I am so excited yipee yay Adamari is presenting! (no hate to the rest of you at all, I just had soooo many classes with her that is why I am excited and why I get to call her a rat. She is not a rat, she is amazing, I am so happy to see another one of her presentations, they are always so well done)
Imma do “The Popularity of Formulaic Writing (and Why We Need to Resist) first cause I opened the other link and got an ad for Cowgirl by Isa Beniston and it reminded of me mummy joe, so I will save the fun for later.
“I am busier than ever visiting high schools and talking to teachers about teaching”. I know it is the whole point of the readings we are doing, but man oh man do so many people not know how to teach writing. Obviously, we are getting all the papers about that, so it isn’t a great statement to say no one knows how to teach writing, but it surely seems to be a big issue. I never thought about how poor some teach writing before this class. The whole red pen scare didn’t usually sacre me as I love getting feedback. Unless, like those in the Rat Summer know, it says “See me after class”. That is scary. But yeah, lots of people not knowing how to teach writing it seems, which is crazy cause people do indeed be teaching writing without really knowing how.
“But don’t worry, I am not about to rehash diatribes against the five-paragraph essay. In fact, I do not believe formulaic writing is the actual villain in this classroom drama”. Interesting take. I would say teaching writing like a formula is a problem, especially when everyone has different expectations of the formula. I think writing is too subjective to be standardized and put into a formula, so I am interested in seeing where the drama is. Espeically when we mentioned hating the five paragraph essay and how it was just made for easier grading.
“A CD is any kind of specific detail such as facts, evidence, examples, proofs, quotations or paraphrase, or plot references. The commentary is the writer’s analysis, interpretation, insight, explication, personal reaction, and so forth. The ratio of 1 CD to 2 CMs must always be maintained in the writing students produce so that they internalize this basic pattern. Body paragraphs must have at least two chunks and be a minimum of 100 words. Introductions and conclusions must be 40+ words, with the introduction containing at least three sentences and a thesis somewhere in the first paragraph, while conclusions must contain all commentary and provide a finished feeling to the essay”. Okay so this is a very interesting set up. I think this is fine for high school, getting them used to writing. This is a similar structure to some English 1030 classes I see at Kean. I still feel like having such a formula will set them up for failure later on. If they go into academic writing that is. Good set up for now, writing does usually follow this sort of set up. Topic sentence, quote, explain quote, and then concluding sentence. I think someone later on will need to tell them to break this formula though, as college professors do now by telling students to break the five paragrah format. I am pretty sure this is just a standard thing to teach, I don’t think anyone teaches a different way to do a paragraph for high schoolers.
Later on, there would need to be the idea of a synthesis introduced. Your topic sentence is the theme of the paragrah, quote one from author one on the idea, explain, quote two from a different author on that topic, say how they connect, quote three from author three, say how it connects, maybe a “and so on” but usaully it is a conversation between three authors. College/academic writing usually wants a conversation between multiple authors in a single paragraph WHILE you also say your ideas. It gets way more complicated than this, which is why teaching writing is so hard. There are way too many unique settings at play.
I also feel like those intro and conclusion ideas are mid. Intros are always thought of to be so short but I would argue they should be a decent size. You gotta introduce your paper along with the ideas presented in the paper, if we are to do the writer thing and assume that the reader ahs no idea what we are talking about. This sets things up later for context/backgrounds of research papers where the intro is the abstract that is a summary of the entire paper. Conclusions, first of all I hate that word. Nothing is ever really concluded. But they should be some sort of takeaway or to do. They shouldn’t conclude, shouldn’t be a finish. I would argue they should leave the reader with a task to do or thoughts to have, it isn’t a story that wraps up with a finished feeling. There should be more.
I am yapping far too much, sorry Adamari, especially with this probably being for high schoolers. But I fear that the set ups are fine, the issue is no one telling them later on how things have to advance. Everyone has to start somewhere, no need to do reading synthesis at high school unless required and no need to do a research paper at the college level, but I would argue the set up isn’t the issue. It is that we hold the high school set up as if it sets us up for life, but this set up would not pass for a college/academic paper (depending on the professor).
“Prewriting activities, for instance bubble and spider diagrams, serve as
graphic organizers for getting students started in setting up a main idea and finding topic sentences and concrete details”. Okay I might just be hating today, but not the spider (monster) outline. When people say prewriting activity I do have a certain idea in mind, I know we discussed that basically everything you do before writing could count as prewriting. But I feel like brainstorming/organization should be in its own category. I feel like prewriting should be some sort of prompt or thinking activity that gets students to be able to do the brainstorming/organization task. Perhaps I am wrong. But I would classify this stuff as something else.
