Overall Response: Week 2

I would like to focus my response on Berlin. I have to give it to him, he performed a thorough and exhaustive interrogation of the discipline of English. I, for some reason, though, thought I should have known some of this stuff. I feel like I have been blindly studying English and not really understanding why I was taught what I was taught. As far as progress and comparison, I'm not sure how well current programs of English fare against those of the early 20^th century, but I'd like to think we've ( anyone who has taken English courses) have made great strides. One thing I noticed about progress in the study of English, though, was how Berlin explained that high school composition holds a lot of gravity as to what a college composition course needs. When I was in high school ,you could take English Composition I if you were able to meet certain requirements; many students opted to take the composition course, too. However, the United States is still falling behind at the high school level. I don't know why that is, though. I'm not sure if it is that we are living in a society that is less dependent on the ability to write, schools lack the resources to adequately teach children or if we are just living in a society that has lost sight of the importance basic composition holds. I think that this deficit of composition skills is also reflected by lack of concern. It is no secret that colleges are facing a similar plight as the American high school when it come to these issues of learning composition. The humanities are facing a crisis at the current moment and I'm not sure if there is anything that will occur to put emphasis back on English; I would like to think something should occur since, from what I've read, rhetoric and composition are the tools one needs to discern the truth from all of the stimuli and information she perceives. Maybe people prefer not to think as much because  finding out truths can be frightening. It seems that there should be an equal amount of time spent on art as is science. I would like to know what the golden mean between science and the arts is, too. I think that an overabundance of anything isn't good and that one need to attain copious amounts of science with their art, but art has been on the downside of academia’s priority and I'm sure this is reflected by the freshman writer and high school writer. I think this humanities crisis has caused students and society at large to develop a composition deficiency. People are having a difficult time developing the ability to fully articulate themselves. It's hard enough articulating the metaphysical by virtue of words as a student of English so I'm sure others may find it harder. As Berlin explains, English had it's heyday decades ago and has went through a lot to get to where its at now; actually, 1985. I'm sure English isn't going anywhere, but it is evolving. It is almost at a point to where actual English (Composition) skills aren't needed. I guess orality studies shows that some cultures can sustain themselves without a written language, but most would agree that this is counter intuitive. It's an interesting dichotomy that is occurring now: As the rate of technology increases, the actual need to learn composition decreases. I'm not sure if this is a regression or there is some development in communication that I am missing that makes the formal composition obsolete; I don't know.

"Rhetoric and Reality:" Executive Summary Ch. 3

When reading chapter 3 of Berlin's book and other chapters, too , I thought I should have been more informed on the origins of the discipline I am studying; that was the initial reaction I had and I believe others will have similar reactions. Chapter 3 of his book chronicles the proliferation of the discipline of English in the college institution between 1900-1920: There were several varying definitions of what exactly the end English studies should serve. The NCTE had, by 1911, designated scholarship to be the virtue of English, but others had alternate and, arguably, better ideas. Some of the things revealed in this chapter showed how bureaucratic college can be and still is today, actually. The book is, also, very informative on how to analyze and structure the study of English in the future as it provides a rigorous interrogation of its past: Similar to today, a lot of what drove the formation of college writing courses was by the education received or needed to be received at the highschool level.

Berlin introduces, early on, three of the predominant rhetorics that shaped the inchoate study of English. Berlin explains that there were the ones who thought composition skills were needed so professionals could write adequately and not embarrass themselves in print, the ones who thought only individuals with genius skill should be further taught in the disciple and the ones who would use composition skills to refine their literary palate. Another debate was when to actually teach the composition skills. Some thought that earlier was better, while some believed waiting until the latter part on one's collegiate education was most conducive to learning and comprehending composition. There continued to be conflicts on pedagogy on almost every level. Depending on who was running a school's English department at the time, this type of conflict continued. No one school, such as Harvard or Yale, could agree on the ends teaching English should serve. Most, however, did agree that some type of skill was needed. A large part of the debate, however, was whether it should be something the common man should need to survive in a nation that was becoming more literate or whether it should be studied by those who were scholars. Berlin also explains some more of the objective ways that composition was taught and evaluated. He explains the A-E grading system and how errors in grammar/syntax/structure were determined. These, too, were also debated as the old argument of the end  English should satisfy was again voiced. There was, also,  Berlin notes, a significant event that helped create a sense of solidarity in the study of English. The first great war, WWI, created a sense of urgency to learn and understand English. The war was beneficial in a sense that it allowed for the study of English and English literature to flourish and the study, as a whole, was met with more accepting arms than previously. The efforts to study English were seen as a way to be American and keep democracy safe. This was a very monumental development in how English was received and led to greater leaps in the 20s and 30s.

