how to help high school students be better prepared for college-level writing. 

Our two discussion points were the reading/writing connection and the role of research in the writing classroom.  Our discussions were great, but as much as we learned from one another, I found the mid-day student panel to be the most insightful.

Essentially, we asked the students to respond to three questions:  What is different between writing in high school and writing in college?  What did your high school teachers do that was effective in preparing you for college-level writing?  And, What needs to happen to improve high school students’ readiness for college-level writing?

To generalize, I’d say we heard a lot about independence and choice, writing as a process, the teacher as a writer, and the need to make the high school classroom look more like the college classroom.  The students also talked quite a bit about bridge programs and other support services.

In terms of independence, students said thing like, in college they were “given the reins” to their own writing or told that “this is your canvas.”  And while this was exciting to be given so much independence, it was also frightening, especially because they were used to much more hand-holding in high school.  One student said that “too much was done for us,” and gave the example of teachers providing students with the sources to be used in a paper rather than teaching the students how to locate and effectively use sources to further an argument.

Students said they should be given more choice in terms of what they read, what they write, and how they write.  This would better prepare them for “the openness that is going to be experienced in college.”  Other students added that, since they did understand there are many “institutional pressures” on K-12 teachers that preclude them from “doing some of the things they know they should do,” assignments should be structured to appeal to both student interests and curricular needs.

Some of the most effective things students said their high school teachers did were provide them with one-on-one feedback, teach them how to work collaboratively in writing groups (“don’t just assume our previous teachers have taught it to us”), allow them to critique the shitty first drafts of more skilled writers, and provide an audience that is “beyond just the teacher.” 

One student said that most effective teachers work to create a “space where your [instructor] works with you and yet you have that freedom” to explore your own ideas.  Another said that more teachers should write with their students because students need to “see a skilled writer struggle.”  Another student echoed this, saying that teachers should “help dispel the notion of the perfect writer.”

There was so much more, but I will mention just one last thing.  Many students said that the biggest aids in making the transition from high school to college were summer bridge programs and support services provided in the first fall semester. These included “the right advisor,” a good First Year Experience course, or a welcoming writing center.  But the students said that such bridge programs and support services should begin in high school. 

I asked if dual enrollment courses like UConn’s ECE classes or the new MCC English 101 classes might provide this kind of support for readiness and effective transition, and I got a qualified yes.  One student felt that these courses provided content alignment but did not actually prepare her for how a college class would function, nor would they help students not enrolled in these courses.

 

In general, the students felt that there needs to be much more collaboration and communication among high school and college instructors, including opportunities for high school students and teachers to visit colleges and college professors to visit high school classes.

We meet again in February.  In the mean time, we have all given one another blanket invitations to visit one another’s classes.

Read A Banned Book This Week

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I was pretty disappointed Tuesday that not one of my students knew it was Banned Book Week.  Not one in any class.  Not one intern.  Not my graduate assistant, even.  Nobody!  But we did have good discussions of book banning and censorship in class, even though I had to carve a little time out of the assigned readings for the day.

I was happy to hear, however, that none of my students was aware of there ever having been any book challenges at their schools.  This does not mean, of course, that there were none.  There very well could have been challenges that the students were unaware of.  But when I read the lists to the students of the ten most frequently challenged books last year or the top 100 most frequently banned and challenged classics, my students were shocked by how mainstream and canonical they were.  Several reported having read most of the top ten from last year, and, as one said, the list of banned classics read like her high school English curriculum.  She had read most of them.

Some speculated that this might be because we live in the northeast, which is wealthier, more educated, and more liberal than most of the country.  And while this may be true, I think we all know that books get challenged here in Connecticut all the time.  In my years as a high school teacher, I was in the thick of two challenges.  One was to Romeo and Juliet and the other to I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, both on the grounds of sexually inappropriate content for high school freshmen and sophomores, respectively.  In addition, there were challenges made to other books with other teachers at the center.  One colleague who was teaching UConn Early College Experience English had the parents of a senior challenge Ragtime, again on the basis of sexually inappropriate content.  And one of our middle school teachers got caught up in a challenge to Nightjohn, which is about slavery.  In that case, the parents who challenged the book were white, and their objection was that the children were overexposed to the subjects of race, racism, and slavery.  They felt that these children should not be made to feel guilty about something they were not responsible for. 