“Rubrics reinforce the basic format by having students check for proper ratios
between CDs and CMs; having them count the requisite number of words, sentences, and paragraphs; and making sure all parts fit the pattern”. Ain’t no way. Sure, I will check that you explain the quote in some way. Don’t just put in a random quote with no set up or explanation. But checking the word, sentence, and paragraph count is a bit much. Let them write what they feel. What, am I gonna be throwing a fit if there is one word less. Too much nonsense. I am a big hater of this it seems.
“Teachers can simply refer to this rubric in responding to student writing, making the task of evaluation much simpler and uniform and less time consuming”. No. Bad. We literally just talked about how we should hear from the students about what direction they wanted to go in and judge the writing based on that. We should, sorry teachers, but we should get away from grading quicker just to grade quicker and move on with lives. Teach the fricken kids man. I get how hard it is to check 20+ essays, especially as a yapper. Dr. Sisler called me out day one in the spring, some of yall were there for that. Trust me, I know how the English department loves/hates to see me coming. I get how much work it is. But it is work that is worth it. Students got stuff to say, let them say it. Help them say it. Teach them how to say it. Funneling things down to an easier grading system does not seem like the way to teach writing, it seems like the way to help teachers have less work to do. This quicker grading thing will only hurt them in the long run, proof from all of us.
“With teachers and students agreeing on what counts most in an essay, teachers do not have to spend a lot of time writing terminal comments to justify a grade, which is often the purpose of our teacherly remarks on student work”. I am a hater I am a hater. I am having issues with like every sentence. I think grading them on word count or if they have the right amount of CMs is so silly. I get this is a quicker rubric, to simply see if they have the right number of stuff in the right places, but it feels so icky to me. It feels like learning just to help out the teacher and not learning to help the student write better. Learning to fit this format that college professors won’t use. Icky. Nasty. Big hater of this article I miss the Cowgirl ad.
“Even though Schaffer admits her method is formulaic, she claims that teachers should not worry that students will become dependent on the formula. Yet she does not explain why this is the case. She says, ‘The formulaic nature of this unit does not bother us because students may leave it once they understand it. Some
students leave the format early in the process; others choose not to leave it at all because they like the structure and say it helps them know what to do with a blank page'”. I dislike this person. Stupid to think students won’t become dependent on a formula. Do you tell them they can leave? Do you leave things open for them to explore? Do students really leave this. Be honest. Cause I have a feeling they won’t. I know sooooo many people who want to get things right and would never leave this format if they know the teachers are looking for it/expecting it. You think someone will be brave enough to step away from this? What if the teacher grades them worse because they aren’t following the format? I have been in classes with people who ask 50 questions about an assignment because they want to get it right, aka want to do what the professor wants. But the professor would go “I don’t have the answers, it is up to YOU to pick the topic. Whatever you want to write about”. And people still freak out. Ain’t no way the good students who could step away would be the ones who step away. The trouble makers or silly kids might do it to see what will happen or because they don’t care enough to “get things right”. But this is such a dumb idea. No student will willingly step away. We are all proof of that. I was doing five paragraphs till a professor told me just to write, and the yapper was released. Unfortunate for the English department. But it needed to be done. Booo formats. Boooooo
“This possible dependency is a point I will return to later; for now, I want to emphasize that the virtue of the Schaffer approach is that students acquire a rudimentary schema for what can pass as an acceptable academic expository essay, an accomplishment not to be trivialized”. The vocab in this sentence… We randomly locked in hello. Language got crazy there for a second.
“Students first need to develop ‘writing fluency,’ she argued, not simply learn how to fill out a form”. I am no longer a hater. I have been healed. I hope the rest of the paper is more good ideas. Boooo filling out a form. Booooo
“Teachers, while acknowledging that students must move beyond the Schaffer method if they are to continue improving, were nevertheless left wondering
what to do next. Unfortunately, there is no next in the Schaffer approach.” Now. I hope we learned our lesson. This is why I take quotes as I go. Was I right or was I right. They would not be set for life and have issues with what is next. This is why formats suck. People get stuck. We literally said we should ask the students what their goal was and see if the paper did that. Boom. No formula there. This paper making me a big hater I am so sorry Adamari for my ratness. This paper angers me.