[ This chapter was difficult to summarize. There were so many different schools and so many detailed developments that occurred over such a brief time that one need to read the chapter and entire book to thoroughly understand them. So if my post is hard to understand and unclear, its because I didn't feel like writing 5 pages on one chapter.]

Overall Response: Week 1

     After reading all of the readings for this week, I find myself questioning my own literacy. Specifically related to language, I am literate of mostly the English language and customs related to the language; English is the norm for me. I feel that my reading and comprehension fits snugly in the box of what Western thinking and academia would condone as being conducive to learning. As I read and understood in some of the readings, though, literacy is an animal that is tough to understand. The implications presented by Daniell and Scriber, for example, are mind boggling. The mechanics of understanding language and literacy are deeply rooted in culture and societal practices of literacy define it culture to culture. A lot of what is considered "book smart" is just that: Learning from a book of accepted symbols and meaning and taking what those symbols encode. This is only one end of the literacy spectrum, though. Being literate of not only an alphabet, but the knowledge understanding a system of symbols can lead to understanding the part of life that is metaphysical. Conversely, however, as Scribner's study of the Vai people proved, a written language is not necessarily the apex of literacy, however. At least, that's what I took it to mean.
        Lastly, I would like to briefly address technology and literacy. As seen in one of the videos we watched in class, vocabulary is changing and increasing to facilitate the age of technology. There are probably vast amounts of words that a Harvard English graduate, circa 1985, would have no clue how to interpret. Does this mean that the well informed and read Harvard graduate is glib? No. The lexicon is changing and we need to adapt; Past paradigms of literacy aren't in need of an upheaval, but at least a renovation.The wealth of knowledge available to people is astonishing, but kids in America and all around the world are still illiterate. It's hard to say if this epoch in which information technology is so prevalent is degenerative to traditional, reading and writing literacy or if it can serve as a savior of sorts. There is so much to be said on all of these topics and I will have to further my reading and knowledge to understand the topic to further understand literacy.

Executive Summary 1: Literacy in Three Metaphors

Scribner, Sylvia. “Literacy in Three Metaphors.” American Journal of Education 93 (1984): 6-21. Print.

     In “Literacy in Three Metaphors” Sylvia Scribner attempts to define what the integral parts of literacy actually are and how they can be understood and applied to the education of people, domestically and abroad. She uses the word “essence” to describe what she is trying to define about literacy, but each context she places literacy in has its own essence. The three metaphors she uses are 1. Literacy as adaptation 2. Literacy as power and 3. Literacy as “state of grace.” Within these contexts, literacy takes on several different meanings and implications as to how to define literacy and what defines it. One common bond she claims all three metaphors have is that each entail a certain amount of social achievement and much needed social analysis is needed to fully understand them.

     She begins her exploration of this notion, beginning with “literacy as adaptation.” Scribner shows how literacy as adaptation is also literacy needed for driving an economy: “The necessity for literary skills in daily life is obvious; one the job, riding around town, buying groceries, we all encounter situations requiring us to read or produce written symbols....”Within the United States, as in other nations, literacy programs with these practical aims are considered efforts at human resource development and, as much, contributors to economic growth and stability” ( 73). Scribner is implicit that, within the adaptation metaphor, literacy is gauged by some aggregate of what is needed to function to do the aforementioned tasks. This, however, can be too uniform and individual literacy is neglected. The scale of determining literacy can't be based on a third grader nor a college professor.

     Scribner moves on to defining literacy within the context of power. She notes that, historically, literacy has been used to reinforce social or political hegemony. Scribner also explains how literacy has been a liberating agent for disenfranchised groups of society. Scribner goes on to mention Paulo Freire's progressive and influential philosophy that spreading literacy is crucial for social transformation. Scribner does, however, see this as being problematic. Her problem is with creating the aesthetic for spreading any given literacy program. What will work for one society may not necessarily work for another.

     Scribner's third metaphor, literacy as a “state of grace,” she admits, has religious overtones, but she places more emphasis on how literacy separates certain people from others. She notes how religions have always assigned a certain level of superiority to those who could read and understand their holy text, but she also explains that the same notion has ancient, secular roots: “Plato and Aristotle strove to distinguish the man of letters from the poet of oral tradition” (77). Scribner calls both the religious and secular versions of this superiority “book knowledge.” The questioned needed answered, she argues, is “how widely dispersed is this admiration of book knowledge?” The answer to that within the context of the “state of grace” metaphor will, somewhat, define literacy.

Getting Started

 If you are in  ENGL 7050 at Auburn University,  you already know the purpose of this blog. It (the blog) will serve as a database for all of my executive summaries and informed responses for readings in ENGL 7050: Special Topics in Composition . The blog may also evolve and hold other information related to my graduate studies and other areas of interest.