That said, we discussed some other forms of censorship that have taken place in other parts of the country, such as the infamous 2012 Texas GOP party platform on education that opposed critical thinking because it undermines fixed faith and parental authority.  Or the more recent case of an Arizona law against the teaching of ethnic studies, used by the Tucson School Board to ban Mexican Studies because it promotes the overthrow of the government.  Fortunately a circuit court judge threw out that decision, although the law itself still stands.

There was a great op-ed in the Hartford Courant this Wednesday, written by a 16 year-old at Staples High in Westport, about the College Board’s decision to cater to conservative criticism of the 2014 AP US History Test.  Critics, such as Ben Carson, accused the test and the supplemental test preparation materials of promoting anti-Americanism.  Carson went so far to allege that the test would make our young people join ISIS.  Rather than resist these criticisms, the College Board, under the enlightened leadership of Common Core architect David Coleman, Bowdlerized the test.  This year’s test deemphasizes any past wrongdoings on the part of the US government or military and, instead, emphasizes US exceptionalism.

Don’t get me wrong.  I think a lively debate or discussion of US exceptionalism is profoundly relevant subject matter for the test, but not at the expense of the study of slavery, or the Trail of Tears, or My Lai.

When I share these stories with students, it’s a little like ripping off their rose-colored glasses.  They’re pretty incredulous.  For example, when I read off the top 100 challenged books list and The Lord of the Rings came in at number 40, the students were shocked.  What got Tolkein’s books banned?  Because the characters walk too much?  Or maybe because there are too few female characters?  If that’s the case, at least we know it wasn’t banned for inappropriate sexual content.  Unless someone starts talking about the homoeroticism of Frodo and Sam’s friendship. 

But that’s a subject for another week.

The Controversies Surrounding Standardized Tests

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The other day, the Connecticut State Department of Education released the student results of the first SBAC test, and we learned, well, nothing we didn’t already know. 

The tests were a little harder than the CMTs or CAPT, especially in Math.  But otherwise, the students in the wealthiest towns did well and the students in the poorest towns did poorly.

I shared the results with the students in my Pre-Teaching course, showing them the range, from students at New Canaan High, where 82% of 11^th graders were proficient in Literacy, to Bridgeport, where 17% and 15% of 11^th graders at Harding and Bassick, respectively, were proficient.

My students were shocked, but they shouldn’t be.  Standardized tests have revealed similar discrepancies since their inception.

There are many ways to look at these results.  Some would praise the tests for shedding light on the achievement gap in Connecticut while others might criticize the test for being an expensive way of telling us what we already know.  To me, the value of such tests comes down to what we do with the results.  And the history of standardized tests would tell us to be careful about this.

The SBAC test is new, so let’s look at the SAT as a better test case.  This is especially relevant since the SAT will now replace the SBAC test for 11^th graders in Connecticut.

In Rethinking Rubrics, Maja Wilson provides a succinct history of the SAT, and it’s not pretty.  The College Board developed the SAT in 1926 as a cost-effective tool for colleges to use in making admissions decisions.  But its creator, Carl Bingham, was a eugenicist who advocated “selective breeding” as a means of purifying Americans.  Bingham’s work became the basis for the 1924 National Origins Act, which codified limits or outright bans on the immigration of Southern and Eastern Europeans, Asians, Africans, and Arabs.  

I’m not suggesting the recent or current members of the College Board have such intentions for the SAT, but it is notable that the SAT continues to register vast discrepancies between groups, such as white and black test takers.  And this discrepancy has only grown in recent years.  According to The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, the gap grew more than 200 points between 1988 and 2005, and even exists when you control for income.

An inevitable question that arises is if we need such tests at all.  Certainly there are many, including the authors of the JBHE study, who see value in standardized tests’ ability to reveal issues such as the poor quality of curriculum and instruction in at least some (if not many) minority majority schools.  But many others suggest that elimination of standardized tests, at least as a criterion for college admissions, would benefit African-Americans and many other groups.

For example, President Jonathan Lash of Hampshire College recently wrote about Hampshire’s policy to stop considering SAT or ACT scores in its admissions decisions.  In short, since adopting this policy, Hampshire College has experienced a significant increase in minority enrollment and in the enrollment of students who are the first in their families to attend college.

A friend pointed out that Hampshire is wealthy enough to afford the personnel to review applications filled with qualitative criteria such as essays and letters of recommendation, but most schools could not afford this.

But I would ask if we need to add such measures to the admissions process at all.  Can’t we just rely on the evaluations of the students’ high school teachers?  Think this is crazy?  I don’t think it is. 