“They must also learn to make choices about genre, content, structure, organization, and style; and they must learn to hone their judgments about the effects of the choices they make as writers”. As “boring” as it seems, this is why I loved English 1030 and helped tutor it many times. Same essays every time, but I loved seeing students learn different essay styles. It is so important to know one type of writing works for that one time of writing. I think too many times students get into writing course and think all the writing will be the same. No, you sometimes will get asked to write personal stories or more research type papers, or maybe traditional essays. Soooo many different writing styles and eventually, if you go far enough in English, you gotta make the call on what to do. For a research paper, will you give historical context or a background on the event. It is a call you have to make based on your research. How much of your topic do you have to explain? How many methods will our research paper have? Research papers have a lot of stuff up to the research being done. Creative writing also has sooo many aspects up to the writer. Maybe with essays you have more to say than four paragraphs, there was too many things in the prompt to get all the thoughts out in that limited space. There is no real formula for writing. It is only really if you met the goal you wanted to complete. Did the reader get what you wanted them to out of your writing?
“Formulaic writing of the kind Schaffer advocates forces premature closure on complicated interpretive issues and stifles ongoing exploration”. So true, it does limit exploration. It is like that saying of giving a man a fish instead of teaching him how to fish. There is a limit on thinking for themselves with these formulas, it is just filling in the main parts to get the paper done. So, is it even real learning? It seems to just be learning the formula and nothing else.
“Structure, we are telling them, has no ‘inherent relationship to ideas, since just about any idea can be stuffed into the same form'”. Yo. Bring in more of these other people I love what they be saying. So true. They are just learning that any idea can be meshed into the same one formula. They just got to ask what their peers are doing to see that everyone is fitting their ideas into one mold. These other people be so smart.
“What is the inevitable result when students never get beyond the formula and cling to it as a life raft from which they never want to disembark?” What I said about students not wanting to leave but in a more creative way. Is this article just bashing on this one scholar, cause I think that is so funny. It could have been writing from the other perspective, using those smart people to be like “here is what we should do in high school” instead of showing how wrong this one person is. I hope Schaffer died before this article came out cause if not that is crazy. Someone just tearing your teaching idea apart in a paper. Yipes. Adamari best never do that to me. Unless I die first then she can post whatever she wants on how awful my work was. But being alive when someone disagrees with your stuff this much would be crazy. Beefing in the academic space… I hope to never have to live that. Beef with my work in silence, without me knowing, cause this is so much “this person had terrible ideas”. I would rather you somehow contact me first, give me a chance to better myself/my work, than I wake up one day to some article going over how my ideas were terrible. Truly a yipes moment. Disagree in a more chill way than blasting me in an article man.
“These are the practices where teachers make all of the important decisions, and students simply find material to satisfy what they eventually realize is “what the teacher wants'”. Guys. I am so smart. I said this too. Earlier, but with “what the professor wants” cause I think about college more than high school. Sorry Zach to discount you in a way, but I don’t teach high school. Haven’t been there in a minute. But look at me go, thinking where the article is going. Lovely.
“A familiar argument in support of formulaic writing is that many struggling writers really need a simple format to follow so that they can achieve some immediate success in their academic writing. There is some merit to this argument”. I laugh every time an article is like this. “Insert idea here”… “This idea is wrong” or “This idea isn’t fully correct”. It is so funny. It is the way it is said too. Every time I see it in such a fun way. “some merit”. When you hate something but there is some truth to it, so you gotta agree.
“the same material that has bored them semester after semester and which they perceive has no relevance to their lives”. Yipes. Getting a little depressing there dang. I mean I guess doing the same formula would seem like no relevance to someone’s life, but like that is still a bit far no. Maybe I just love writing too much and can always find some joy. Every new writing prompt gives me new ideas. But yeah doing the same thing is indeed boring. Love changing things up.
“By solely using the formulaic approach to writing, the real winners will be the students who always win anyway.” Now what student is winning. What does that even mean. What kind of student “wins”? Is this like, getting a good grade? Is that a win? Is learning the idea a win? What does this mean. I never once considered myself a winning student, I never even heard of it said this way. I guess this is a better way of saying a good student, as we don’t wanna really say students are bad (even though there are some “bad” kids out there). But winning students is crazy, what is a win.
