"Making a Case" -Micciche

I thought of the other creative writing PhDs teaching comp when I read some parts of the article “Making a Case for Rhetorical Grammar” by Laura Micciche. It was interesting to me when Micciche provides the examples of how she gets her students to understand “how language is made and then deployed for varying effects” (725). Students have to record passages from texts of their choosing and then analyze how the grammar and content work together to convey meaning. “In these entries,” Micchiche says, “the student writer must not only mimic the writer's syntax, but must also identify the specific effects created by the syntax” (726). Micciche gives the examples of a student who recorded a passage from Rip Van Wrinkle and in her analysis talked about how effect of the dashes to show the character Rip's feelings. Another student analyzed the effects created from the syntax of some of the dialogue in To Kill A Mockingbird. I wondered if anyone had tried doing exercises like this in their own classes? It would be interesting I think if as part of an assignment students were to look at the syntax and grammar of certain poems and maybe try and rewrite them as a project? I could see it working possibly with stories that rely heavily on dialect. Or maybe they could take a piece of writing and rewrite it in different ways depending on the rhetorical purpose? Obviously, I haven't thought about this in too much detail, but it's definitely sparked something for me consider doing in my english composition classroom in subsequent semesters.

Also, as an aside, I was excited to see my old professor John Trimbur quoted from in this essay. In the class I took with him, he talked about the debate between Black English and Standard English in the composition classroom.

Is Black English, or “ebonics” a legitimate dialect? Is it a bad idea for teachers to use Black English to teach in the classroom? Are you oppressing students by forcing them to learn and write in Standard English? I'm particularly interested in the responses to these questions from the teachers who believe their classes should have a strong focus on grammar and, as I've heard in our class before, “error-free prose.”

One last thing, I found this quote from the article “Non-Standard English, Composition, and the Academic Establishment” by Dennis E. Baron in College English. I think it will prompt a lot of discussion about all this. I'll post it without comment.

“Despite their training, many students are unable to identify standard writing. In a recent study, I found many students classifying as standard passages containing syntactic and dictional complexity (qualities that they have noticed in writing presented to them as a model) which were in fact quite deviant. Furthermore, many passages that were rated by the students as standard in terms of conventional categories (clarity, grammaticality) were downrated when it came to emotional response. Students recognized standard language, or attempts at it, but did not necessarily approve of it.

Another effect of prescriptive language teaching in the schools is the passivization of students. Their language is continually under review by the teacher. Every recitation, every question, every excuse note, no matter how tangential to the educational process, presents a test of language. Spelling, as they say, always counts. It is common, then, for students to try to evade responsibility for their statements, lest they be incorrectly formulated...There is a marked tendency for students to use the passive voice and the indirect question in dealing with instructors. Those who cannot defend themselves from linguistic attack by means of indirect statement make no statements at all, retreating from the menace, or make any statement whatever, hoping that some relief may follow the inevitable confrontation.”