A little over a year ago, the National Association for Admissions Counseling published a study based on 800 participating universities that demonstrated that the most reliable predictor of student success in college was the grades a student received in high school.  Furthermore, the students who most benefitted from “test-score optional” colleges were “minorities, women, first-generation-to-college enrollees, Pell Grant recipients and students with learning differences.”

Why is it controversial to rely upon the evaluations of high school teachers?  Part of the kasus may be because high school teachers are overwhelming women—62% overall according to UNESCO, and higher in the field of English.  In The Teacher Wars, Dana Goldstein documents the historical attitude that women teachers were “angelic public servants …; wholly unselfish, self-abnegating, and morally pure,” but also “cost effective,” in large part because they were not as educated as their male counterparts.  These attitudes (and facts) may be discredited today, but institutionalized attitudes and practices linger, and even if you discount the institutional misogyny argument, certainly there is a basic distrust on the part of many people throughout society that high school teachers can handle such an important job. 

Will we ever get past this prejudice?

Can A Book Really Do That?

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This is my second year teaching a one-credit, honors First Year Experience course I designed called Why Read?  Like last year, I have mostly STEM majors, and we’re reading novels that deal with book banning and censorship, and using those novels as launching pads for a broader discussion about the role reading has and should have in our lives.

We just began to read Fahrenheit 451 and later in the semester we’ll read The Giver. We just finished reading Brave New World.  Two weeks ago we had just gotten to the point where Bernard and Lenina get to the Reservation and meet John the Savage, and we learn that John, unlike the other people on the Reservation, can read, but that unlike the citizens of the World State who only read practical texts like manuals, John has read literature.  In particular, John has read the complete works of William Shakespeare.

As I do in all my courses, I require the students to take turns being responsible for leading discussion, and in last week’s class, the student who led discussion began by pointing out that John sees the world through the lens of Shakespeare’s works, especially Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, and The Tempest (which, of course, gives us the title of Huxley’s novel).  She pointed out that every time Bernard experiences something significant, he quotes Shakespeare in order to give that experience a familiar literary frame.

So I decided to riff off that observation, and I asked the students if any of them had a beloved text through which they saw the world.  At first there was hesitation, but then one young woman raised her hand and said she saw the world through the lens of Pride and Prejudice.  Then another raised her hand and said, apologetically, that she saw the world through the lens of Gone With the Wind.  She then explained that, although she knew the book was controversial in some ways, she really admired Scarlett O’Hara and the way she learns to fend for herself after the world she knew of patriarchy and slavery falls apart and there’s no one left to do things for her.  I asked the first student if the feisty Elizabeth Bennet was who she admired so much in Austen’s novel, and she said yes.

The rest of the class was still pretty reluctant to open up on this question, so I offered that I tended to see the world through The Scarlet Letter but also through The Catcher in the Rye, which I taught to high school juniors for many years, and that when Salinger died, many of my former students memorialized him and the experience of reading his novel in my class by posting quotes from Holden on my Facebook wall.

Then a third student offered, again apologetically, that she saw the world through the Harry Potter books, and even went so far as to say that she learned about morality from the series, not just the importance of doing the right thing in the face of evil or despite your fears, but also, in the later books especially, she learned to have compassion even for people you think don’t deserve it.  She elaborated that just as we learn that Draco Malfoy and Severus Snape and even Tom Riddle suffered childhood abuses that transformed them into bad people, we also learn that seemingly good people like James Potter and even Albus Dumbledore had dark sides and selfish motives.  She said that taught her to have more compassion for others.

So then I asked, can a book really do that?  In Brave New World, one of the reasons that even the Alphas and the Betas are not allowed to read literature is that literature would make them appreciate individuals, and, in their society, that can’t happen.  In their society, individuals are expendable, and that’s why so much of their hypnopaedic pembinaan teaches them to objectify one another as interchangeable sex partners and assembly line workers.  But in real life, can books have that much power, the power to make people appreciate individuals and feel compassion and empathy for others?

One young man in class spoke up and said emphatically, yes.  He said that when you read a book, you see the world through that character, and you learn to feel for that character.  You root for them to succeed and feel sad when they don’t.  Sometimes when a book is really good you even begin to feel like the characters are real.

But can that experience actually make you feel greater compassion for real people? I asked.  Yes, said the student again, and everyone nodded their heads.