“teachers are under increasing pressure to produce students who can write
essays that pass proficiency exams and who can score sufficiently high enough on standardized tests to save schools, and entire school districts, public embarrassment and possible censure and, in some cases, to garner monetary reward.” HELLO? Public embarrasment!? What is going on. I remember my fourth grade teacher was crying over our journals and some other rando teacher had to come in and explain that our teacher can’t teach us for the rest of the day as she was so upset we ALL failed the standardized test. It was a really crazy wild day. She was one of my favorite teachers too, one that my martial arts students had like ten years later and went “Petersen! We saw your Netflix work in class today!” First of all, ain’t no way I ever did a Netflix assignment. I had a Netflix account in high school, I remember cause I watched Stranger Things and Voltron. So. I most definetly did some sort of favorite show assignment not Netflix. But, point is, that teacher loved my work so much she held on to it for like ten years. So, at some point, the work WAS good, but standardized testing is stupid. I guess it is important to know if we are in some sort of education crisis, but clearly it is dumb. Some kids just are bad test takers. Or the tests aren’t as standardized as they might think. You do good work in one way but it won’t hold up in the stupid tests if they do some other random form, which is why formula writing isn’t the best form. But standardized testing being this much pressure on students on teachers is crazy when everyone hates it and sees the harm they do. Dumb, get rid of it.
“The formulaic approach would make their writing sound mechanical and
simpleminded”. Look at that, having a voice would be important there. Having a unique style would help with not being so mechanical. Everything is connected guys.
Okay no more comments on that, I think I said all that needed to be said at the moment (this is already long and we got Cowgirl to get to).
Idk if yall saw the same ad for “How Remix Culture Informs Student Writing & Creativity” so I will show you so I don’t seem crazy and you can enjoy.
This is what I was talking about, finally, after all that yapping you find out what I was talking about. It brings me much joy. I hope the article is the same.
Here is mummy joe, what the art style remined me of. Check out mummy joe, great stuff.
ANYWAY, back to real content.
“Let’s get something out of the way: pretty much anything you or your students are making is a remix.” We are off to a great start. I agree. Even this blog is a remix. I am taking the quotes and yapping on them. I added in mummy joe. My memories. Other things I don’t know it cause it ain’t finished. I think we have done remix projects before, I know Dr. Friend and Professor Ali love them. Taking past work and reviving it. It is such a fun idea I love it. Lets get INTO IT
“Writing is also an important, accessible way that young people are remixing today: from fan fiction based on their favorite author’s worlds to retelling of a popular story from a new perspective—on a vlog, podcast, or on paper—remixing is, intentionally or not, part of the process.” I am invested. Yes. Fan fiction is so remix. It is a made world with the authors spin on it. Oh how I loved I picked this article second. Adamari you genius. I can’t think of one work that is truly orignial. We all take bits and pieces from stuff in our writing. We are social creatures after all. We “copy” what we love without realizing and put it into our work. How many times has Adamari seen/heard the rat behavior presentation. Oh I turned that thing into everything I could, to the point a friend joked I should just make a rat bible. We remix everything all the time. Yall see those Tik Toks on people having quotes from media in their daily conversations? Like trendy sayings or stuff they can’t get out of their head, they bring it up? We remixing all the time of the things we experience and love, I truly love this idea and stand by it all the way. I am unoriginal and I know it. So sad, I know. If I am not original, the Siege, who can be. But it is true. You basically all took a photo of my all time famous quote “I do whatever I want”. No clue how that will be remixed, but it will be now. The Spider-man meme from Alyssa is always in the remix somehow. We love to see it.
Not the history lesson on what a remix is. I wanna skip but I probably shouldn’t, I never know what will be my next best quote.
“In the halcyon days of social networking—the late 1990s and early 2000s—remix was something of a fringe culture: individuals with the savvy and time to utilize digital technologies could share in UseNet groups”. I am far too young bro what. What is a UseNet.
“To be clear, remixing was popular in music and film production long before the Internet, and musicians often release unofficial “mixtapes” today, even if they are never offered on physical media (let alone a cassette).” I know what a cassette tape is, okay not that young. I am cultured in that way. I also think it is funny to say that remixes happened before the internet. I just now realized with this that I listen to remixes all the time. I like mixes of songs, I think sometimes they are better than the original. Sometimes it sucks cause then I do hear the orignial but want the remixed version. I listen to a lot of girl pop remixes so if you hate the pop genre do not ask for my remixes. I actually found some nice Kpop mixes but haven’t found a decent Sabrina Carpenter mix yet. I know I know so sad. But I love her songs too much that the remix gotta be godly for me to listen to it. Otherwise I get too bothered by the slight imperfections of the random YouTuber.
Poor Adamari reading this for content and getting a random CJ yap. Anyways back to content.
Sorry back to not content. “A hip-hop mixtape often finds a rapper sharing rhymes over popular beats already on commercial airwaves.” Anxiety song, you all know that or no. That song pissed me off so much. I wanted the orignial every single time. “Somebody That I Used to Know”. Anxiety, bad remix. You disagree begone. I can’t with you. Original or nothing for this and I stand by it hardcore. I just said I usually like remixes but I take it back for that one song.
“The soul classics I grew up with, the furry-footed denizens of Middle Earth that I read about as an adolescent,” the what now. The what. What in the world begining sentence…
Another Tik Tok thing of going “we are running out of original sentences” when hearing something crazy. How did we get to Middle Earth, what just happened. Where did I get transported to. What does “furry-footed denizens” mean.
DO NOT LOOK THAT UP OMG. Do. Not. Look. That. Up. Save yourselves. Furry foot porn showed up for me. So, I am still clueless on what that sentence means but for all of us I am MOVING ON. I pray yall read this TED Talk first and got the warning to not look it up.
But also there was one photo in the mist of furry content of the Star Wars Ewoks, so. Maybe it meant that…
Anyways now that I am terrified for the rest of this article. “While one refrain of remix culture is that it is allows underdog success stories (anybody can attract an audience), large media conglomerates, from Sony to DreamWorks to Random House, are also extraordinarily savvy at remixing media”. This reminds me of that terrible Wish movie. Disney loves including their characters in other projects of theirs, like the seven dwarves being remixed into this movie.
“Remixing is a two-way street. As part of the business-as-usual approach to marketing, it can reinforce traditional, problematic portrayals of women, people of color, and LGBTQI individuals.” Oh, are we about to lock in? Randomly getting into deep lore.
“Remix can turn troubling messages to offer analysis and reinterpretation. It can also involve primary sources that may be offensive and triggering for some audiences—a fraught process in terms of the images, sounds, language, and ideas conveyed.” Not exactly the deep dive I thought we were going to get. But yes, remixes can help turn terrible messages around. It might make things easier to digest or help people analyze harmful content. But it can sometimes be harmful for minorities. I know when a Batman story has a character that has a history of being white be a different race, the internet throws a fit. However, soooo many comic book people are white. Remixing the story is helpful in getting more representation, but also puts visbility spotlight on minories and then the news can get flooded with hate on the characters being remixed.
“Looking at the Tumblr community’s remixes of Hermione from the “Harry Potter” series as a black character (long before a black actress was cast in the forthcoming Harry Potter and the Cursed Child) illustrates how individuals are allowed to see themselves in remixes.” oooh not the Harry Potter. Now, see, I did just say how remixing can be helpful, but I forgot to mention we do need to be careful when remixing. For example, if we want to add more diverse characters to a white cast, maybe consider making the main character switch things up. Far too many times the female in the group also becomes the person of color, and the white male stays that. A bit of a problem. If too many side characters get swapped, then we get the story changing in some interesting ways. Like making Snape from Harry Potter become a person of color changes how we see his childhood bullying. Instead of it just being he was an awkward kid, now it can be seen as racism, which adds a different layer to the story, as it might add the idea that Harry’s dad was a racist. (This is all stuff I have seen people saying online by the way, feel free to disagree or say I am crazy for saying these things, I didn’t come up with this Snape being a person of color is a bad idea. People pointed out how things changes the story a bit and I am just pointing out how things could get complicated the more you switch stuff up). Gotta be careful with the remixing as it changes the story in interesting ways.
“Likewise, online fan fiction and video remixes of Star Wars: The Force Awakens casting rebel pilot Poe and reformed storm trooper Finn in a romantic relationship offer a counter-narrative to the heteronormative assumptions most viewers make of the film. Remixing can be a liberatory act.” Oh how I love remixing things to be queer. One of my favorite things, queer ships that totally should exist but don’t. I got a whole list but not now. Yap for another time.
“Written by Lin-Manuel Miranda, Hamilton and its nearly all-black and Latino cast illustrates contemporary messages that ours is a nation built by (and for) immigrants. Meanwhile, the music makes numerous nods to hip-hop history and its own founding fathers.” For this I would say it is still very important to teach how history was, as I saw some people on social media forgetting/finding out the founding fathers were white. Lets not forget how racist history was now guys. Lock in.
Anyway, yippe yay you reached the end of my yap! Hope you didn’t accidentally traumatize yourself during the second article like I did! My search history is messed up now. But yay so excited to talk about these ideas in class!!
